The following is a guest post by Sebastian Brown. If you would like to guest post for this blog, please visit the Write For Us page to view the guidelines.

With unemployment rates reaching an all time high and many workers finding their old jobs obsolete, the need for a position in a recession proof industry is critical. When the economy is bad, even jobs that were lucrative at one point can become negatively impacted when consumers spend less money. However, there are several industries which are not effected by a downturn in the economy because the services that they provide are always needed.

Even in a bad economy, people will still become sick or injured and require care, which makes the medical industry virtually unaffected by a recession. While it is common knowledge that doctors and nurses make a steady income, many fail to realize there are many other positions available within the medical community that don’t require years of schooling. Obtaining a position as a medical billing specialist is one easy way to make good money in a bad economy as there is a high demand for these types of jobs.

Why Medical Billing is a Good Job for a Bad Economy

There are several good reasons to get into the medical billing field when the economy is bad. For one, it is an easy way to work in the medical field without having to go to medical school to become a doctor or nurse. While a career in medicine can be lucrative, it will take years of study and thousands of dollars in tuition. Instead, working in medical billing will require only an MBA, which is easy and affordable to obtain. You can sign up for distance learning programs and obtain your MBA online in the comfort of your own home.

Obtaining a Certificate of Completion in Medical Billing and Coding will help you to better comprehend the medical terms that doctors and nurses use so that you can relay this information to patients in a way that is easy to understand. In addition, you will learn valuable computer skills as understanding the latest billing technology is crucial to keeping up with an ever-changing work environment.

Working for Yourself

Medical billing experts can also forgo working in an office altogether and can choose to perform freelance services for a variety of clients. This makes it an ideal career choice for stay at home parents or individuals who prefer to be their own boss. As a freelance medical billing expert, you are the owner of your own small business, which can give you a new-found sense of independence. You get to set your own schedule and pick which clients you wish to work with. Freelance services can also be performed as a side job to supplement your existing income which is always helpful in a bad economy.

However, if you’d rather work in an office, medical billing is a flexible career path which gives you several options. You can work at a private practice or a hospital if you prefer to work in a smaller office that is closer to the medical field. Insurance companies also hire medical billing experts and are a good choice for people who prefer a larger office setting. You can expect to work either part-time or full-time in these types of office settings, with the opportunity for overtime by working nights and weekends.

As the medical industry continues to grow and reach new innovations, the demand for medical billing specialists will continue to rise, making it a good job choice for a bad economy. There is an unlimited amount of opportunity in medical billing with a variety of jobs to suit your economic needs and your personal working habits. Best of all, the career path is easy to get started with, and obtaining your certification will take a short time. Until doctors find a way to make it so patients no longer become sick or injured, there will always be a surplus of medical billing positions available.

About the Author: Sebastian Brown helps run and maintain Medicalbillingandcoding.org. Medical Billing is a quickly growing home-based career that offers stability and a lucrative income.

I’m a HUGE fan of Facebook. Okay, perhaps I’m a bit too addicted to Facebook, but regardless, there is huge potential for bloggers to make a name for themselves with this social media giant.

With 50 million members and growing, users spend more time on Facebook than any other website, including Google! That is just crazy when you think about it. Google may still be the number one site when it comes to traffic, but Facebook definitely has the search engine giant beat when it comes to the amount of time people spend on the site.

As important Google is when it comes to driving natural, laser-targeted traffic to your site, Facebook certainly can’t be ignored either.

Are You on Facebook?

How many of you have a personal account on Facebook? Chances are most of you do; whether you’re keeping in touch with old friends, new friends, relatives or business associates.

I use Facebook for all of those reasons. As I admitted earlier, I’m quite addicted to it, and I imagine many of you are as well. This would explain why people spend more time on Facebook than Google. I don’t think Google quite has an addiction appeal… agreed? I mean, other than searching for stuff, what else is there to do on Google? I think I made my point.

