Sunday, November 30th, 2008
The Internet is full of advertising opportunities and what is great about many of these advertising opportunities is that they are free. That’s right. You don’t have to pay anything. You do, however, have to put in some effort to ensure that it is done. You can’t exactly market your business without doing anything unless you hire someone else to do it for you. Nevertheless, it is sometimes easier to pay with your time than your money. Then again, you may choose to pay with your money instead of your time in order to get a job done right.
Whichever way you choose to do it, article submission directories are a great way to market your business. The correct name for this is “article marketing.” It is something that has picked up at phenomenal speed in recent years because people want to know things. People seek out articles for information and, when they find it, they will click on the website link at the bottom of that article to learn even more. This means that the article has to be interesting enough or contain enough valuable information to make them want to click the link at the bottom.
Making the article interesting
Speaking of making the article interesting, how is it you do that? How does a person make an informational article interesting? You may think it is a bit difficult, but, really, what you need to do is throw in enough information that says, “Hey, this is the article to read. If you don’t read me, then you”re not going to learn the ropes of this stuff.” You want your article to be “the one” to read for information.
So first, start out with an idea. Come up with an angle that excites you. If the angle doesn’t excite you, then you’re not going to be able to convey any type of excitement through your writing. You’re going to find an end product that is monotone and bland. Monotone and bland will literally make you think “yuck, what was I thinking?” Well, probably not much.
As you write the article, you can throw in bullet points and subtitles to make it easier to read. People love subtitles and bullet points because ideas are divided up in an easy-to-understand way. You don’t want someone to be reading and then keep losing their place in the article because they don’t have a point of reference. At the same time, be interesting. Think about what you would like to read. If you won’t read it, they won’t read it.
Writing the article yourself vs. someone else doing it
Here is a good question that businesses ask themselves when looking to embark on article marketing: “Do I write the articles myself or do I have someone else do it?” This is a good question because not everyone has a propensity for writing or they may not have the time. It is usually a time issue, so they may hire someone to write the articles for them. Hiring a writer to take care of it can be cost-effective because it is the difference between having the article written for submission and not having it written for submission. Obviously, it is better to have the article written and submitted.
As for other options, you can choose to have it written for you and just submit it yourself or you can choose to have the writer submit it for you too. It is up to you, but it is important to do what you can to get the job done when marketing through an article submission directory.
Is this type of marketing necessary?
Really, in a world in which the Internet is the way in which business is done, it is important to take advantage of all marketing methods that have been made available to you. Article marketing is huge and this is because it is successful.
One reason why article marketing is so effective is because people need information. When they search for something through search engines such as Google, these articles are peppered throughout the results. When someone finds your article, they will click on it for the information that they need and they will most likely read it in its entirety. When they reach the bottom, they will find your link for them to click on.
How the process works
When you have a written article that you want to submit, you have to make sure the article is within the guidelines of the article submission directory. If the article is outside of the guidelines, it won’t be posted.
Really, all you need to do is simply figure out which category your article fits in and make sure that particular article submission directory accepts articles for that category. If you haven’t already registered for an account, go ahead and do so. After that, go to the button that allows you to post an article. Make sure you fill in all of the fields and choose the correct category. Once you have done that, you can paste the article and the title into the provided box.
Now one of the most important parts of the article submission is the resource box. Most article submission directories will not allow any direct promotion within the article, but they will allow you to post a short bio and a link at the bottom in the resource box. This is where your reader is going to be linked to your website. This is why you need to make the article interesting or your reader is going to leave halfway through your article. They will never make it to the end, which means your time and/or money was wasted and their time was wasted. You definitely don’t want to waste their time or they will never follow a pathway to your website. However, many will and this is why you want to use this type of marketing. These people will follow your site and they will suddenly become customers, which mean even more success for you.
ArticleLeeg is an article submission directory in which you can submit your articles throughout a number of categories. Use your articles to market your business or to inform the world.
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Tags: Advertising, advertising opportunities, article marketing, article submission, Business, Directories, google, informational article, job, link, money, search, search engine, search engines, website
Posted in Advertising, Articles, Directories, Internet, SEO | No Comments »
Saturday, November 1st, 2008
Jay Gaulard writes for a wide selection of websites on various topics. He is a veteran of the internet and has come to be respected in his many areas of expertise. This article was written on behalf of Iiamin, a popular help wanted ads website.
