In fact, as the site owner, you are extremely powerful. With just a little tracking and troubleshooting, you can dramatically improve both your site visitors’ experience and your overall profits.

TRACKING

Knowing where your visitors are coming from gives you a lot of ideas. While the site stats that come with most hosting packages are OK, there is a lot of room for improvements in most cases. Between hits, clicks, unique visitors, and page views who really knows just how many people end up at your site and from where?

Once you understand which ads, banners, or PPC search engine lists pull better, you are able to spend your advertising funds more effectively.

ACTION STEPS:

Track Your Ads

Spend a little time investigating tracking services. ProBizTrack at http://www.probiztrack.com/ (my own service) is affordable and effective. It will give you a start. Even if you choose to go with a service besides mine, use something to help you know for sure which ads are pulling and which are just wasting your money.

If you think tracking services are too expensive, you can still track results semi-effectively. Use coding at the end of your links. By placing “?code” (without the quotes) at the end of your domain name, you create a unique page. This page will be visible in your Web site stats. For example, if you are advertising in The Best Ezine, you can use the URL of http://www.mydomainname.com - best to track visits to your page.

Become Your Own Affiliate

Another idea for those who sell electronic products via ClickBank (or other services) is to sign up as your own affiliate under several “nicknames.” Then you can use your various affiliate IDs in ads. NOTE: You will have to pay your affiliate program’s fee on any sales made through the affiliate links, but you’ll get some good information in exchange.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Once you have narrowed down where your visitors are coming from and which ads are pulling best, you’ll want to be sure visitors have a good buying experience when they reach your site.

You know your site. You are familiar with which pages link to what and how the shopping cart works. First-time visitors will have no clue! Don’t assume your site is a breeze to navigate. Pay attention to elements like:

? ease of navigation,
? shopping cart application, and
? location of "help" buttons & links.

Make every effort to give your shoppers a simple and quick way to buy from you.

ACTION STEPS:

Conduct A Survey

Conduct a survey of your visitors. Find out if they were able to locate what they were looking for. Ask how their experience with your payment gateway went. Question how their contact with customer service was. One simple way to do this is to create a survey using Survey Monkey at http://www.surveymonkey.com. They offer some simple and free survey tools. Just load up your questions and post the link on your site. (To get the best results, you’ll want to offer a gift or the chance to register in a drawing to thank visitors for taking the time to participate.)

Ask

Ask a few people who have never been to your site to take it for a test drive. Make sure these folks know they should give their honest opinions. Sugarcoating problems might boost your ego, but it certainly won’t boost your sales.

By taking a little time to give due attention to how your visitors make their way to your site and what happens once they arrive, you’ll stand a much better shot at increasing your profits. While it may take a while to gather the information you need, this short-term sacrifice will reap some hefty long-term benefits.

Copyright 2005 Diane Hughes

Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com

FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful) Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your Business Into A Tower of Profits! ==>> http://madmarketer.com/diane

Submit the articles to a site like EzineArticles.com where they’re indexed by category and picked up by other sites to use as content. Soon, your website URL is getting plastered all over the net, and you’re working it in new circles thanks to your newfound expertise in your specialized area.

As you know, specific criteria must be met in order to boost your SE rank using offpage optimization. So the big question might be: does article marketing pack the muscle to push you up the search engines… or is it just a waste of time?

The answer is YES, it DOES pack the muscle… IF you’re submitting to hugely popular article sites like EzineArticles.com. Below is a list of the key elements in helping your own page rank through offpage SEO. Does EzineArticles.com have its bases covered? Let’s analyze.

Factors that Determine Your Offpage Optimization Success:

- If a site with a higher rank links to you.

Sites with higher rank “carry you along” to a better search engine position. Presently, EzineArticles ranks six out of ten for all websites and first in its article distribution category. You’ll quickly learn the advantage to this when you submit a keyword-optimized article to them and then do a Google search on those keywords only to see your EzineArticles article listing come up first or second in the line.