However, when it comes to Facebook, there is so much more you can do on it. Aside from posting on your friends’ Walls, commenting on posts, pictures, videos and comments made by others, playing various games and such (something I never got into), this includes promoting your blog and bringing in new readers.

How Can You Market Your Blog on Facebook?

There are three ways that you can market your blog, website, business, service, and pretty much anything you want to on Facebook. However, I’m going to cover two methods that are completely free and don’t take much time at all to setup.

NetworkedBlogs

NetworkedBlogs is just what the name implies. It’s basically a network of blogs that people can follow directly on Facebook thanks to their fancy App. As a blog owner, you can submit your blog for inclusion in the network. What this does is allow other people to follow your blog; they can Vote, “Like” and comment on your posts, rate your blog, etc.

Another nifty feature is the Auto-publishing setting. Whenever you publish a new post on your blog, you can have NetworkedBlogs automatically post an excerpt of that post to your personal Facebook profile or even to your Facebook Page, or both.

I’m sure you’ve noticed a neat little widget on the sidebar of this blog, as shown in the picture. This makes it easy for your readers to follow your blog while they’re already on it, as long as they’re signed in to Facebook. This is cool because now whenever your readers are on Facebook and you publish a new post, the post will show up on their News Feed, which they can click on it from there, rather than having to click over to your blog. It saves them time and is more convenient.

Facebook Pages

Pages (previously known as Fan Pages) can be used to promote virtually anything; yourself, your site/blog, an organization, cause, service, product, etc. They are a great way to build your brand and get exposure for whatever it is you’re promoting.

As you may notice, I’m promoting my home page, which is not my blog. I do this for branding purposes, but if your blog IS your home page then this will work just as well to help you brand your blog.

One thing I do is make use of the Static FBML App that creates a tab that you can direct first-time visitors to. What really sets this App apart is that you can insert your own HTML, which will then convert that into an actual page on your Page. It also creates a new tab which you can give whatever title you want. I chose to title it “Welcome!” As you can see in the screenshot below, I have a link to the home page of my site as well as a link to my blog on the Welcome! tab. This is what people will see when they first come to my Page.

Final Thoughts

Before I go, I want to leave you with a few additional tips to make both of these strategies more effective. When viewing your NetworkedBlogs profile or your Facebook Page, you have the opportunity to invite your friends to follow your blog or “Like” your Page. I strongly suggest using this feature!

Now, I know this can be seen as spam to some people, so I also suggest adding a personal note in your invite to make it more personal.

One final tip…

Make use of the RSS settings Facebook provides to import Twitter and other RSS feeds you may have to promote your blog, business and whatever else you want to share with your friends.

If you’re not yet using NetworkedBlogs or have a Facebook Page setup, you’re missing out on potential traffic, readers, and sales. Both are free and don’t take a whole lot of time to setup.

Remember to add people that you think would be interested in reading your blog, and then invite them to follow your blog and “Like” your Page.

And on that note, I invite you to follow me on Facebook as well if you’re not yet doing so:

• My Personal Profile Page
• Work From Home Resources on NetworkedBlogs
• ReplaceYourSalary.com on Facebook

Thanks for all your support, and I hope you’ll put these Facebook marketing tips to good use for your blog and business.

The following is a guest post by Art Decker. If you would like to guest post for this blog, please visit the Write For Us page to view the guidelines.

Depressed about how the recession is affecting the U.S.? Think the situation is hopeless? I confess that I have days that I do as well; however, I also think taking a step back and looking at other economies and their response might benefit us all. Consider Mexico for a moment. Have you ever crossed the southern border of the United States, even for the day? As soon as you cross, street vendors come up to you asking if you want to buy something. The vendors are frequently children with gum to sell – others who you may encounter on the road want to wash your windshield.

With the most minimal amount of cash, these young entrepreneurs purchase what they can afford – gum, a squeegee brush and bucket – and turn it into a business! More than 40 percent of those children don’t go to school. Yet, these young street vendors show an innate entrepreneurial drive that we can all learn something from – even those of us who consider ourselves older and wiser. Regardless of your start-up capital – which these tenacious children have shown is fairly irrelevant – anyone can, with creativity and determination, start a business from scratch and be in control of their own success.