Job Listings Are The Best Way To Find Employees
Have you ever tried to hire employees without posting the job in the newspaper, on the door of your business, or on the Internet? Not doing so makes it difficult to find high quality employees. Not doing so also makes it difficult to fill a position that needs filling quickly.
Luckily, there are many different methods in which you can easily post a job. It may be sort of easy to send a classified ad to the local newspaper, but that is something that is slowly becoming obsolete. This is because the Internet has opened up a completely new doorway to how jobs are listed. With the invention of job listings on the Internet, less and less people actually frequent their newspapers when looking for jobs. They go to job seeker sites and look at the listings there. As a matter of fact, that is how a lot of people get their jobs nowadays.
The evolution of job listings
Let’s step back a bit and look at the days in which the newspaper was the only option. People would go through the lists of jobs and would circle what they thought they could do and would then call the number in the ad. This could be a frustrating process because it was time consuming.
All of a sudden, the Internet came to be and job listing sites were added to the Internet. It took a while for employers to catch on, especially since not all businesses had Internet access like most do today. Nowadays, a job comes open and the boss can go onto the Internet and list the job opening on a website within moments of the job coming open. In just a matter of minutes, hundreds of people can see that ad.
Being that hundreds of people see the ad in any given day, it can be difficult on the boss because he or she has to sift through all of those replies. There are resumes everywhere with qualified people busting at the seams. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. This isn’t a bad thing because this means that there are plenty of qualified people to choose from. Eventually, the boss is able to find a qualified individual and the job is filled in no time.
Another thing that has happened with online job listings is that individuals are more able to find other jobs in other towns and recruiters can recruit from anywhere. It used to not be this easy. Back in the day, someone would have to call or they would have to hear it through the “grapevine” that a job was available with a company across the country. Now all it takes is a surf through a job listings site and jobs can be found on the other side of the world. It is utterly amazing and has done a lot for competition within businesses and even the economy. The best employees are placed within the best companies and some employees are even fought over because they are incredible workers. The Internet has helped revolutionize this.
How these sites work
As the employer, job listing sites makes your job easier. Basically, you just sign up for an account and you then follow the instructions to post an ad. It only takes a few minutes. You don’t have to worry about mailing off your ad and waiting for it to be in a newspaper. It will be live in no time after you have submitted. From there you don’t have to worry about anything other than reviewing the many resumes that come your way.
Job listings sites are easy to use. Basically, you fill out a form asking you what kind of job you’re looking for, where you want to work, and what kind of job title you want. This is the best way for you to target the kind of job you want instead of having to search through all sorts of listings. In the days of classifieds in newspapers, you had to read ads for jobs that you did not want. Nowadays you type in what you want and you’re taken right there.
Newspapers are good for the news
Newspapers are good for the news. Most individuals have the Internet now and, even if they don’t, they will make sure they find Internet access when they’re looking for a job. They know where to find the best jobs and that is on online job listings sites. They know that they aren’t going to find a high quality job in the newspaper anyway. It seems that most of the jobs listed in the newspaper classifieds are jobs regarding work-at-home opportunities that want you to pay some sort of fee. There are also job listings for truck drivers and individuals wishing to sell cosmetics. As for the other stuff, people turn to the Internet and that’s why you should make sure your job listings are listed there and nowhere else.
To maximize your chances to land a quality employee, you can list your job opening on multiple sites. No one ever said that you had to use just one. Multiple sites work out just fine. When the job is filled, you can make sure you remove the ads from the other sites. That way you don’t continue to receive inquiries and resumes about a job that is already filled. That’s something you can’t do in a newspaper. If you pay for the ad to run for 7 days, then it is going to run for 7 days. If you find a great person on the second day, then you have 5 days that you’ve paid for that you don’t need. In the end, you will find that submitting job listings online is more cost-effective and can save you a lot of time in a number of ways. That is just the way to go, so make sure you use online job listings from now on so that you can reach a larger audience of great employees.
