Writing articles is probably one of the best things any internet marketer can do.

Why?

Because it establishes you as an authority on the subject that you are writing on and because writing articles will also increase the number of people (and visitors) who know about and visit your website.

Writing articles and allowing other webmasters to post your articles on their website will absolutely explode the number of backlinks to your site, in addition to increasing the number of people who visit your site - both of which help to increase your website’s popularity and search engine ranking.

The best part about giving away free articles for other webmasters to publish on their own website is that this sort of thing is viral - so you could end up getting thousands of visitors to your site from just one article that you wrote.

Think about that for a moment.

You write an article and then make it available to webmasters to post on their site, because they need content for their website. But on every article that you write, you have a link back to your website - so in a way they are promoting your website in exchange for you allowing them to post their article on their site.

So, if your article gets published by twenty webmasters, you will automatically have twenty additional backlinks to your website, along with twenty additional streams of traffic coming to your website.

Also, the visitors who visit the webmaster’s site and see your article automatically make the assumption that the webmaster endorses you and your website. That makes these visitors a little more likely to visit your site than if a link to your website was just listed on their links page.

With advantages like these, you can see why you want to submit your article to as many different websites, forums and article directories as possible.

This article was taken from Tim’s ebook, White Hat SEO Revealed, which covers detailed, step by step information on how you can dramatically increase your current search engine rankings and website traffic. Tim’s ebook is available for free at http://www.phase1.ws

If you’re an online marketer and own a website, you know the key to making sales is getting more traffic to your website. You also know all web site traffic is not created equal. You not only need lots of web traffic, you need lots of targeted traffic. That’s the key and once you have it, your sales will increase exponentially.

The best way to get targeted website traffic is to use Pay-per-Click (PPC) services such as Google AdWords, or Yahoo or a host of other pay services. You also need to know what you’re doing or you could find yourself spending lots of money, getting poor results and losing money very quickly. Also, when you’re first starting out, you have a limited budget, and starting with PPC campaigns may not even be an option for you at this point in time.

That’s where free traffic exchanges come in. Free traffic exchanges can be a great way to get traffic to your website. You should also know there’s really no such thing as free because you must spend your time surfing through other websites to earn credits. Free traffic exchanges are a great way to get lots of visitors to your site however, so spending an hour a day surfing, is not a lot to ask if you’re making sales from your efforts. And isn’t this why your in this business to begin with?

Free traffic exchanges are a great marketing tool for a many reasons. The best reason is that you get lots of people looking, and hopefully clicking on your website or promotional pages. But there are hidden benefits to free traffic exchanges you may not have even considered.

Search engines love free traffic exchanges because of all the incoming and outgoing links they generate. Plus the rapidly changing content is another reason the search engines love traffic exchanges. Exchanges that have more content also generate a higher page rank, and therefore more traffic, and increased memberships. The key is to find exchanges that are very active and have lots of members. The more members they have, the more potential customers you get looking at your offer and your chances for sales conversions are that much better. But bigger isn’t always better.

Some free traffic exchanges may do very well for one marketer, and be a complete waste of time for another. If everyone were promoting the same website or affiliate program in the same traffic exchange for example, then chances are you would not make many sales. Even if you were promoting the best product or service on the internet, if everyone promoted the same thing, your chances of someone purchasing through your website or links, are slim to none. Also, when people see the same ad over and over again, they get desensitized to it. Don’t fall into this trap. It’s one thing to try and sell a very popular product/service/ebook etc, but it’s another thing when a million other people are trying to do it too. Competition is a good thing, because it validates your market, but too much competition is tough and it’s time to move on to something else.

We all know clicking on ads in a free traffic exchange can be very boring, monotonous and can take a lot of time. That’s why you need to make the best of your opportunity or you will just be wasting a lot of your time and effort on something that just isn’t working. If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn’t promoting, especially within that particular traffic exchange.