Even in these times, I see examples right here in our country – people who ignore the negative outlooks realizing that true change is an individual decision. In fact, I am continually amazed at some of the unique low-cost business ventures that I have come across as part of my daily work. Rather than letting lack of a store front or office location be an obstacle, these guys have found creative ways to to solve their problems.

Here are some examples…

The Neighborhood Store

As grocery stores in inner cities go out of business, some neighborhoods have become what sociologists call “food deserts” — places where the only grocery store for miles around is the convenience store in the local gas station, where fresh or even canned or frozen fruit and vegetables are not to be found. I know Americans like fast food, but there is still a demand, however minimal, for more nutritious fare. I have found that some enterprising chefs are driving to discount stores to buy food in bulk. Then, they rent some climate-controlled self storage units, from which they sell canned vegetables and frozen foods. Some of these enterprising businesspeople even cook, freeze, and sell meals they make themselves. One even specializes in gourmet jams made from fruit she grows in her own garden.

Becoming the neighborhood retail store: A variation on the “food desert” theme is the “retail desert.” In areas where few people can afford to buy expensive, fashionable clothing, a few seamstresses and tailors are making a living by buying discount clothing in bulk, and then customizing it to make it look more unique. Like their “food desert” counterparts, many of these individuals often take advantage of self-storage units as a convenient and relatively low-cost way to store their items.

Tutoring

Some communities have wonderful public school systems — and other communities don’t. But, children all over need an education. Some tutors have taken to renting a quiet space in which to study and teach during the school year. It pulls children away from the lure of the television and helps them to see the value of concentrating on their homework in a quiet location.

Renting Strollers and Bicycles

I was amazed by the creativity shown by Fred (one of my tenants). Fred didn’t have a lot of money. But, he had been going to garage sales and buying strollers, bicycles, and even small foldable grocery carts when he found them in good condition. Sometimes he found strollers or bikes that simply needed a minor repair, and he fixed them. Fred shrewdly rented a ground-floor storage space downtown in Chicago’s Loop, where parking fees are astronomical. Banking on the idea that tourists would want to take the “L” downtown to see museums, rather than deal with the Loop’s traffic and parking nightmare, Fred converted his self-storage unit into a stroller, bicycle, and small cart rental outlet. He took out small free classified ads on websites such as Craigslist and has since become the Loop’s best-kept secret! I even noticed that he has some of those folding chairs that can be used as walking sticks or canes when one is not sitting on them.

Artisans and Craftspeople

In every part of the country, the culture is a little different, and the biggest difference I see is between the city and rural areas. In both venues, I have seen artisans and craftsmen pursuing their trades from low-cost storage facilities (usually rented). In the country, I’ve seen leather workers repairing halters and bridles and braiding nose bands by hand for polo ponies. In the cities, I have seen craftsmen restoring antique furniture — or in some cases, building new furniture. I have even seen artists making mosaic tiles that can be used to decorate upscale kitchens and bathrooms.

For every person and every neighborhood, there seems to be a unique business idea waiting for the entrepreneur with the right combination of skills, business sense, and creativity. If I had a dime for every one of them, I wouldn’t be worrying about this recession — I’d be a wealthy man.

About the Author: Art Decker is a division manager with Self Storage Company, which operates a group of websites, including a Texas self-storage locator. Art leads a busy life, but enjoys meeting new people and interacting with customers when traveling between sites, like from Austin to the Fort Worth self-storage center.

Fall is officially here in Central PA. I like this time of year as the leaves change and temperatures drop to a comfortable level during the day. As I write this I have exactly two days before my planned trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. If all goes well I will be down there from Wednesday to Sunday. I will be taking my laptop and hopefully getting a post or two published here as well as responding to all important emails.

