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Article Marketing Archives

I took the weekend off (3 day weekend) to celebrate Independence Day and enjoy being with family and friends. It was great to just put business aside and relax and enjoy myself. The fireworks show in State College at Beaver Stadium was amazing; one of the top ranked shows in the nation. It was a blast… no pun intended.

I took pictures throughout the show along with a 40 second video of the finale. If you would like to check them out, just add me as a friend on Facebook. Otherwise, one of the pictures I took is to the right.

As much fun as I had, it’s time to get back into the swing of things. June was a rather busy month, and I’m excited to see just how many posts I had last month. If you happened to miss any of them, you can find them below…

June Comment Contest – Win Cash and Prizes!

An Unforeseen “Benefit” of 3-Way Link Exchanges

It’s Official – Alan Mater is an EzineArticles.com Expert Author

How Blogging About Internet Marketing Can Make You Money Online

New Blog Theme – I’m Using the FlexSqueeze Wordpress Theme

Why You Should Incorporate Exercise Into Your Work From Home Routine

May 2010 Income Report

Why Good Keyword Selection is Essential for Home-Based Business Success

What a Man, a Dog and a Leash Have to do with Internet Marketing

Transcription Crash Course Review – Become a Home Transcriptionist Today

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The following is a guest post by Sam Bakker…

I recall when I first started trying to use blogging to make money online. I had arrived at the entrance of a cyber metropolis armed with an idea and a daft look on my face. It was a multifaceted space teeming with online users, all I had to do was establish myself and I’d be crowded with customers in no time. I had bought a product that would teach me how to build a home-based business. It told me I should start a blog and begin sharing with the rest of the internet world how to be successful making money through a home-based business.

I opened an account with Blogger.com and put my hands to the keyboard. For two months I typed away, completing a design and posting content up on a daily basis. For all this effort, I had one member and no sign of traffic. My blog was floating around in an alleyway when I wanted it to be across the street from Facebook. I wasn’t making money and my website wasn’t going anywhere.

It wasn’t until a year later that I found out (and corrected) what I had done wrong. In this article today, I am going to discuss what mistakes I made in my first attempt to make money blogging online and how you can avoid them. By dodging these classic mistakes, your journey to success will help you obtain an internet marketing lifestyle that is greatly to your advantage.

Firstly, it must be said that before anything else, you must plan out what your blog’s central focus will be. As is the general nature of entrepreneurs, we get an idea and jump in head-first without planting a base for ourselves. Planning is essential especially when it comes to blogging; you not only need to identify your audience and the value you can offer them, but you also need to find effective keywords.

Keywords are the driving force behind a blog’s organic search engine traffic. You need to find the most effective ones using a tool such as “Google Adwords Keywords” to research. This will show you where you can get your search engine traffic from and what terms will be most profitable when it comes to making money. If you launch your blog without keywords in mind, often Google will struggle to place you in the index. Much of the time this means that your blog’s potential is capped very early on and your chance of getting decent traffic flow from Google is reduced. Be sure that you conduct the appropriate keyword research for your website before buying your domain name.

When you first launch your blog online, it feels great. However, now the challenge is in getting it seen. In order for search engines to rank your website based on targeted key terms, you will need to generate some external links back to your website. Use websites such as Ezine Articles, Squidoo and write for other websites in your niche to get your blog rising in the search engines and producing traffic.

Use these tips to ensure that your blog doesn’t end up like my first one, gathering dust along some forgotten nook in cyberspace. Instead, implement the techniques I have discussed with you here to get your blog off to an excellent start.

Sam Bakker has been making money online for the past 7 years. If you would like to find out more about Sam Bakker or internet marketing you can view Sam’s website at SamBakker.com

Aside from the usual perks you receive when you become an Ezine Articles Expert Author, I wasn’t aware that they actually mail you some goodies as well. Pretty nice of them actually. You can see the cool coaster on the left, and I’ll post pictures of the mug below.

Inside the mug was a packet of gourmet coffee, which I’ll never use. If you want it, leave a comment or email me with your address and I’ll ship it to you free of charge. I only have one, though, so be quick about it.