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Tags: boss, Business, classified ad, Classifieds, help wanted ads, internet access, job listing, job listings, job opening, job seeker, jobs, newspapers, quality employees, resumes, search, website, Websites
Posted in Advertising, Business, Internet, Websites | No Comments »
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
Jay Gaulard writes for a wide selection of websites on various topics. He is a veteran of the internet and has come to be respected in his many areas of expertise. This article was written on behalf of Experato, a popular website directory.
Build a Name for Your Website with a Website Directory
You’ve built a brand new website for your business and you’re really excited. However, you have to do something to get the word out and you’re not sure what to do. You know that you can post flyers all over your town or simply tell your friends, but that’s not going to do much for you. So what are you going to do?
Well, you’re going to start with a website directory. The website directory is an effective way to combat the always changing algorithms of search engines and to really get an edge on the competition. Basically, you need to do all that you can to ensure that you are marketing your site correctly and a website directory is going to help you do that. You’re going to be able to battle some of the hardships of Internet marketing is you use a directory to get the word out.
Using the directory
Another thing that is special about submitting your website to a website directory is that you get a free back link to your website. The back link is very important because the more links you have on the web, the better off your site is. This means it is going to be indexed by search engine spiders.
You see, search engine spiders follow these links to your site and then they index your site. The more links you have out there, the more your site is going to be indexed. This means that you’ll show up higher in the search engine results when someone searches for what it is you are offering your customers and potential customers.
As for how the directory works, it is a place in which the websites are compiled into categories. They are also divided up into subcategories to make searching easier. Because these categories are divided up into subcategories, the search engine spiders recognize them. Needless to say, these directories are visited by search engine spiders more than many other sites. This is because of the quality of the back links. The back links are of a high quality at these sites, which is why you need to utilize a website directory.
Choosing the right website directory
Choosing the right website directory doesn’t have to be difficult. There are some things that you have to look for in order to make that determination. Those things are:
To pay or not to pay - There are pay directories and there are free directories. Determine which is best for you. Free directories still provide you with that back link. It is true there will be a lot more sites posted there, but they are effective.
Check the page rank - Check the page rank of the website directory. That way, you know that it is a popular site. You can also check into sites to see how they are growing. If a site is growing, then that is a sign that it is a popular directory that is emerging. You definitely want to get in on that.
Look at both general and specific directories - You want to do this because both can be effective. You can post on a specific directory and post on a general directory. This will broaden the exposure that your site gets.
You don’t have to be restricted to just one website directory. You can use all sorts of website directories. This is important in getting those high quality back links that will make your site successful. There is not a rule anywhere that says you’re only allowed to post your website to a single website directory. If there were, then it would be impossible for a lot of sites to be successful on the Internet.
Submission options
You also have submission options. These options are manual, using submission software, and using a directory submission service. The directory submission service may use software or do it manually. However, there are article directories out there that will not accept submissions from software. They want to ensure that real people are doing the posting. Many of these directories have real people approving the submissions, so it is hard if they have to approve thousands of submissions submitted by these software programs. It happens, but it is a good idea to do it manually. If you don’t have time to do it yourself, look into the directory submission service.
How to maximize the benefits
It isn’t enough to simply post your website link up on a website directory. There are ways in which you can maximize the benefits. It will be worth your while to follow these tips so that you can make sure that you profit from your efforts:
If you’re submitting to more than one website directory, you need to vary your description. Don’t use the same description for every directory.
Make sure the text that accompanies your website link is really good stuff. That means you want it to draw people in. You want them to click on your link. Believe it or not, people browse website directories, especially if they’re looking for a website that focuses on certain material.
Make as many submissions as possible to website directories. Make sure they are directories that you can track back easily. Make sure they are easy to manage as well. You don’t want to go for directories that are hard to follow.
Make sure that you choose directories that will also allow you to submit the links to your inner pages. This allows for better indexing and will also allow more people to find you.
After this, you might as well give your website a pair of running shoes. This is because it is going to take off like wildfire. It is going to run like the wind. It is important that you be prepared, because the moment you start submitting your site is the moment that it enters the race of website popularity.