I’ll also be posting pictures from the trip to Facebook, so all the more reason to add me as a friend and network with me on there. And just a note… if you do read this and decide to add me, please leave a personal note when doing so that I know you came from my blog and want to be friends.

I guess that’s all for now as far as updates, so let’s take a look at how September’s earnings turned out…

Income from ReplaceYourSalary.com

• ClickBank: $63.49
• PayDotCom – $28.17
• Angela’s Backlinks: $26.25
• Paul’s Backlinks: $12
• Yarie: $45.03
• Google Adsense: $29.14
• SFI: $17.27
• Project Payday: $6 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• AdFish – $21
• ResponsiveData – $15
• Ads – $80
• AshMax – $23 (Total monthly commissions from GDI and FTS)
• HostGator – $50

Total = $416.35

Income from Proofreading/Re-writing/Editing Services

It’s an honor for me to be able to provide a high quality and much needed service, and it’s been an honor serving my clients. You can learn more by visiting the link below.

• Professional Proofreading Services

Total = $48

Total online income from all sources…

$464.35

Micro Niche Adsense Earnings

My micro niche site keeps improving each month. Google Adsense earnings for this month from the site totaled $7.79 of the total monthly amount. I’m rather pleased by this even though it’s nothing to shout about. It obviously is a profitable niche, and with some more content and promotion, I have no doubt I can increase it’s monthly revenue.

That’s all for now. As always, feel free to leave your comments below…

If I had read a review of Site Build It (SBI) 5 years ago back in 2005 before I started ReplaceYourSalary.com with my goal of making money online with affiliate marketing, and had I built my website using SBI, I wonder how differently things might have turned out. Not that I’m doing terrible now or anything, but who knows if my Internet Marketing journey could have been much smoother, faster or become more profitable faster?

This review is written not just to uncover some of the “what ifs” I could have missed over the years but more so to present aspiring online marketers and small business owners with what some people say is a revolutionary way of making money online.

What exactly is Site Build It (SBI)?

What Members Can Do and Expect from SBI After Joining

1. Site Build It (SBI) was created and founded by Dr. Ken Envoy from Canada in 1997 and has helped hundreds of thousands of ordinary people build an online business that outperform many other more established competitors.
2. It’s a comprehensive system that provides you a step-by-step solution using very powerful tools and marketing resources not just to build a website but to build a web business. Think of it as a mentor holding your hand in this site building program that covers the process, guidance and software to help you build a profitable Internet Marketing business.
3. There are many tools that are available for members, some of which are ‘Preparation tools,’ ‘Building and Hosting tools,’ ‘Traffic Building tools’ and ‘Other tools.’
4. There is a lot of behind-the-scene work that is done for your website including RSS and site submission to the major search engines, pinging and automatic Sitemap generation.
5. Access to a private forum and 24 Hour SiteSell Support.
6. Free domain name for each subscription (worth $10 per year).
7. Free unlimited autoresponder (worth roughly $170 per year).
8. SBI builds a static website, but they have a tool that lets you create a blog automatically, so every time you build a web page, just activating “Blog It” will create a blog post behind the scenes for you.
9. SBI uses a proprietary Keyword Research Tool called ‘Brainstorm It’ – this is very similar to the popular and expensive keyword tool Keyword Elite created by Brad Callen.
10. Free upgrade to “Content 2.0” which embraces the powerful web 2.0 to enhance visitors’ participation and contribution on your website which results in more traffic and better search engine ranking. Think of C2.0 as yielding the same power of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter – only on a smaller scale. Content 2.0 also focuses a lot more on the monetization aspect of your website to make it even more profitable.
11. SBI uses video tutorials in the step-by-step instructions so that listening and viewing them make it very easy to follow in a 10-day process of building your website.
12. SBI displays your site ranking with the major search engines like Google and shows the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) of all relevant keywords belonging to your niche that you are ranking for.

Video Tour of SBI!