- A large number of sites linking to yours.

Fact: thousands of content publishers pick up articles from EzineArticles.com every day. So for every article you submit, the potential for links back from that article is unlimited. Thanks to EzineArticles.com’s popularity, the success of your backlinking strategy is pretty certain.

- The SE rank of the website linking to you is higher than your rank is.

EzineArticles.com has a Google page rank of 6. It stands to reason that if you’re just starting out in the web marketing world, you can do your site some good and post your articles with your URL on their website, which will then link back to you and improve your search engine status.

- The page title of the site that’s linking to yours is Search Engine Optimized.

Clearly, your site should be associated with other sites who are well-placed within their category. EzineArticles.com features a page title that speaks to its audience of potential users: “Ezine Article Submission - Submit Your Best Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints”

- The anchored links that point from their site to yours contain top keywords.

Search engine crawlers love anchored text links that are keyword-optimized, which is why websites that serve as a “content hub” rank higher than specialized sites and why lesser sites choose add their links to this site for optimal positioning and a win-win situation. EzineArticles.com has guaranteed that every page of their site will be fully indexed thanks to the anchored links that are used to list each topic, and the anchored links used as headlines (which is why it pays to turbo-boost your article headlines with keywords!)

- There are a high number of website linking to the site that’s linking to yours.

Every site that picks up content from EzineArticles.com is required to display their link at the bottom of each article used. That amounts to a huge amount of outside links pointing to their site which in turn links to yours.

- The links that point to your site don’t share a page with other links.

You’ll want your website to be linked from a page on someone else’s website that contains as few total links as possible. Why? Less of a chance for the reader to click away. On EzineArticles.com, your link appears at the bottom of your article which appears on its own page.

- There’s a large number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you.

The more outbound links the site that’s linking to you has, the more they could be considered a “categorical hub” on the web. And the better off you are for getting noticed on their site for its high rank and popularity. EzineArticles.com has an unlimited potential for outbound links due to their inclusion of an author’s URL with every article submission.

- The website linking to you is deemed an authority.

Google’s ability to deem a site as an “authority site” is what keeps the content on the web legitimate, and why sites that merely throw up a bunch of links to poorly written articles will never have the page rank that a site such as EzineArticles.com who is policing their content and making constant innovations has.

- The unique IP Addresses of the websites linking to you.

Thankfully, no site is able to “pull rank” by throwing up a bunch of links from one high-ranking site and pointing them to a second site. Search Engines read the IP addresses from where each domain originates. Right now you may be thinking, Oh, so those 100 links from articles on EzineArticles.com aren’t doing anything to improve my rank anyway? Wrong.

Those links are all being picked up by other sites, who are on the hunt for quality content. If you have something good to say, any number of sites with better rank will pick up your articles and link back to you… each of course, with its own IP Address. This will boost your rank in a big way.

By now it should be crystal clear to anyone reading this why article marketing by way of a high-ranking article distribution site such as EzineArticles.com is the easiest way to “offpage optimize” your website for increased placement on the search engine hierarchy.

In fact… it almost seems like article marketing was created to serve this very purpose…

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Dina Giolitto is the author of ARTICLE POWER: Create Dynamite Web Articles and Watch Your Sales Explode… a 49-page manual covering every aspect of article marketing on the web. Learn about article marketing, copywriting and more at http://www.wordfeeder.com

That and more can kill your business!

NEVER use your autoresponder for spamming in any way. You can lose your account, pay fines, get locked out from your ISP, lose your website and, above all, get jail time.

It’s a serious matter that must never be overlooked. Sure, you may stumble onto someone who says they can help you spam without getting caught. But please remember this…

The reason you want a smart autoresponder is to expose your sales message more than once to your prospects in order to create trust, credibility and believability.

So, why would you do something that literally contradicts that very notion? Spamming is good if it’s done once. That why spammers must keep spamming in order to stay alive!