One way to use free traffic exchanges to your advantage is to join a few at first, and see if your sales pick up. If your sales aren’t doing well, then test out a few more. When you do find a few traffic exchanges that appear to be generating sales for you, then narrow those down until you find the one, or two that are working. Now concentrate your efforts on those because they’re the ones you want. At least for now anyway. Things may change, so keep an eye on your campaigns and if sales seem to be falling off, then it might be time to change your offer or find another traffic exchange that could pick your profits up again.

As I mentioned, your individual promotion is everything. If you’re trying to promote something everyone else is, I don’t care what traffic exchange service you’re using, your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all. You cannot always blame the exchange. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and think if you’re doing all you can to make sales.

If you’re going to use multiple free traffic exchanges, and I recommend that you do, you should get yourself a multi-tab web browser. Many of these browsers are free and run on PCs and MACs. The tabs feature allows you to have one web browser open with multiple tabs each going to a separate website. You could easily put 5 or 6 of your free exchange sites in these tabs, and earn credits for all of them at the same time. So instead of surfing for 1/2 an hour or an hour earning 200 hits for one exchange, you could earn 200 hits for 5 exchanges in the same amount of time. This is a huge time saver and multiplies your earned hits by 5X or 6X.

Getting free traffic to your website can be a lot of work. If you don’t have the money to spend on full blown PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords or Yahoo, free traffic exchanges are a great way to get the traffic you need, for Free!

Copyright 2005 East Tech LLC

Andrew Daigle is owner and creator of TrumpTraffic.com, a Free Traffic Exchange http://www.trumptraffic.com , DXInOne Free Training Site and Forum http://www.dxout.com and Google AdWords Training http://www.adwording.com.

If you’ve got a web site then one of your biggest marketing challenges is how to generate traffic without spending a fortune. Whether you’re trying to build your ezine or prospect list or get potential customers to contact you or buy your products or services, getting people to your web site is a must and can be a challenge.

Especially if you don’t have a big budget to spend on online marketing, and if you’re having a tough time getting your site to show up in the search engine rankings. All of this was (and continues to be!) one of my biggest marketing challenges.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m not one to back off from a challenge. In fact, give me one and I’ll do whatever it takes to overcome it. I’m going to share with you one marketing technique I’ve used to immediately get my web site to the top of the search engine rankings and to triple my web site traffic in just a couple of months.

Getting qualified traffic to your web site

If you’ve got a web site then one of your marketing tasks is generating qualified traffic to that web site. What exactly is qualified traffic? Qualified traffic consists of people who are looking for what you are offering. They’re in the market for what you’re selling and they are actively searching for it.

Does your site show up on page 10 of the search results, or perhaps doesn’t even show up at all?

If you’re like many small business owners, you don’t have the technical knowledge, expertise or time to do what it takes to get your site to naturally achieve a top-ranking in Google and the other major search engines.

You can move your site to Number 1 in less than a day

Take my web site, www.10stepmarketing.com, for example. There are tons of web sites on marketing. Achieving a number one Google ranking, or even a top 10 ranking could take a very long time to achieve even if I do everything right. But I want web site traffic NOW!

I want people who are searching for information on “marketing plans” and “how to market” to find out about me now, not months from now or a year from now (well I want them then, too, I just don’t want to wait until then!)

I did it and it works!

Did you know you can buy your way to the top? That’s exactly what I did, and you can do it, too. A text advertising service available through Google, called Google Adwords, enables anyone to have a text ad and a link to their web site show up as the top-ranked site for their selected keywords (keywords are the words and phrases people type into search engines when they’re looking for information on the web).

These text ads show up on the right hand side of the results page when searchers type in your selected keywords. You’ll see them on any page, under the title “Sponsored Links.” Google even offers a keyword tool to help you pick the best keywords for your site.