A video is worth a million words, so I wanted to just stop right here and share a video with you that will take you through a quick tour of Site Build It that may explain things a little better than what I can here.

And… before you continue reading, and if you have time, you may be interested in taking the complete SBI Video Tour, which I would recommend doing. Simply click here to take the tour now. The link will open in a new window so you can come back here after you’re done viewing.

Site Built It – Is it for You?

1. SBI is not for you if you are looking for a get rich quick scheme.  SBI isn’t a springboard that helps you land on a pot of gold and your business runs on auto-pilot. There is still a lot of work that you must do to be successful in your web business including building quality content for your website to bring in the targeted traffic needed to generate sales. It does however help you accelerate your content-building to hundreds or thousands of pages to grow your website and make it a profitable business.
2. After taking a close look at Site Build It, it does appear that this comprehensive all-in-one website builder is much favored by the complete Internet Marketing newbie. It’s perfect for those who have little computer knowledge, are less technical savvy and probably don’t know much about SEO or marketing in general. Everything is well laid out and structured, so there is very little room for mistakes if you follow the instructions carefully.
3. I know some of you are thinking right now that you can easily build a website using WordPress, which is free. That’s true, and I thought the exact same thing. But, I then read why it’s better to use SBI vs. WordPress especially if you plan on making money from your blog. It’s an interesting read and certainly worth checking out. Sure makes me think a little about my future websites that I’ve been planning.
4. The format of the step-by-step guide may be ideal for most new online marketers who aren’t familiar with the technical aspect of site building and layout, but these instructions can get a little overwhelming after a while for some. If this happens, the video tutorials ought to make things much clearer.
5. SBI is great if you want to get started with affiliate marketing. As you know if you follow my blog, my business revolves around affiliate marketing to make the majority of my online income. I absolutely love it! Well, if you’re at all curious about becoming an affiliate, check out what Site Build It can do for you with its affiliate marketing business model.
6. You may still not be sure if SBI will help you in your online business, so the 30-day money back guarantee lets you try out some of these tools and determine for yourself if it’s right for you.

How Much Does SBI Cost?

There are two payment options available: monthly and yearly.

You can pay $299 yearly OR $29.99 monthly with an option to switch to an annual payment so as to save $60 a year. Yearly seems to be the better option here. But, the monthly payment option is new and possibly could appeal to those who like what they see in SBI and want to treat this monthly payment as a cost of doing business, much like maintaining a web hosting account, which is what I do.

Is Site Build It Worth the Investment?

I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I had known about SBI when I started my online business. Looking back, I think $299 for a year is worth the investment as I know I’ve spent much more than that each year I’ve been “in business.”

It really is a small price to pay when you think about all the training, guidance, resources and tools that are available to you. That $299 can easily be earned back within your first year if you put in the hard work necessary to succeed with your online business.

I would recommend anyone looking to start a successful internet business take a close look at Site Build It and everything they have to offer. Afterall, you have a full 30 days to try it out and see if it’s for you or not. If not, no biggie, you haven’t lost anything except a month’s worth of time.

Test drive Site Build It (SBI) today and build a real internet business.

The following is a guest post by Diana Perkins. If you would like to guest post on this blog, please visit the write for us page.

Senior citizens play an integral part of the world we live in. It’s not just the younger generation that shows an entrepreneurial spirit. In fact, if it wasn’t for the older generation of today, we very well may not have many of the opportunities that we take for granted. At an older and wiser age, there is so much that senior citizens can offer us in the form of a home based business.

The senior citizens of today represent potential entrepreneurs in the immediate future who can serve us with the right services and products. Current statistics show that 70 % of the people in the U.S. are turning 50 at a rapid rate of 3-4 million a year. As these people are aging at a rapid rate, there is a lot of potential for them to contribute to the economy by setting up small businesses of their own.

Those that are setting up their own home based business are opting for insurance needed for business so that they are starting their business in a financially secured way. If you’re a senior who is looking for some business ideas to boost your income, here are three ideas to consider.

