The more links to your Web Site, the more traffic you should get and the better your Link Popularity. Besides the direct traffic that links to your Web Site provide, another benefit to improving your Web Site Link Popularity is that some of the search engines, in particular Goggle, now include this as an important factor in ranking web sites. An excellent way to increase your Link Popularity is through Reciprocal Linking. Reciprocal Links Reciprocal linking is one of the most effective ways of driving targeted visitors to your web site. In order to be successful you have to carefully target and choose the sites you want to link with. Focus on linking to high-traffic, quality web sites, which will interest your visitors and which complement your site, not compete with it. Simply put, it is a big mistake to link to a competing site with a similar product. You will lose business that way. Instead, you should look for a few high traffic sites to trade links with, rather than a bunch of low traffic sites. The results are much better. There are a couple of ways to look for web sites for potential reciprocal links. The first is to go to one of the major search sites like Yahoo! or Goggle. Enter the keywords and key phrases which relate to the theme of your web site to find out which sites are coming out on top. Review these sites to find some that complement yours. Send the webmasters of these sites an email and ask them if they would be willing to exchange links with you. You can even provide them with a keyword or description to link to your site from. As long as you are not competing with them, you stand a good chance to complete this link exchange. Once you have completed this, consider checking out the web sites that link to the ones you have traded links with already. The next thing to do is try to take traffic away from your competition. If you don’t know them already, you probably found a good number of them while you were searching for complementary sites. Now is the time to make use of that information. Go to www.google.com, or another search engine that provides information on which web sites link to which. Say, for example, that one of your competitor’s web sites was www.competitor.com. Instead of doing a regular search, type link:www.competitor.com. Both of these search engines will return all the sites in their database that link to www.competitor.com. Since many of the sites that are linking to your competitors are sending them traffic (and business), they are prime candidates to ask for more links. Chances are if these sites link to your competitor they will link to you too. One way to make this process easier is with software designed to help you increase your link popularity. Axandra’s iBusinessPromoter (IBP) is a multi-award winning web site promotion software tool that has a module that helps you build your business network quickly and easily. IBP greatly simplifies the task of finding partner web sites that could link to your site. Those partner sites mean more targeted and free visitors to your site and they greatly increase your link popularity, resulting in much better search engine rankings for your site. An easy way to get started is to download the FREE Trial version today. You even get a free eBook that teaches you everything you need to know about link management.

All of the major search engines display paid listings. With this form of search engine advertising you can pay to have your web site appear in the top of the search term results you are interested in within a day or two. If your goal is to build visibility on search engines quickly then Pay-Per-Click listings are an option that you should explore. No other route can put you in the top results of many major search engines in such a short period of time.

Overture is the largest “pay-per-click” search engine. It allows you “bid” on the keyword search terms you wish to be listed under. You agree to pay a certain amount each time someone clicks on your listing. An account requires a $50 minimum deposit, and you must spend at least $20 per month. Since you have control over how much you want to bid for your keywords you don’t have to spend more than the $20 minimum each month. If nothing else, its worth opening an account for a couple of months to experiment with different keywords while also driving some quality traffic to your site. After that you may be getting enough traffic through Search Engine Optimization. While some people go directly to the Overture web site to search, most people encounter Overture’s paid listings via Yahoo!, MSN, Lycos, AltaVista, and Netscape.

Google offers Pay-Per-Click advertising with its AdWords Program. Google charges a $5 activation fee and charges a per click fee based on your click through rate and a maximum amout you set. This means that you can be listed higher than someone paying more for your chosen keyword if your site is more relevant. One advantage to this approach is that you only pay the minimum amount required to get to the top of the listing, so you don’t have to monitor your position every day. AdWords results are also provided to AOL, Ask Jeeves, IWon, Netscape, and Teoma. In addition, with the advent of AdSense your Google AdWords Banners will appear on websites with relevant content. AdSense could be a great way for you to make money with your web site. Now that you’ve got yourself listed, let’s make sure your pages shine by optimizing for the web crawlers.

You should start your search engine submission process by submitting your web site to the major directories and crawler-based search engines that allow free submission. With the industry consolidation, this has now become a simple process. Just submit your site to Google, Microsoft Bing, Yahoo, and the Open Directory and you’ve got free search engine submission covered. To get good results after submission, spend some time and money for Pay-per-click and search engine Optimization.

Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet. The best way to ensure a high listing on Google is for your page to be linked to from many other relevant web sites. Google’s robots jump from page to page on the Web via links, so the more sites that link to you, that is, the higher your Link Popularity, the more likely it is that you will have a high ranking. Go to our Search Engine Optimization page for more information on getting a high search engine ranking on Google and other search engines.

Microsoft Bing is the latest generation decision engine that is using the MSNBot Crawler. You can submit your site to it for free.