It’s nice to get perks like this, and I’m sure all the other Expert Authors feel the same way. It helps to encourage authors to continue sending their articles and makes them feel appreciated.

Becoming an Expert Author really isn’t that difficult, and if you’re serious about making a name for yourself and your work from home business, then cranking out, say 60 articles, shouldn’t be all that difficult. If you can’t or don’t like to write, just outsource the work for a small fee.

No matter what you do, incorporate article marketing into your daily, or weekly, marketing habits. You’ll establish yourself as an “Expert” and build targeted traffic to your site. And, you’ll build quality backlinks to your site which will increase its ranking in Google.

Okay… here’s the cool mug.

I know you’re all jealous… ;)

April turned out to be a pretty good month. I received an increase in proofreading and re-writing work, which I was very happy about. Those are two things I thoroughly enjoy doing, apart from running this website and earning passive income from multiple sources.

Let’s get right into it…

Income from ReplaceYourSalary.com

Total = $301.29

Income from Internet Marketing Services

It’s been a pleasure to be able to work for a highly successful internet marketer. I’m able to learn from and apply the same strategies to my online business, all of which I’ve blogged about here at one time or another.

Total = $160

Income from Proofreading/Re-writing/Editing Services

As I said previously, I’ve gotten a decent amount of freelancing work last month. It’s great 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.

Total = $96

Income from Re-writing Service via David Hurley’s PLR Article Service Membership

It has been an honor to be able to partner with David, a good online friend of mine, and provide the re-writing portion of his article membership. To learn more about his PLR article service, visit the link above.

Total = $57.50

Total online income from all sources…

$614.79

April turned out to be my best month yet since I began my online business venture.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to never give up. Giving up is very easy to do, but sticking with it when things seem impossible is where the real character lies.

In my recent post about Guest Blogging Tips, I had mentioned that getting a guest post on a high authority blog can bring you massive exposure because the blog owner is essentially endorsing you, your blog, your business, etc. This is true, whether that blog owner realizes it or not.

I didn’t touch on this subject in that post, but I wanted to expand on that more and bring up some strong points and tips that blog owners should be aware of. Thanks to Dennis Edell for bringing up the subject in his comment on that post. :)

Now, say you own a high authority blog, and you have thousands of readers. You’re well-liked, people trust you, and they enjoy the killer content you give them and have no problem spreading the word about you to their friends.

You’re in your glory, as you have a loyal readership and you’re on top of the world. However, the top can come crumbling to the ground if you’re not very careful.

And here’s why…

We know that guest posting not only benefits the guest poster, but it also benefits you. If you didn’t know that, you do now. Allowing guest posts on your blog is healthy, for both you and your readers. You may think you’re inviting the competition in to steal away your readers, but that’s not the case. You’ve already won them over; they’re there to stay.

BUT…

They’ll be running for the exits if you “endorse” a guest poster that has a bad reputation and is known for misleading readers and shady marketing tactics. There are plenty of other examples I could give, but I think you get the point here.

Basically, use some common sense (which I know is hard for some people, so if that’s you, see below).

You have to be careful about who you let guest post on your blog. I don’t want to tell you to be picky, but there are some guidelines that should be met before you ever publish someone else’s article on your blog.

5 Things to Consider Before Publishing a Guest Post on Your Blog

1. The Person Submitting the Guest Post – If you don’t know the person who’s submitting the guest post, then do some research about them. At the very least, visit their blog, read some of their posts and get an idea of what they normally blog about. Get a better understanding of the person behind the guest post.

2. Quality of the Writing – Is there post written in fluent English? Or, is it hard to understand because their English is obviously not their first language. If the substance of their article is good, then perhaps you could correct their grammar a little for them. If it’s way off the deep-end, then kindly reject it.

3. Subject of the Writing – Did the guest poster do their part and write on a subject that will appeal to YOUR readers? Or, is the post way off-base and has nothing to do with the topic of your blog? This will be very obvious and should be a factor in whether you accept or deny the submission.