Medical Claims Aid

Most seniors often overpay for their medical costs as they don’t really understand the facts about insurance and what it takes to file a claim that is accompanying accidents and illnesses. If you start a business as a medical claims assistant, you will need to deal with medical claims and compare the medical records of the client with the medical bills. You would also perform the task of ensuring that your clients are charged accurately according to their medical conditions. You’re required to have enough medical knowledge to carry on this business successfully. Don’t forget to get the insurance needed for business so that you can get back your money in the event of any unfortunate incident. Better to be safe than sorry.

Nutrition Consultant

With age, most seniors develop some poor health conditions like diabetes, heart disease and other health problems. If you start a business as a nutrition consultant, you can educate your clients on the food habits and meal planning that will help them get rid of and help prevent diseases. In order to start this kind of home business, you need to take a certificate course because most states require that you have a certificate and license.

Senior Care Consultant

Senior care consultant is usually the professional name given to nurses, gerontologists and other professionals who have experience in aging matters and taking care of the elderly. If you become a senior care consultant, you will have to provide advice and information to adults, seniors or caregivers. You may also have to provide them with information on long-term health care techniques.

In Conclusion

If you’re getting close to retirement age, or perhaps you’re still considered young but are looking for a job that you do at home, consider these three viable home based business options. Just make sure that if you do start your own business that you get the proper insurance needed for business so that you safeguard your investment from suffering any kind of loss in any unforeseen circumstances.

As a continuation of my Building Links to Your Website post, I want to do the same thing with the subject of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A lot of people are confused about SEO, PageRank, search engine rankings, etc., especially if they’re just starting out.

I’ve been asked a number of questions recently via email and Facebook regarding this subject, so I wanted to share them with you all so that if you have the same or similar questions, you can get them answered here.

I’ll quote the questions and answers, and if I have anything to add, I’ll post it below that to keep Q&A’s separate from my afterthoughts.  Confused? You’ll see what I mean.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Q&A’s

Questions: May I ask you one question about SEO? What do you think about PR calculating? Is it really possible to achieve a PR 6 with 19 backlinks from a website that also has a PR 6? I mean, if I write 19 articles for EzineArticles.com, will my new website also achieve a PR 6?

Reference: http://www.fuzzone.com/blog/346/search-marketing/how-to-calculate-your-pagerank/

Is it a good idea to make backlinks from one site with a high PR, (for example, write articles to ezinearticles.com), or is it better to get backlinks from different sites? For example, EzineArticles, forum signatures, bookmarking, comments on blogs, etc.?

Answers: There are many variables to how PR is calculated. Simply getting a few backlinks from a PR 6 site like EZA will not make your site a PR 6.

I recommend getting backlinks many different ways; through articles, forum postings, blog commenting, social bookmarking, etc.

Afterthought: For more competitive niches, you definitely want to vary your link building strategy. However, if you’re building a micro niche site in which you only need a few good backlinks, then submitting a few articles to EZA would do the trick in most cases.

Question: What is your opinion about article marketing? Is it possible to achieve Google’s first positions ONLY by writing articles to ezinearticles.com (The niches would be with low competition)?

Answer: I highly recommend article marketing. As long as your competition is low, it is possible to get to the first position of Google by submitting to EZA alone. However, keep in mind your anchor text would need to be the same keyword phrase for every article you submit, and getting to the first position will take time.

Afterthought: The less the competition, the easier and quicker it will be to rank at the top of Google. If you’ve been following along with me for a while now, you’ll remember it took me all but a week to get my micro niche site to the first position in Google for my main keyword phrase.

Questions: I submit my articles to additional directories but they’re rewrited by software, so all articles are different from 30% to 50%. So, all is well there, but a lot of them are NO FOLLOW backlinks, so about 30% of my backlinks will be not counted, and they will not affect my sites in any way?