You can spend as little or as much as you want

Depending on how much you want to spend, you can determine the ranking and page your ad shows up on. You can very easily garner the number one spot. You select your maximum daily budget so you’ll never spend more than you can afford and you can easily test different ads to see which ones work best.

You only pay for those who click

And the best part is, you only pay when someone clicks on your link. The other plus here is you’ll know if your ad is working by watching what percentage of those who see your ad actually click on it. And if its not working as well as you’d like, you can easily change it.

It’s all tracked so you know whether it’s working

Google offers excellent tracking reports so you know exactly how many people saw your ad and how many clicked on it. You can send them to any page on your web site (for example, you might want to send them directly to your products page, or the page where they can register for your free ezine or special report).

The quickest way to boost your web site traffic

I used Google Adwords to start generating web site traffic and ezine subscribers my second month in business. My results were so good I maxed-out my budget in a matter of weeks and had to put my ad on “pause” (stop running it for awhile). The way I look at it that’s a good problem to have, considering all those clicks led to new subscribers and customers.

3x the traffic in less than 3 months

Between this technique and the one I’ll tell you about next week, I was able to triple my web site traffic in less than three months. And you can bet I’ll continue using both of these marketing techniques to keep growing my web site traffic. I love them because they’re simple enough for anyone to do and they don’t cost a lot.

Get the qualified traffic you want

If you want to generate qualified web site traffic quickly, Google Adwords is an excellent way to do it. If you want to learn more, visit https://adwords.google.com

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa

20-year marketing veteran Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to help small business owners and solo-preneurs successfully market their business, themselves without spending a fortune on marketing. To learn more about this simple, step-by-step program and to sign up for her FREE audio class and FREE weekly ezine featuring how-to articles, tips and advice, visit www.10stepmarketing.com

Why submit to a Directory?

Every webmaster is looking for ways to improve their website’s visibility, and one great way is by getting listed in the major web directories. This should be a very important part of your marketing strategy online, which many website owners neglect.

The only way to grow your online business is if people can actually find you! Some web directories have a free submission option whereas others require some form of payment or reciprocal link in exchange. With the hundreds of various general directories and niche directories you have the choose to submit to - it becomes crucial knowing which directories are worth your time and money.

Submitting to directories can be a real time consuming task. Moreso, if your handing over your hard earned cash, its wise to know which directories will most benefit you in your linking campaign. Understanding why you should submit to directories will help you identify which one’s are worthwhile.

There are two major reasons for submitting to Directories:

• Targeted traffic

• Link popularity

Clearly, the same benefits can be be said about links from other sites - not just from a directory. However, there are some significant differences between the two link sources:

• Directories provide one way links to your site which is really beneficial to your link popularity (Exchanging links with other sites will often require a reciprocal link in exchange)

• Directories are an established source of ‘authority’ in regard to various subject matters.

• It is much easier and simpler to be listed in directories than in subject specific sites (not forgetting the fact that there may be a conflict of interest issue!)

Directories as traffic source

What is ‘targeted traffic’?

Directories are an excellent source of targeted traffic. Even with the advancement of Search Engine technology, the keyword based search method, common to all search engines, is still far from perfect. That is - many search results do not actually match the user’s requirements. Although Search Engines will most likely generate more website traffic to your website, many of those visitors will NOT become ‘customers’, as they had a different requirement when they conducted the search.

Thus, it is not enough to simply ‘count’ the number of visitors. One must also look at the ‘conversion rate’. For example, if one source of traffic sends 1000 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 1% and another sends only 100 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 20% - the latter provides TWICE as many ‘customers’ as the former. We can say that the second source provides better ‘targeted traffic’.

Web directories are maintained by human editors - in most cases volunteers. Having a real person review your site before inclusion assures only rich content and informative sites will get included. The purpose of a directory is to provide an intuitive and precise category structure. Are you in any doubt as to the nature of sites found in this DMOZ category?

Top: Games: Role playing: World Building: Created Worlds: Science Fiction

Or the following Gimpsy category?