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Tags: algorithms, Business, custom, Directories, experato, free website, link, new business, search, search engine, search engine results, search engine spiders, search engines, subcategories, submissions, website, website directories, website directory, Websites
Posted in Directories | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
Google Ranking Factors
Alleged positive and negative on and off-page SEO Google ranking factors in an overview.
21 Great SEO Tips From Google Engineer Matt Cutts
SEO Egghead has Tracked most of the Interesting things Google Engineer Matt Cutts has said about SEO and getting your site to rank in Google in the past year. These SEO tips may be better than what you can get from any so called “Expert” because they are coming right from the horse’s mouth.
Firefox Extensions recommended by a Google engineer, Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts show his must-have firefox extension’s list. You’ll probably know this guy if you are in the SEO industry.
Google Acquires SEO Company in DoubleClick Deal
One of the results of the Google-DoubleClick acquisition is Google buying Performics, one of the largest SEO companies in the US. Conflict of interest?
SEO for FireFox Launches!
Are you curious why a certain page on Google or Yahoo! ranks better? Do you ever wonder how many links your competitor has, but don’t feel like logging into your SEO tools? If so, the SEO for FireFox extension is for you. Created by Aaron wall - it will save you countless hours of research frustration and complexity.
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Tags: firefox extensions, google, google doubleclick, google ranking, google yahoo, link, matt cutts, performics, search, seo company, seo tools
Posted in Advertising, Internet, SEO, Websites | No Comments »
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
Complete Guide To Google Analytics
Things change so quickly on the web. When I started working at software firm Urchin in 1996, web analytics was a niche product, important to (and understood by) perhaps a handful of people at an organisation.
Google Extends AdSense To Online Games
Google Inc on Wednesday launched technology to insert advertisements into online video games and boost revenue from the booming gaming sector. The software, called AdSense for Games, is in beta testing and allows video, image or text…
13 Great Firefox Extensions for Web Professionals
Short introduction to 13 Firefox extensions for web developers or SEO professionals.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Made Easy
Lifehacker’s bi-monthly “Getting To Done” column covers SEO on how and why it’s important in the web publishing arena.
Make the Perfect Structure for a Site
How to build a useful sitemap, determine an SEO friendly permanent link structure, and code the server-side of a site for an accessible and user-friendly site. Diagrams included.
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Tags: beta testing, code, firefox extensions, gaming sector, google, google inc, link, link structure, search, search engine, search engine optimization, search optimization, seo optimization, server, server side, software firm, urchin, video games, video image, web analytics, web developers, web professionals
Posted in Internet, SEO, Websites | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
Ok, this is a pretty simple thing to do and it has some important benefits.
Have you ever visited a website or a web page only to find that annoying “Not Found” error message? If so, what did you do? You probably got ticked off, hit the back button and visited another website. Can you imagine someone coming across a “Not Found” error page on your website? Well, if you don’t have a custom 404 “File Not Found” page set up on your website, that might just be happening.
Here is what you need to do to fix this problem and keep your visitors on your website.
The first thing is to create a web page with some sort of message on it. Something like, “Whoops, looks like the page you are looking for isn’t here. Please click this link to visit our home page or our search page…” You get the idea. You can save the page as “404.php” or something similar and upload it to the root of your web server.
Oh, I forgot to mention this. In order to do what I am suggesting here, you need to be running an Apache web server and your web host has to allow changes to your .htaccess file. I am sure there are other ways to create a custom 404 File Not Found error page and get it up and running, but I am only talking about one way here.
Now, open up your .htaccess file and place this code into it somewhere. I like to place it right on top:
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
I am using .php extensions for this stuff just because of habit and preference. You can use .html or whatever you wish.
Well, that’s basically it. You can now save your .htaccess file and upload it to the server and go see if it worked. Try typing in some page that you know isn’t there. If it works, please read my previous post about “How To Check Your Web Page HTTP Headers & Response Codes” for some important information.
Good luck.
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Tags: 404 php, Apache, apache server, apache web server, code, Codes, custom, custom 404, error, error message, ErrorDocument, File, file upload, header, headers, HOST, htaccess file, html, HTTP, link, php, php extensions, Response, response code, root, search, search page, server, web host, web page, website
Posted in Websites | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
There may be cases when you would like to see what your webpage HTTP headers look like. Why? Well, because they are kind of important. As Wikipedia states, the HTTP headers define what the returned data looks like.