I have seen that search engine rankings are more important than PR, because many times I have seen that on the 1st place is a website with 2 PR and some count of backlinks, and on 2nd place is a website well known with 6 PR and much more backlinks, and I have always wondered why? Looks like that second site should be on the first place with the same keyword?

About bookmarking, I have a question. Must I bookmark only my site’s first page? I want to get good rankings for my home page, and all my backlinks are directed to the home page, so I must keep doing the same? Or, could I redirect backlinks to other pages on my site? One more thing, what if I bookmark some of my ezine articles? I heard that is good for PR and search engine ranks because the links will make the link between my site, ezine and bookmarking? Is it worth doing that if those bookmarking sites are nofollow?

Answers: As long as the article is at least 30% different, then they should be fine. In most cases those backlinks from those articles would count, and as long as the links are DO FOLLOW then PR will get passed through to your site. No Follow links are still beneficial for rankings, though.

Yeah, more baclinks doesn’t mean higher rankings… all the time. Each baclink is weighted on varying factors; factors that include the site’s PR, relevance, type of backlink, etc.

One social bookmarking site I use (http://www.mmosocialnetwork.com) does give you a DO FOLLOW backlink. May want to check that one out. I’m sure there are others as well. Perhaps a quick Google search will present a few.

When bookmarking, it’s important to bookmark individual blog posts and not the home page. When building backlinks in general, you do want to build backlinks to your home page, but at the same time you want to build links to your internal pages as well.

Bookmarking to NO FOLLOW sites won’t help with PR but will help for rankings.

Afterthought: Just remember when bookmarking you also want to bookmark other people’s stuff… it’s best to keep a good mix rather than bookmarking only your pages. You’ll be seen as a spammer and could have your accounts deleted.

That concludes the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Q&A.

Note: I don’t proclaim to be an expert in any field, especially anything related to SEO. I only speak from personal experience and what I’ve done and am doing to increase my search engine rankings for the sites I have, including this one.

If you seek professional advice or the wisdom of a “guru”, you won’t find it here. Search Google.

Final Thoughts

I want to thank you for sticking with me through this lengthy post. I hope you got value from these questions and answers and can apply them to your own SEO efforts.

Ask Your Question!

Do you have a question that wasn’t covered here? What specific SEO question do you have and would like answered? Let me know in the comments below.

I look forward to answering your questions!

The following is a guest post by Jonathan Scott. If you like to write for this blog, please contact me.

No matter what you’re trying to sell on the internet, you need traffic. If you want to make money, you need to get it in front of people. The internet is the best solution when it comes to selling stuff  because you can sell to the entire world. But, you need traffic, otherwise you’re not going to sell anything.

I am going to give you some tips on how to generate more traffic fast while helping your search engine rankings at the same time. Everything I’m about to show you is completely free and works very well.

When getting traffic to your website, you want traffic quickly but you also want to be around for the long haul, right? Here are some strategies that will allow you to do both.

Press Release Marketing

A lot of people don’t think their website or what they are offering is worthy enough to do a press release. If you think that, let me tell you that you are wrong. You have just as much to offer as a Fortune 500 Company. Press releases offer you the opportunity to get A LOT of traffic and backlinks fast.

You get this traffic because the press release directories you submit to syndicate your press release to other websites automatically. If you do a search for just about anything these days, you will notice a news section within the search results. With the right keywords, your press release could be sitting nicely on the first page of Google, Yahoo, or Bing in as little as 24 hours.

Here are some press release sites to submit to: PRWeb (Paid, but the BEST), PRLog.org, Free-Press-Releases, I-Newswire, and 1-888-press-release.

Social Bookmarking

This is a great strategy for both traffic and backlinks. A Good amount of people search these sites looking for information, tips, and advice that they may not find via the search engines. Take DIGG for instance. This site gets massive amounts of traffic. The key to sites like DIGG is submitting content that will get promoted and moved up to the homepage.

To do that you want to submit content that has a really good chance of getting to the home page. Submitting your own website will not make this happen. People on these sites like entertaining, controversial or newsworthy topics that they can actually comment on. Submit things like your press release, videos, or a guest blog post you did. Some other big players in social bookmarking include Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us, and Reddit.