I want to > Play > games > role playing > Sci-Fi

It is therefore safe to assume that users who trail through either Directory structure will have a very clear idea of what to expect from sites found there. Such matching of content with user expectation guarantees that the conversion rate of visitors from Directories will be significantly better than standard Search Engines.

Directories as Link Partners

The Importance of Link Popularity

It would be safe to assume that Link Popularity now plays a significant role in the ranking algorithm of all the major Search Engines.

The challenge for site owners and web masters is to increase Link Popularity, which in turn increases the likelihood of pages from their sites appearing high in the search results. One of the best ways to start a link campaign is to get links from Directories. If you put the right amount of effort (and money) into it, you can see your Link Popularity increase significantly in a short space of time. The question is: Which directories are worth paying for? Here’s some pointers to make an educated decision.

Link Types

The first and most important consideration is the link type. There are two types of links: Simple Link (otherwise known as Static Link) and a Redirected Link. You cannot discover the difference by clicking on them — the results are absolutely identical, but from the perspective of gaining link popularity, knowing the difference is vital.

A Simple Link is a link that contains the target URL of the site and directly points to it, as in this link: http://www.yourdomain.com. On the other hand, a Redirected Link points to a URL inside the current site, and has a longer URL like this: http://www.thisdirectory.com/jump.php?www.yourdomain.com. You can check the type of links used by a Directory by observing the ‘Status bar’ at the bottom of your browser while hovering your mouse over the links.

If your primary objective is to increase your link popularity, then only submit to web directories which use simple links. Obtaining redirected links is just a waste of your time (and money). A good sure way in identifying the type of link a directory uses is to check the PR of its category pages. Redirected link pages will often have no PR.

PageRank and Back Links

Not all links are created equal - some are more important than others. If you have the Google toolbar installed, it will give you a rough estimate on the page’s ‘importance’, or PageRank (PR), on a scale of 0 to 10. A Directory with a high PR is more important than a Directory with a low PR. Having your link on a page with a high PR will transfer more PR to your site.

Invariably, the Home Page of the directory will have the highest PR, but very few (if any) sites will be listed there. What you need to examine is the PR of the specific Category (page) in which your site will be listed to get an idea of the ’strength’ of vote you are likely to receive from this link. For example, although DMOZ has an exceptionally high PR of 9 on its home page, most of it’s deeper categories have a PR of 4.

Also consider the number of outgoing links on the specific category page you wish to be listed on. It’s great if the category page has a PR6, however if the site is not well maintained and there is hundreds of links on that page, then minimal PR will be transferred to your site.

In Summation: Look for Directories which make use of simple links, have high PR category pages, with few outgoing links on the page. This will ensure maximum link popularity will be transferred to your site, which ultimately will boost your search engine rankings.

Final words

How can you make a good decision when faced with so many options and considerations? The answer lies, perhaps, in limiting the number of directories you submit to. When beginning your linking campaign I feel you should submit to all free niche directories, and select a few paid submission directories that will most benefit you in terms of link popularity and traffic. Most paid directories will require you make a one-time payment between $5-50 USD. This is money well spent. Having to pay for submission will deter most other webmasters, hence there will be fewer outgoing links on each category page - so you gain maximum link popularity and it’s a great traffic generator as visitors browsing the directory can easily find your site without having to wade through hundreds of links.

Below are a few web directories I strongly recommend to submit to:

• BlueFind

• GreatNexus

• Arielis

• IstSpotNet

• LinkoPedia

• ThisIsOurYear

About The Author

David Di Cristo is an online entrepreuner and owner of http://www.online-sellers-resource.com/

david@online-sellers-resource.com

What good is your website if no one knows about it? The reason most webmasters fail within their first year is because they overlook advertising and promotion. Just because you have a perfectly designed website does not mean that people will find it. It is not hard to produce a steady stream of targeted traffic, and it can be absolutely free if you do it right. Below are eight free ways to produce quality targeted traffic for your website.