You can now get listed in Yahoo for free since its default search results come from crawling web sites. Since Yahoo now owns Alltheweb, AltaVista, and Inktomi make sure you submit your site to Yahoo.

Getting listed in the Open Directory Project is a multi-step process, but well worth your time as many search engines get results from these pages. You should first read the Instructions on how to add your site. Then look at the categories in the directory to decide which one you would like your site to be listed in. To add your site use the Add URL link on the directory page you would like your site to be included in.

Once you have Optimized your pages for the crawler-based search engines its time to consider Pay-per-click search engine submission.

Search engine optimization means improving the chances that your web pages will be found by the search engines. The term “search engine” is often used generically to describe both crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories. These two types of search engines gather their listings in different ways. Crawler-Based Search Engines Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings with ”robot” programs that “crawl” or “spider” the web. The pages that are displayed on a search are based on what the “robots” find. If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and this can effect how your web site is listed. Page titles, meta tags, body copy and other page elements all impact your page ranking. People-Powered Directories A human-powered directory, such as Yahoo, depends on people for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions you submit. Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing. Hybrid Search Results It is now common for a search engine to present both human-powered listings and crawler-based results. Usually mixed search results favor one type of listings over another. For example, Yahoo first presents its human-powered listings, but it also presents crawler-based results from Google. Search Relevancy Crawler-based search engines determine page relevancy by following a set of rules, known as an algorithm. Although exactly how a particular search engine’s algorithm works is a closely-kept trade secret all major search engines follow these general criteria. Keywords – Location and Frequency One of the the main criteria in a page ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Pages with the search terms appearing in the HTML title tag are considered more relevant to a search than other pages. Search engines also consider web pages with keywords near the top of the page, such as in the headline or the first few paragraphs of text, to be more relevant to the search topic. In addition to location of keywords, frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages. HOWEVER, we must point out that having too high a frequency will offend both your reader and the search engines. This is considered “spamming” a search engine and will actually lower your page ranking. Search engines, and people scanning your web page, want to quickly find the specific information they are looking for on that page. The information they are looking for are the “keyword phrases” you compiled when writing your web site description. These key phrases play an important role in obtaining a high search engine ranking, and getting the reader to stay on your web site. The page title tag is the most important location for your keyword phrases. Not only does this count for a lot in the search engine rankings, its the first line people see displayed in the listings. This tag has the double duty of catching the attention of the search engines and influencing a person to click on your listing. These 8 to 10 words must include your target keywords, starting with the most important. Your page headline should include your most important key phrases and encourage your reader to read your web page. Work your list of key phrases into the first few paragraphs in a way that makes the page relevant to the search engines while being easy for your reader to follow. Meta Tags Meta tags are not as important as they used to be for search engine ranking because many of the search engines don’t use them as part of their ranking criteria. Even so, its good to its still good to have a short list of your important keywords in the keyword tag. The description tag may actually be more important as some of the engines still use this under the title to describe your site in their listings. Since you need a short description when you submit your web site to directories, it only takes a couple minutes to add this tag to your web site. Description tag – provides a description of the search engine to show with your listing. Keywords tag – provides keywords for the search engine to associate with your page. Popularity and Click-Through Some search engines, Google in particular, consider how “popular” a web page is by analyzing how many pages link to that page to determine how “important” it is. More popular pages will get a ranking boost. Another way some search engines adjust ranking is with click-through measurement. In short, this means that a search engine may watch what results someone selects for a particular search, then eventually drop high-ranking pages that aren’t attracting clicks, while promoting lower-ranking pages that do pull in visitors. Now that you understand a little about how the search engines work, lets check out some tools you can use to make this process easier.