4. Style of the Writing – For most people this won’t matter. Everyone has their own style of writing. What I’m getting at here are those people who come across cocky or arrogent in their post. Not sure why anyone would, but if you come across, just hit delete. I don’t think your readers would appreciate it too much.

5. The Website the Post Links To – This is critical, and goes hand-in-hand with tip #1. Take a look around their website/blog. See who they link out to, as well as see what kind of Page Rank their site has. If it doesn’t have a Page Rank, Google “site:http://www.theirsite.com” without quotes. If nothing comes up, you may want to stay away.

Do you have any other tips or suggestions for blog owners that accept guest posts? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below…

P.S. If you like this blog and would like to submit a Guest Post for possible inclusion, simply Contact Me.

googlewayThe following is a guest post by Darrell Lischka of about-internetmarketing.com.

You decided that you had enough at your job and want to start building an online business to make money. Great, welcome to the internet club. Now what are you going to do? In today’s article, I will describe the process of creating an authority site and how you rank it on page 1.

The article will go over the essential elements that one should focus their time on, if they truly want to see results. This is not the fluff type of article that tells you how to make 10K a month in only 3 months. Nope, far from it, because if you truly want financial freedom, then you will have to pay a price to fire your boss. My article will cover keyword research, domains, back linking strategies to rank on page 1, niche marketing ideas and strategies, and even mentioning some software that will leverage your time more effectively.

The fact is Google is the most popular search engine and because of that, my methods will be related to ranking well on their search engine.

Authority Site

My definition of an authority site is simple. It’s a website that ranks on page 1 of G. The fact is authority sites come in all types and sizes. They can range from a 1 page website, to hundreds of pages.

How to make money with proper keyword research

When I first got started, I listened to someone that I honestly believed knew what they were talking about. I found out later, they were just trying to up sell me with their own marketing system. So I learned the hard way and wasted a lot of time trying to figure out keyword research. I was new at this SEO game several years ago. I made the same mistakes the that newbies make, by going after the big keyword categories. Forget the big keywords when you are starting off. Go after the low competitive terms. It will literally save you time, money and of course some sleepless nights.

Niche Marketing Tactics – What The A-Listers Won’t Tell You

My advice in terms of niche marketing ideas and niche marketing strategies, is to start at the low end and work your way up the keyword ladder. For example, search for key phrases that range between 10 to 20 searches a day. Your competitors will be lower in that niche market, than attempting to rank for large key phrase categories. Better to start out small, build up your rankings for a number of low phrases and start earning some cash, than waiting 6 to 12 months or more to see results. Successful individuals who earn money online, use this approach all the time.

Domains

Before you register any domain names, first get your keyword research out of the way. The reason, you should when possible, try and include your keyword phrase in your domain name. You certainly don’t have to, but it will give you a little extra SEO juice based on personal experience. You can of course take any domain name and rank it on page 1 for essentially any keyword category. But any advantage that you can get, make sure you do because your competitors are doing it.

Another tip that you can do when registering a domain name, is to see if there’s a domain available for sale with that term. Now, I would never suggest you invest hundreds or thousands of dollars, but depending on the niche and your financial situation, it might be worth it. I would suggest you only do this when you have some experience first.

The Importance of Getting Back Links

Back-links are the back bone of the ranking game. One way links should be mostly external, but you will also need to do some internal linking within your website. An external links means, when you post an article at an article directory like Ezine Articles, you hyper link your keyword term back to your website. That is what the SEO community means by back links.

As well, you can improve your own site by making sure your internal link structure is set up correctly. For example, for some of your pages within your website, link that page back to your home page. Don’t do it for all of them, but a few of them. As well, you can pass some link juice from 1 page to another page. Those little tips can again, give you a little bump in the rankings.

To Rank Well – You Need a Back Linking Plan

Now that I covered what external and internal links are, lets discuss how you go about getting the maximum back links for your website. It really revolves around creating content and submitting it to various article directories and Ezine directories. The most popular is Ezine articles. The best thing to do is simply type in top article directories or do follow article directories in G to get a list. There are literally thousands of places to post content.