1. Search Engines

Search Engines are one of the best sources for targeted traffic and potential customers, so search engines should be one of the biggest factors for advertising and promotion. Did you know that most people never click past the first page of search engines? You need to be on the first page of search engines for your targeted keywords to generate targeted traffic. Getting your website to the top of search engines such as Google and Yahoo for free takes special methods called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search Engines Optimization envolves many factors, such as Meta Tags, Inbound Links, title tags, keywords, content, and PageRank. Since SEO is such an advanced field, HitsBam has written a completely seperate article entitled A Complete Guide to Search Engine Optimization to get you to the top of search engines for free.

2. Message Boards

Message Boards, or commonly known as forums, are great places to make partnerships with other webmasters and gain targeted traffic. First, create a signature post file with your name and URL so everytime you post a message, people will be interested in your website. Then introduce yourself slowly by posting useful information and answering questions. The more active you become in the forum, the better, because you will be known as an “expert”, which gives you and your website a good reputation. Always remember to obide by the forum’s rules and NEVER spam them with your website. A good signature for a forum would look something like this:

———————————————

Your Name

http://www.yourwebsite.com

“A funny or catchy quote”

———————————————

3. Email Signatures

Imagine that every email you send out is advertising for your website. This can be a reality if you utilize email signatures. Almost every email program or website has this feature. You can use it when sending personal emails, business emails, when you email your clients, in your autoresponder, or any other email that is sent. Email Signatures are perfect to keep people coming back to your website because the signature reminds them that your website exists. Remember to never spam, it just is not worth it. A good email signature would look something like this:

———————————————

Your Name

Your Website Title

http://www.yourwebsite.com

“Your Slogan” or a Short Description

———————————————

4. Content

Content, Content, Content! Search engines are so sophisticated these days that the only real way to get on the top of search engines is to have good keyword-rich content. Not only will you recieve top rankings on search engines, people will actually want to visit your site, especially if the content is for free. You could also post your articles at ezines and websites and leave your link at the bottom. This lets people know that you are knowledgable and that they should visit your website, and it works suprisingly well to generate targeted traffic for free. You can make some real money selling links on your website if you have good content. Some websites with a PageRank of 7 or more sell links for $250+ a month! Don’t forget to place your keywords all over your website and in your articles. The more keywords you incorporate into your content, the better, just make sure it is still an understandable article and not just an article full of keywords.

5. Start A Newsletter

Newsletters can be a great way to keep visitors comming back to your website. It is suggested that you send out a unique issue every week to keep reminding the customers that you are still here, but make sure each issue is different and has something to offer the reader, usually free information. Once you reach about 100 subscribers, the newsletter can become an income generator, as you can sell ad space on it. You can find some great free scripts for your newsletter at www.ACJavascripts.com.

6. Awards
Submitting your site to be chosen for awards is a great way to get people to find your website. If you happen to win a big award that fits the color scheme of your website, you could display it proudly on your front page showing your visitors that the website is reliable and has won awards. You can find out more about how to apply for awards with free software from http://www.market-tek.com/awardsite.html.

7. Free Stuff

Free stuff to offer your visitors is a great way to keep them comming back or to persuade them to buy your products. There are many things you can offer, such as email addresses, games, information, tips and hints, software, ebooks, and the list goes on. You could give away something that would compliment a sale for your product. An example would be to give away free information on how dirty air can cause health problems if you are selling air purifiers.

8. Traffic Swarm

We usually do not support traffic exchange programs and click for traffic programs, but we have found an exception. A program called Traffic Swarm has been one of our biggest targeted traffic producers. Its unique way of letting the surfer choose what site they want to visit has proven successful and has reflected its success to its members. They do offer a pro memebership that gives you bonus credits, 2000 credits per month, a featured site link, and much more. HitsBam highly suggests joining this free program.