Spamming is Like a Drug

Spamming is like a brief high… If it works (and it rarely does), it only brings a small cash infusion in the short term. That’s all. You have to remain unknown, cloaked, hidden.

Then you have to work, and work, and work… Non-stop!

On the other hand, if you build an opt-in list of eager, highly targeted prospects, you only need to work once… That’s it! You can spend the rest of your time growing your business.

Here are four seemingly easy ways of using your smart autoresponder that can kill your business really fast…

NEVER email a list of non-targeted email addresses picked at random (such as by using software to “harvest” email addresses posted on the web).

NEVER buy lists of email addresses from unknown list brokers or suppliers (many of them offer thousands of names on CD-ROMs, are often useless and are known as outright scams). Trust reputable ones only.

NEVER email any contact unless you have their explicit permission to do so (and that includes adding email addresses in bulk to your autoresponder database!).

NEVER share your own opt-in list to others, since their spam will kill your business even if it wasn’t your fault! Spam can get in a lot of hot water, plain and simple.

Why “Opt-in” and Not Spam?

As you know, using responsible email marketing to grow your business can help you save loads of time, fatten your bank account and give you an astonishing return on investment.

Instead of using spam, think about starting a legitimate opt-in list of targeted prospects, and then turn them into life-long customers by consistently keeping in touch with them.

Spammers usually don’t care if the people who receive the message are really interested or “not” in their offer. That’s why they tend to send an inordinate amount of emails…

… All with the hope that they get a few “bites.”

Look at it this way…

If you shoot a gun in the air (or in the dark), you will seldom hit a target. That’s why you have no choice but to keep shooting and shooting… Until you finally do hit it (if ever).

With an opt-in list, however, look at it as your target… It’s right there, before you, easy to hit (and hard to miss). Your chances of hitting your target are drastically higher. Right?

The absolute best way to protect yourself from complaints and disgruntled email recipients is to build an opt-in email list and sending email to only those people who asked for it.

Spammers are often enticed to carry out their unethical (and illegal in some places) practices because email is free and fast. But if you remember, it lacks the third “F:” Focus.

If You Lack Focus, Be Prepared…

Spammers with such an attitude find out the hard way that it’s really very costly, even dangerous. In fact, some of the recipients can make the spammer’s life quite miserable!

From complaining to your ISP or web host, to sending mail bombs, nasty viruses and even significant threats - from hacking into your computer to causing physical harm!

Plus, nowadays many recipients are members of a variety of anti-spam groups that arm members with tools for tracking, reporting, filtering and even stopping spammers’ attempts!

Of those, the most popular one is CAUCE (i.e., the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email). They have created a number of tools, such as blacklists, now used by most ISPs.

Finally, keep in mind that email software (and “add-ons”) are making it more and more difficult for spam to reach its final destination, from sophisticated filters to complaint reporters.

Less than a half-percent of people will get your spam!

Save Time, Effort and Money!

Building an opt-in list has a number of advantages. Sure, you can build trust with and sell a lot easier to a list of targeted people. But in addition, responsible email allows you to:

Send email offers to a group of people who know you, expect your emails and want to do business with you.

Achieve greater sales, even from a small list, since it is targeted (and will get through most email filters since your newsletter is added to the recipients’ “whitelists”).

Not upset anyone since they have given you their permission to email them, as well as not get in trouble with service providers since no one is complaining.

Not waste time, money and energy on buying and setting up email cloakers, spam-friendly servers, fake email accounts and useless bulk email software.

And, above all, not waste time constantly looking for a new ISP (and moving your website from host to host) because your last one closed your account!

If you’re putting those people who asked for more information via an autoresponder into an opt-in list, make sure they know: 1) they’re subscribing and 2) their email is kept private!

Treat your subscribers like gold… They’re your lifeblood!

Minimize complaints by making it as easy an as transparent as possible. In other words, tell them what they will get from you, how often and how easy it is to stop it at any time.