My general approach is to post 5 to 10 unique articles at the top article directories and move on. However, there is one key piece of information that must do, to rank well and make your site strong. When you link back to your website, make sure you are deep linking 80% of the time to pages and actual articles on your website.

If you are confused, just hang on for a minute. Deep linking means your URL that you hyperlink from your article will link to an actual article within your site. Fail to do this for competitive terms and you will likely never rank on page 1. Trust me, I have made this mistake in the beginning.

You can help you website by doing some comment marketing at other forums and websites. My only caution is to make sure you add value to the discussion and not some spam type comment. Over time, you will gain recognition as someone that can be trusted and other readers in time, might start checking out your site. The more readers that go to your site and spend time there, will count towards the overall ranking game because how much time someone spends at your site is part of the algorithm for Google or better known as the bounce rate.

One final comment about back links. They are not created equally. For example a back link from Ezine articles is not the same as a back link from a brand new article directory. So, when posting your content, go for established and authority directories. To look natural, you will end up with a variety of links for all over the place. Just getting high quality back links could flag Google and that’s the last thing you want is a manual inspection and get de-indexed from the search results.

Strategies To Help Your Article Marketing Efforts

If you struggle for time like most people because they work full time, you can leverage your time more effectively by looking at software tools that help you create more versions of your article. They are referred to as article spinners or an article rewriter. If used properly, you can create dozens of unique versions. Just keep in mind, you still want quality content, but I have found it saves me time on manually editing articles and being able to post to more places.

Well, there you have the essential elements on building and ranking an authority site. Just keep in mind, start with good keyword research, picking the right domain name, niche marketing strategies and the most important part, building back links for your website.

If you want to dramatically improve your article marketing efforts and get more back links to rank higher in the search engines, Go Here: Article Rewriter.

I promised another backlink building strategy if you read my post Proven Strategies to Increase Website Traffic and Generate Sales. If you were waiting in anticipation for it, the wait is now over… it’s here!

This strategy, if used correctly, can catapult your blog posts, web pages, homepage, etc. to the top of Google and other search engines. Once you’re sitting high and mighty at the top, the sales will follow (if you’re targeting the right keywords).

To get started, you’re going to need a blog post (home page will do just fine) that you want to get a lot of traffic to. This is especially if you’re promoting something big and want to earn commissions (affiliate marketing). For your home page, you’re probably promoting something, selling your own product or building your list. In any case, you obviously want traffic, so this will work just as well.

Assuming you’ve done all the on-page SEO stuff for your blog post or home page, you’re now ready to start building backlinks. But not just any backlinks will do here. While article marketing is still very effective (and I recommend using this method as well), there’s another link building strategy that works very well.

link-wheelIt’s called a Link Wheel.

You may have heard of it before…. or maybe not. It can actually be somewhat confusing to people, so I’m going to explain it the best way I can without confusing you. ;)

If you’ve heard of this strategy before but just don’t quite GET IT yet, then pay close attention here. Better yet, the diagram above should do all the explaining that needs to be done. But, I’ll still do my best here to explain everything.

With the Link Wheel strategy, you’re capitalizing on free blogs/web 2.0/social sites. Take a look at the sites in the diagram, and you’ll notice one thing. They’re all free to use and post content to, and there’s a social aspect to them (this doesn’t really matter for the sake of this strategy). Simply put, Google and the other two major search engines love these sites.

So to get started, you need to write some articles. Anywhere from 6 to 8 articles will be sufficient.

There are some key requirements needed with these articles, though. They need to contain your keyword in the title and two or three times throughout the article body. If you haven’t done so already (you should have), your blog post should contain the same keyword in its title and content. This is very important!

The articles you write for these sites only need to be anywhere from 250 – 350 words long. You don’t need a novel here, just enough useful information to make the content relevant to the keyword you’re targeting.

If you don’t feel like writing the articles yourself, outsource it to someone else. I can get 10 articles written for $27 that do just fine. That’s actually very cheap, by the way.

Once you have your articles, you need to sign up for these free sites. Once you sign up with a site you won’t ever have to do it again. This is a one-time process.