This article was written by http://www.hitsbam.com

Want to know the #1 misconception among Internet marketers and website owners?

Here it is:

The biggest mistake web owners make is thinking that it’s all about GETTING MORE TRAFFIC.

The term ‘web traffic’ gets over 43,000 inquiries per month according to Overture - that’s over half a million queries a year! And that’s not including the related searches like ‘web site traffic’, ‘get more hits’, ‘increase web traffic, etc.

Of course this is understandable from one point of view. With search engines changing algorithms and competitor websites multiplying, it’s understandable that web site traffic via the search engines is dwindling. (That’s not the only way to get traffic but that’s a whole NEW article). So wanting more traffic for your website is a noble aspiration.

However it’s not the most important thing. Not even close.

There’s another factor that’s even MORE important than having a well designed website or even getting web site traffic. What is it?

Web Conversion.

Web conversion is the ratio of sales to visitors to your website. So for example, if you get 100 unique visitors to your website and make 1 sale, your conversion rate is 1 / 100 or 1%.

Increasing your web conversion rate is 10 times more important than getting more traffic - in my humble opinion.

Want proof? Just run some numbers.

Let’s say you’re getting 100 unique visitors to your website per day and that you make 1 sale per day (or per 100 visitors). So your conversion rate is 1%. Let’s say that each sale nets you $100. So you’re making $100 a day or $700 a week.

Not bad right?

But let’s say you want make more money so you decide to get more traffic. You run some pay per click ads and get 50 more unique visitors a day. (Or maybe you hire a SEO expert and pay thousands of dollars to get higher rankings, or maybe you buy some high-ranking links, etc.) Regardless that’s a 50% jump in traffic.

Pretty impressive. But you’ve definitely put out a LOT of effort and even money to get more traffic. Was it worth it?

Well, you’re now making an average of 10.5 sales per week (150 hits per day x 7 days x 0.01). That’s approximately $1050 per week - or an extra $350 a week.

That’s pretty good. But it did cost you depending on how you got that extra traffic.

Now let’s look at a much EASIER way to increase sales.

Let’s say you do some research on web conversion and how to build a better-converting website. You do some tweaks here and there, test it, take out some text, test it, write better copy, make your website cleaner, test it, make the product benefits stand out…and voila your conversion rate goes up to 3%

(That’s not hard to do, some websites even have a 20% conversion rate).

Now let’s look at your sales. You haven’t gotten any more traffic but at 100 unique visitors a day and 3% conversion rate you’re making 100 x 0.03 = 3 sales or $300 a day. That’s $2100 per week - an extra $1400.

Wow.

And did you spend thousands of dollars to get better rankings and more traffic? Did you spent $50-$200 a week on pay per click traffic? No - you just spent some time learning and tweaking your site to increase the conversion rate.

See how much easier that is? Now obviously it’s a little more complicated than that - you have to test and track your results to see what works and what doesn’t work.

But in the end you have a high-converting website that just keeps making money for you while you relax and go on vacation. You don’t have ongoing costs to your SEO expert or the pay per click search engines either.

Considering how much easier and profitable it is to focus on increasing your conversion rate over getting more traffic, you’d think that most webmasters and marketers would be more concerned with conversion.

Want to know the shocking thing?

They’re not! (Ok, the really smart ones are, but most of the other ones are trying to increase traffic).

Remember how we said above that the term ‘web traffic’ gets over 43,000 enquiries per month? Guess how many enquiries the term ‘web site conversion’ gets? 316!

It’s absolutely mind-blowing. Very few webmasters are trying to increase their conversion rate. Most of them are spinning their wheels trying to increase traffic!

If you’ve been wearing yourself out trying to get more web traffic, take a minute and realize there is an easier way to increase sales. Focus on web conversion and you’ll be miles ahead of the competition - probably for years to come.