Search engine optimization means improving the chances that your web pages will be found by the search engines. The term “search engine” is often used generically to describe both crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories. These two types of search engines gather their listings in different ways. Crawler-Based Search Engines Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings with ”robot” programs that “crawl” or “spider” the web. The pages that are displayed on a search are based on what the “robots” find. If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and this can effect how your web site is listed. Page titles, meta tags, body copy and other page elements all impact your page ranking. People-Powered Directories A human-powered directory, such as Yahoo, depends on people for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions you submit. Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing. Hybrid Search Results It is now common for a search engine to present both human-powered listings and crawler-based results. Usually mixed search results favor one type of listings over another. For example, Yahoo first presents its human-powered listings, but it also presents crawler-based results from Google. Search Relevancy Crawler-based search engines determine page relevancy by following a set of rules, known as an algorithm. Although exactly how a particular search engine’s algorithm works is a closely-kept trade secret all major search engines follow these general criteria. Keywords – Location and Frequency One of the the main criteria in a page ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Pages with the search terms appearing in the HTML title tag are considered more relevant to a search than other pages. Search engines also consider web pages with keywords near the top of the page, such as in the headline or the first few paragraphs of text, to be more relevant to the search topic. In addition to location of keywords, frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages. HOWEVER, we must point out that having too high a frequency will offend both your reader and the search engines. This is considered “spamming” a search engine and will actually lower your page ranking. Search engines, and people scanning your web page, want to quickly find the specific information they are looking for on that page. The information they are looking for are the “keyword phrases” you compiled when writing your web site description. These key phrases play an important role in obtaining a high search engine ranking, and getting the reader to stay on your web site. The page title tag is the most important location for your keyword phrases. Not only does this count for a lot in the search engine rankings, its the first line people see displayed in the listings. This tag has the double duty of catching the attention of the search engines and influencing a person to click on your listing. These 8 to 10 words must include your target keywords, starting with the most important. Your page headline should include your most important key phrases and encourage your reader to read your web page. Work your list of key phrases into the first few paragraphs in a way that makes the page relevant to the search engines while being easy for your reader to follow. Meta Tags Meta tags are not as important as they used to be for search engine ranking because many of the search engines don’t use them as part of their ranking criteria. Even so, its good to its still good to have a short list of your important keywords in the keyword tag. The description tag may actually be more important as some of the engines still use this under the title to describe your site in their listings. Since you need a short description when you submit your web site to directories, it only takes a couple minutes to add this tag to your web site. Description tag – provides a description of the search engine to show with your listing. Keywords tag – provides keywords for the search engine to associate with your page. Popularity and Click-Through Some search engines, Google in particular, consider how “popular” a web page is by analyzing how many pages link to that page to determine how “important” it is. More popular pages will get a ranking boost. Another way some search engines adjust ranking is with click-through measurement. In short, this means that a search engine may watch what results someone selects for a particular search, then eventually drop high-ranking pages that aren’t attracting clicks, while promoting lower-ranking pages that do pull in visitors. Now that you understand a little about how the search engines work, lets check out some tools you can use to make this process easier.

What started out looking like the world was coming to an end turned out to be a pretty good year for the stock market. In fact, by the numbers it was a fantastic year. The only sign of a negative number was last year’s shining star Managed Futures, which were down a couple of percent, and Long Term Bonds, which you should not have had in your portfolio anyway.

Continue reading the Insightful Investing Newsletter January 2010 …

One of the best ways to promote your business is by writing an e-mail newsletter. This allows you to easily stay in touch with your clients and potential customers. It also helps you to generate trust, develop brand awareness, and build future business. By providing something your clients want with every issue, you also have an opportunity to sell additional products and services. While publishing an e-zine is a big commitment, distributing a newsletter on a weekly or monthly basis can keep your business in the minds of your current and potential customers.

As we mentioned in our ‘Top Ten Tips for Marketing Your Business’ a Free e-mail newsletter is an excellent way give something away something of value to prospective customers to give them a feel for the quality of your products or services. When you provide something that people find useful, don’t be surprised when you get a phone call from a potential client that read your newsletter because one of your subscribers found it interesting enough to forward to his colleagues. Here are some tips for creating your newsletter. 1. Define a purpose and theme for your newsletter. First, decide what you are trying to accomplish for your business with your newsletter. Then determine a consistent message that you want to get across to your customers with every issue. For most of us, our purpose is to get more business. You can do this by showing your customers that you are an authority in your field by providing them with useful information for free. This will build up a trust in you that will allow potential customers to be comfortable doing business with you even if they have not personally met you. 2. Subscribe to related newsletters. Here are several reasons to subscribe to related newsletters: – Keep an eye on what your competition is doing – Stay on top of the latest news in your field – Get some ideas for articles you’d like to include in your newsletter – Have first hand knowledge of quality publications to advertise your own newsletter in 3. Create a template that includes consistent topics and format. The decision on using HTML vs. Text for your newsletter is not one to be taken lightly. While creating an HTML newsletter is more work than using a Text based newsletter, one important benefits is a more professional look. Either way, make sure you newsletter has a consistent look and has the same ‘Departments’ each time you send it out. For example, we include something about Marketing, Promotions, and Search Engines every month. 4. Find a service provider to handle your subscriber sign-up and e-mail distribution. There are at least a couple of dozen companies that provide email marketing services. One place that’s good to start out with is MailerMailer. They have a free service that you can use for up to 200 messages per month. Once you get beyond that, we recommend choosing a paid for service to handle this chore for you. Another inexpensive service you can try before you buy is Aweber. 5. Set up a regular schedule, and get your newsletter out on time each month (or week). Put it on your calendar so that you make it a regular part of your routine. Once your readers get used to receiving your valuable content, they will look forward to hearing from your on a regular basis. 6. Write your newsletter. Make sure you provide your readers with information that is so good that not only will they save your newsletter, they will forward it to their colleagues. There is so much information available for free on the Web that yours will need to stand out both in terms of quality and in terms of relevance to keep from being deleted before being read.