Still you ask, “Why in the world do I care about that?” Ok, I’ll keep going. The main reason I look at the HTTP headers is to find out what the HTTP status code is. The reason the status code is important to me is because this is the code the search engines use for a multitude of things.
Let me give you a little example, and this related to my previous post regarding the sudden drop in Google rankings. As I was doing research into what the problem may be for this particular website, I came across an issue where someone had recently put custom “404 Not Found” error pages up on some of their websites. Everyone knows that custom “404 Not Found” error pages are cool, but what some people don’t know is that if those 404 error pages show a “200 OK” (successful HTTP requests) code, the site may be in big trouble, SEO-wise. The reason for this is because there are going to be many “404 Not Found” error pages on a dynamic website. If you have your custom “404 Not Found” error page showing a “200 OK” response code, the search engines will think that all the instances of this page are duplicate. You know as well as I do, that spells trouble.
What’s worse is if you set your homepage as your “404 Not Found” page. Your homepage is going to return a response code of “200 OK.” That’s not good, because now you have multiple instances of your homepage…all duplicate content.
It’s my opinion that the search engines are smart enough to figure this out. The page (such as your homepage) with the highest Pagerank will prevail. Still, I have some websites that I am working on that have multiple instances of the homepage and they all have Pagerank, which isn’t good, because the duplicates are taking the Pagerank from the real page. Now, again, that’s my opinion.
Here are two tips:
- How to check your HTTP headers - visit this website or just Google “Website header check”
- How to set a particular page as your “404 Not Found” error page in your .htaccess file - Just place this code in the file: “ErrorDocument 404 /404.php” without the quotes. The 404.php file is the actual error page in this case.
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Tags: 404 error, 404 not found error, Codes, custom, data, Duplicate, dynamic website, ErrorDocument, google, google ranking, header, headers, homepage, htaccess file, HTTP, ok response, pagerank, php, REQUEST, response code, search, search engine, search engines, SEO-wise, status, webpage, website, Websites, wikipedia
Posted in SEO, Websites | 2 Comments »
Monday, September 15th, 2008
Today has been an interesting day. We have been taking a look at our websites and searching for duplicate content using Copyscape. After today’s findings, we might just go with Copyscape’s premium service.
Now, let me just tell you that duplicate content is everywhere. Actually, someone has probably written this sentence a million times. What we were searching for today was blatant and far reaching content theft. We found a few instances of one of our homepages and general website idea taken for someone else’s use as well as many instances of interior pages taken. Needless to say, we made screen copies of these cases and sent them to our attorney’s office. These are serious and can’t be ignored.
I would like to talk about two things you can do to help out a more subtle form of duplicate content, on your own website.
The first form of duplicate content on your own website is in the form of www vs. non-www. If you go to your website and type in “www.mysite.com” and then type in “mysite.com,” you may see the same page appear. In the search engine’s eyes, these are two copies of the same page. How do you fix this? It’s easy. Just open up your .htaccess file and type in the following code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.mysite\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]
When someone types in “mysite.com” to visit your website, they will automatically be forwarded to “www.mysite.com.” The search engines will be forwarded as well.
Another form of duplicate content on your own website comes in the form of “www.mysite.com/” vs. “www.mysite.com/index.html.” The search engines see this same page as two different ones. What to do? That’s easy too. Just open up your .htaccess again and type in the following code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.mysite.com/ [R=301,L]
When someone either types in “www.mysite.com/index.html” or follows a link like that to your website, they will be automatically be forwarded to “www.mysite.com.”
Now, here is the disclaimer. I used this on my server setup and it worked. Please check with your own hosting company to see if something similar will work for your too.
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Tags: code, content, content theft, copyscape, Duplicate, HOST, htaccess file, html, HTTP, link, REQUEST, RewriteCond, RewriteEngine, RewriteRule, search, search engine, search engines, server, website, Websites, www
Posted in SEO, Websites | 1 Comment »