Here are the sites I recommend. This isn’t an all-inclusive list, however. You can sign up for as many as you want. But for the sake of your link wheel you only need 6 to 8 sites.

  1. Hubpages
  2. Wetpaint
  3. Blogger
  4. Wordpress.com
  5. Gather
  6. Xomba
  7. Quizilla
  8. Squidoo

There’s a couple I didn’t mention that are in the diagram. Like I said it really doesn’t matter which sites you sign up with. It’s completely up to you.

Here’s where it gets tricky…

Each article you post on a site should contain two links… one pointing to your blog post and the other pointing to the article on the next site.

BUT… those links need to contain the keyword being targeted.

For example, if I’m targeting the keyword “golf swing” then I have that in the title of both the blog post and all articles for each site as well as in the content. Also, the backlinks will contain the same keyword “golf swing.”

Follow? Just look at the diagram again and this should make sense.

Each article will do this until you’ve completed the rotation and placed one article on each site. You now have a complete Link Wheel.

Doing this correctly will boost your blog post or home page’s rankings in the search engines dramatically. Of course, you still want to perform other link building strategies I’ve mentioned in previous posts because this is not the only way I build backlinks to my posts and home page, just to clear up any confusion you may have.

Any questions about what I’ve shared regarding Link Wheels? Still don’t quite get it? Feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer you. :)

This post is going to contain the simple, yet effective techniques I have learned during my time online to generate targeted traffic and generate sales. These are strategies I’m using for my own online business and have found to be working well and improving over time.

If you’ve been following along with us, my last post was about a struggling internet marketer who is reaching out in a desperate attempt to generate sales with his affiliate marketing website.

One of the questions asked was, “How do I drive traffic to my site that can generate sales?”

This is going to be the topic of this post, and I’ll be going very in-depth, starting with the basics and moving towards the more advanced strategies.

I apologize in advance if this turns into a very lengthy post, but please bare with me as it will be well worth your time to read through everything.

So let’s begin, shall we?

The very first thing you must understand is that everything revolves around keywords. Keywords are the life-blood of websites and how they become seen by internet users using search engines.

SEO (search engine optimization) is the foundation of using keywords effectively, and this is how you’re going to target specific internet users to generate sales online.

Rather than going in-depth on the subject of SEO on this post, I have a few previous posts that should cover this subject thoroughly enough for you to understand. Please check them out, and if you have questions use the comment section:

Optimizing your web page for specific keywords is critical and is the foundation for which you’ll build the rest of your marketing efforts upon. Seriously, nothing else matters until you’ve done this. Don’t ignore it!

One thing I’ve learned is that backlinks are KING. Okay, so content is still KING, but backlinks are a very close second, and here’s why. Backlinks to your website or web pages are what helps to drive your site or pages higher in search engine results pages when someone searches for a specific keyword phrase. See how this is coming together?

Without building backlinks to your site, you won’t generate enough traffic to your site to generate sales. Now I know what you’re thinking here. There are other ways to generate traffic without building backlinks, and that’s true. However, the best traffic is free search engine traffic, and the only way to get it is to rank on the first page in Google, or Yahoo and Bing. I’d focus on Google as it produces over 70% of search traffic across the entire web.

Now that you understand the importance of building backlinks and getting your site or web pages to the top of search engines, you now need to start the backlink building process. There are numerous ways to go about this, and luckily for you, I’ve written many posts on the subject. Here they are:

Remember when building backlinks that you want to use your keywords for the web page you’re linking to. This is the only way that your backlinks are going to be effective in boosting your search engine rankings.

Okay, so you now have  a great start in getting backlinks; however, I’m not done just yet. ;)

Well… sorta. I have a post planned that will discuss another very effect backlink building strategy and will be posted soon, so stay tuned for that.

Hopefully right now you have a solid understanding of doing keyword research and web page optimization, and how it all ties in to building backlinks. This is all part of building targeted website traffic that will result in sales.

As always, if you have any questions about anything discussed here, leave a comment below.