Kate Fox is contributing writer to Web Conversion

For more free tips and articles on how to improve your web conversion rate and make more sales, visit: http://www.web-conversion.com

With all the buzz going on about the importance of a site’s link popularity, the “look and feel” of your Add URL page (or whatever you have named your add URL page) has taken on an increased importance as well.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the look and feel of your site’s Add URL page?

During the research phase of creating my “Link Popularity IQ” Web site, I encountered Add URL pages that spanned the full spectrum of a possible look and feel rating of 1 to 10.

The “Look” of Your Add URL Page

When you are ready to design (or re-design) your site’s Add URL page, make sure that the quality of that design is as high as possible. Possible link partners visiting your site’s Add URL page may very well make a snap judgement of the quality of your site based solely on the look of that one page.

Make sure you pay just as much attention to the look of your Add URL page as you do to what you consider the most important pages on your site.

The “Feel” of Your Add URL Page

The feel of your Add URL page is just as important as its look. If the “how to link to us” instructions on your Add URL page are not 100% clear and easy to understand, your potential link partner may simply go on to the next site on her list of possible partners.

Take the time to create an Add URL page that contains easy-to-understand instructions on how the link exchange process should be done.

An Example of a Quality Add URL Page

I hope you won’t think it pretentious of me for saying that the Add URL page on my site is an example of an Add URL page that deserves a look and feel rating of 8 to 10.

I invite you to visit my Add URL page (http://wwww.lpiq.com/add-url) and judge for yourself.

A Free Add URL Template

If you like the look and feel of my Add URL page, you are invited to check out my free Add URL Page Template (http://www.lpiq.com/template).

Please feel free to use the template as an aid when designing or re-designing your own Add URL page.

Summary

You should strive for a look and feel rating of between 8 and 10 for your own Add URL page. If you can attain a look and feel rating of 10 for your own Add URL page, so much the better. The extra time you take now to do it right will pay off handsomely in the future for the link popularity of your site.

About The Author

Bob Hampton designs and builds his own Websites. His most recent site is Link Popularity IQ (http://www.lpiq.com/lpiq). He invites you to test your knowledge of link popularity by taking his free Link Popularity IQ Test (http://www.lpiq.com/test).

The trick to making it REALLY big on the internet biz channel these days is to become an authority. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, if you are THE authority on it, you’ll be making money in no time!

Imagine it, you want to become involved in the world of selling candle wax. You’ve noticed that you and your friends all have a hard time buying candle wax online for decent prices or quality support, and you decide that you’ve had enough. You want to become the top authority in the world of candle wax selling!

Now that you’ve got your niche, you need to create an attractive and useful website. I know this is harder than I make it out to be, but I’m going to assume you can do this well enough. For these types of sites you almost have to have a message board / forum, tons of content, and fresh articles. You can get the articles from great sites such as the one you are on right now, or many others. The forums are easy to achieve via php boards, and the content is where you can put your own knowledge.

Now that you’ve got your site live, and applied basic seo principals, you’ll start to see some decent traffic. The most important part of being an authority is to become number one under a few of your keywords in a search engine (yahoo / google / msn are the biggest 3). Once you’ve achieved that, your site will be recieving very bulk amounts of hits. You’re probably thinking, duh, no kidding, with all that traffic my adsense would sky rocket! Or, my affiliate program would be huge with that!

WRONG! Don’t think small, think unrealistic! Wouldn’t you rather make unrealistic amounts of money than normal, every day ho hum chump change? Make your own product, the easiest way to do this is write your own ebook. Write a good guide, a good story, some good advice, just write something halfway good. Since YOUR the authority, people will be clamoring to buy your book. After all, your the best.

Now, if you want to take this a step further, and I know you do, then you’ll want to create a few sister sites, all more orientated toward profit. Using your authority site for page rank and advertisement, give these sister sites huge, awesome reviews, and highly recommend them. You’ll see all of said sites gain huge profits, probably over night!