Video Marketing

This is huge! I put this third because it takes a little longer to put a video together if you have never done this. You DON’T even need expensive software to do this. Are you on a PC? Use Windows Movie Maker (it comes free on every PC). Are you on a mac? Use iMovie. Free tools are great. Use them!

Video Marketing is huge because we now live in a video society. From YouTube to HULU to NetFlix online movie streaming. It’s no longer foreign to go online to watch a video, movie or TV show. As the world uses the internet more and more to watch videos, this gives you an opportunity to show them what you have to offer. And, it’s all Free. If you’re not sure how to create a simple video, get this Traffic Training Course that walks you through the whole process.

Some great video sites to submit to are: YouTube, Vimeo, Revver, and 5min.

Article Marketing

Article marketing will never be dead. I don’t know about you, but I still see Ezine Articles in the top 5 of some search results. Other article directories have the power to get ranked highly as well. Submitting your article to the top article directories gives you great high authority backlinks, and you get traffic from these sites as well.

Here are some top article directories to submit to: Ezine Articles, Go Articles, Articlesbase, Article Dashboard, and ISnare.

Forum Marketing

Forum marketing is great when it comes to backlinks and improving your search engine rankings. Of course you want to participate in your niche forums. Participating in your niche forums is a great way to find new customers, and you also learn what is needed in that industry. That gives you an opportunity to fill a void and quickly become an expert in the niche.

But, I use forums for backlinks. Just make sure you use your forum signature correctly to get the backlinks.

These are a just a few great ways to generate targeted traffic to your website and increase your search engine rankings at the same time. I have more secrets to show you in my new Step by Step Traffic Training Course. You get 12 hours of video showing you exactly how to generate traffic fast and increase your search engine rankings. I haven’t even talked about software marketing, pad marketing, classified ads, RSS Feeds, or Web 2.0 websites.

If you’re like me, seeing is believing and I learn better by seeing and then doing. Take advantage of this amazing video training. Watch over the shoulder of an SEO Professional as you are shown step by step how to properly do the things I just talked about and more. What’s great about video is you can watch it over and over again until it sinks in. Go check out this awesome Traffic Training Course and learn how to get targeted traffic in as little as 24 hours. Go there now.

About the author: Jonathan Scott is an SEO professional who has been helping small businesses and individuals generate more quality traffic and get high search engine rankings since 2006. He has a new step by step traffic training video series showing you how to get traffic fast and increase your search engine rankings at the same time. Check out his traffic training course.

That’s right, folks, it’s time for yet another blog post roundup. My oh my does time fly, and I hope you’re enjoying every minute of it. Speaking of, I got to enjoy last weekend in Virginia for my cousin’s wedding (picture of my cousin and I). It was a great time of visiting and spending time with family and also meeting new people.

Did you do anything exciting last weekend? What about this weekend?

Let’s get to last month’s blog posts that you may have missed:

Q&A: Getting Traffic to Your Website

10 Freelance Jobs You Can Start Today

How to Create a Killer Affiliate Marketing Squeeze Page

August 2010 Income Report and Micro Niche Site Update

How To Find a Niche Market and Make Money Online

Q&A: Building Links to Your Website

Now, I have some exciting news. Well… exciting to me at least, but I hope you’ll find it exciting as well.

Starting next month and every month after, not only will you find my last month’s blog posts in each roundup edition, but I’m also going to start including other blogger’s posts that I find interesting and helpful from around the web.

Exciting, right? This will give you an idea of what kind of blogs I follow and enjoy reading, which is healthy as a blogger because you should always be reading and learning. Plus, it helps to build community and allows me to network with other bloggers and bring in new readers.

That’s a big hint, BTW!

So, I hope you’re looking forward to that as I know I am.

P.S. If you want to see more pictures from the wedding last weekend, just add me on Facebook.