My next post will discuss the second question asked by a struggling internet marketer, but in the meantime, start applying the tips I mentioned today to your website, and you’ll soon see an increase in traffic and internet income.

Build A FollowingMarketing yourself on the internet is very crucial to anyone that wishes to reach online success. The days of marketing a particular program or opportunity are over. People want to know about the person promoting them more so than the opportunity or program themselves. If people can get to know you and trust you, they will trust your recommendations and advice.

This is the same concept as online branding which I blogged about before. The internet makes it a little challenging to be transparent, but at the same time there are numerous methods in which you can utilize to become known and seen as an expert in your field.

Here are 5 tips to help you market yourself on the internet:

1. Create Online Profiles – Profiles are an excellent way to get your name out there. They’re also a great way to get backlinks to your site as well. Take advantage of creating profiles on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

2. Post Videos – If you have a simple web cam or digital camera with video capability, it’s very easy to create short videos and post them on YouTube. You can also get free screen capture software like CamStudio to create tutorials. Take advantage of videos to create a web presence and loyal following.

3. Article Marketing -  Writing articles either for your own blog or submitting them to article directories is a great way to get yourself known. Create informational and valuable articles that people will want to read and share with others.

4.  Forums – Forums are not only an excellent source of information, but they can also be used to create credibility within your niche. The more people you can help, the more people will trust you and your recommendations.

Bonus Tip:

5. Blogging – Just as I’m doing here, you should be blogging about your experiences and sharing the knowledge you have about your particular interest. This will help build up a following of interested readers and build relationships with them.

Do you have any branding tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below…

2009 was a great year as I started seeing momentum with my online business. I learned a lot about what I need to do, and also about what I don’t want to do. Everything is a learning experience that I can take with me and improve upon.

Now that we’re a full week into 2010, I’m starting to plan how I’m going to build up my online business to reach even greater heights. Planning and evaluation is an important process no matter what kind business you’re in. I need to evaluate the areas where I can improve, and then plan how I’m going to do so.

Along with planning, this is the time to set goals that you want to accomplish. The goals should be realistic and achievable. Don’t set them too high, but at the same time you don’t want to set them too low as you’ll only be cheating yourself.

When it comes to making money online, many prefer building multiple niche sites to earn income from. This is a great avenue to go down and may be easier than building just one authority site.

However, I personally want to focus my time on building ReplaceYourSalary.com as an authority site and blog. That has always been my intention from the start, and right now I don’t see that changing.

Eventually, I may pan out and start diversifying my efforts into some smaller niches, but that won’t happen until I have met my goals for this site.

I’m slowly getting there, but I have a long way to go before I reach the amount of growth and income I expect to get from this site. The potential is and always has been there. 2009 was very evident of that.

My goal for 2010 is to have systems in place that are going to help me reach my desired income. Systems can be anything from having the right people for the job, to having the right processes in place.

This means I’m going to be outsourcing a good majority of work this year in regards to marketing my website. This I feel is the only way I’m going to be able to be most productive and achieve the goals I have set for myself. I’ll still be doing a good portion myself, but there are some areas I’d rather leave to someone else.

There are also new processes I have learned and will implement this year that should dramatically boost my site and earnings. I’ll mainly be focusing on Web 2.0 sites and article marketing. This combination has proven to be effective, and I need to start utilizing this marketing strategy.

Another area I need to do more with is video marketing. I hadn’t done much on YouTube last year, and I want to change that this year. Video is an incredible medium with so much potential. I want to really grow my OnlineWealth channel up and get more exposure with my current videos and also future videos.

Specific goals I have set for this year are:

  1. At least $1,000/month income
  2. Blog minimum of 4 posts a week
  3. Alexa Rank – 100,000 or less

These are the main areas I’ll be focusing on this year. Like most people, time is my biggest concern. This is why I’ll be outsourcing some work so that I can focus on other areas of my online business. If you look at all of the successful internet marketers and online business owners, every single one of them outsources. It’s time for me to follow that successful pattern.

What do you plan to accomplish this year? What are some goals you have for yourself personally or for your business? Share them in the comments below…

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