Chris Everson and Mark Shay
http://www.therealincome.com
Make your future a reality today.

1. Directory Linking
Create a directory of web sites on a specific topic.
Give people the option of adding the directory to
their web site by linking to it. Put your business
advertisement at the top of the director’s home
page. This technique will get lots of people to link
to your web site and give you free advertising.

2. Bonus Advertising
Do you have a product or service that doesn’t sell
good? Offer it as a free bonus for someone else’s
product or service. Get free advertising by placing
your web site or business ad on the product or in
the product package.

3. Autoresponder Trade
Trade autoresponder ads with other businesses.
If both of you send out information with auto-
responders just exchange a small classified ad
to put at the bottom or top of each other’s
autoresponder message.

4. Tip Line
Start a free tip line. Offer a free daily, weekly, or
monthly tip recorded on your voice mail. The tips
should be related to your business. Include your ad
for your web site or business at the beginning or
end of your message.

5. Content Swap
Exchange content with other web sites and ezines.
You could trade articles, top ten lists, etc. Both
parties could include a resource box at the end of
the content.

About the author:

Rojo Sunsen is a specialized bounty hunter who prefers to work quietly/confidentially for the benefit of her clients.

Directories help locate websites within specific or definite categories. The difference between search engines and directories is that, directories feature only vetted websites, sites that have a certain standard and contain information of substance.

One of the aims of using directories is to boost traffic. To achieve this, one must choose to be featured in large, organized directories like Yahoo, DMOZ, and LookSmart. These will drive highly targeted traffic to you site (subject specific), increase significantly the link popularity, and Google PageRank.

To maximize exposure:

• Find a category that is most relevant to your website. The category and subcategories must totally fit the subject of your site and its purpose. For example, if your site is health related business the site must feature under health and not business. Only then, will surfers seeking health related websites access yours. Do a keyword search that is relevant to your site on the directory. The directory will throw up categories relevant to the key words. Choose one which is suited in all aspects.

• Coin a title and description that will boost traffic not reduce it. The title must be “dead on.” It should include the most important key word and if possible begin with a letter towards the beginning of the alphabet. And, the 15-25 word description should succinctly summarize the purpose or functions of your site. While being descriptive and informative, try and weave in as many keywords pertaining to your site as possible.

• Purchase keywords from one of the pay-per-click search engines or directories.

• Make the website search engine friendly.

• Pay attention to text and image content. Heavy images reduce search engine visibility.

• Use back links on appropriate directories and trade or business listings. Check out the back links used by competitors.

• Add new content regularly. This encourages visitors and search engine spiders to return. Make sure the content is keyword rich.

• Start and maintain a web log or blog. This can become an active way to boost traffic while simultaneously disseminating information.

• Market your website by printing its address on business cards, paper bags, packaging and so on. Distribute an e-zine or updates as newsletters regularly to customers and business associates.

• Consider paying search engines for improved listings and fast appraisal of your site.

• Direct content towards search engines by adopting cloaking technology.

• Run advertisements on related web sites and mailing lists.

• Adopt a reciprocal link program.

Maximize traffic by monitoring your traffic regularly. Analyze visitor movements and frequencies. Find out what is effective and what is redundant. Use cookies efficiently. Understand technology and use it to the maximum. Keep updated on new innovations and developments. Write down a workable website marketing strategy.

There are simple steps to victory: be different, make sure your website is refreshing and delivers what it promises; create a network of supporters; be honest in your business ventures; deliver on time at affordable costs; be a learner all your life, constantly innovate your website to keep stride with changing times; carve out an exclusive niche and diversify in directions that are relevant to your business module.

Paul Wilson is a freelance writer for http://www.1866WebDirectory.com, the premier website directory provides human edited categorized website listings including business websites, news websites, gaming websites, shopping websites, travel websites and more. He also freelances for http://www.1888PressRelease.com