In fact, adding a privacy policy on your website or near your web form (or accessible near your autoresponder link) will increase the likelihood of getting people to join your list.

It can be as simple as this…

—————————————————
PRIVACY POLICY: Your email address is safe with us. We promise never to
sell to or share with anyone, for any reason, your personal contact information.
—————————————————

But if you want to create a more complete privacy policy web page (and perhaps have a link to it near your web form), here’s some information you might tell your prospects…

WHAT information is being collected (such as email addresses, names, phone numbers, etc).

WHY the information is being collected (tell them that it’s for a free report, ezine or whatever, and if you plan on adding their information into an opt-in list for sending periodic announcements or special offers).

WHEN that information is being used (tell them exactly how often do you plan on emailing them).

WHO will be using (or accessing) that information (while you should be the only one, here you might include staff, service providers, partners, etc).

WHERE the information is actually stored (tell them that the information is also secure from hackers)

And HOW to remove or modify that information (tell people exactly how they can update or change their details, or remove themselves from your list). Bottom-line, make your opt-in list safe and secure for both you AND your prospects. The more you do, the greater your profits will soar! Be responsible and use commonsense!

Make it Personal!

Finally, try to personalize your email messages. Personalization increases trust and confidence. But more importantly, it also shows that your message was voluntarily asked for.

Personalized messages get the attention of readers and can dramatically increase the readership. In fact, readers will be more receptive and attentive to your marketing message.

Whether your message is a plain text message or HTML, you can easily add personalization tags in the message: like the reader’s name, address, email addresses or even website!

Personalizing your messages will increase your sales!

For example, put the reader’s first name in the subject line. First, it will show that the message is wanted and not spam. But second, studies show that it will actually be read first!

Next, personalize the message content! That way, you not only give the reader content that’s relevant to them, but also give your message a more trustworthy and credible “feel!”

Ultimately, realize that personalization not only increases readership, response AND revenue, but it also increases the chances of it reaching its final destination in the first place!

Avoid being filtered out as spam!

Learn more about internet marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing go to internet marketing and website promotion.

Did he miraculously find a way to reproduce each egg? The numbers don’t add up, but still he became a millionaire. He also has proof that he’s officially a millionaire. Still puzzled about this? Well, here’s the answer; he started out as a billionaire. Huh, bad joke! No quite. That’s about how you must feel with all the business opportunities advertised day in and day out.

Everybody claims to make a fortune out of thin air and everybody claims to have proof that it works. If you’re long enough in this business you will realize that most of these claims and corresponding proof are copies from somebody else’s "success story". Ever so often there’s a new email floating around that claims the same exact results than a similar email that you received a few weeks ago. Same content different product.

But still, there are thousands and millions who want to believe that the only thing they have to do is to go online and start making money. That’s of course the message that all these clever internet marketers send out to a well responding crowd. These people are caught in the moment and act like deer in the headlights.

So what’s the outcome of this? Those gurus are making more money and the opportunity seekers are getting milked until they can’t afford it anymore. Now wonder there are so many angry and frustrated opportunity seekers out there.

My next question would be; are all these self proclaimed gurus just smoking mirrors and con artists? By all means NO! Everything they claim to be the next big money maker is possible for the most part of it. So why doesn’t it work for me?

The answer is simple. They have all the web traffic they need and thousands of quality contact email addresses at their disposal. If you don’t know it by now, it is one big numbers game! If you don’t have the numbers, you don’t make any money, period!

How do we win the rat race? So far the rats are winning and there’s little or nothing we can do. Well not quite. The one thing you have to do is changing your mindset. It’s no longer about winning; you need to get comfortable with the fact to be the runner-up.

Kiss the dream of a six-figure income goodbye and embrace the more realistic 3 and 4 figure margin; or even better, be happy to make at least some money. Most of your peers aren’t making nay money at all and just depleting the hard earned funds to a pile of rubble.

Based on this outlook shouldn’t you just close up shop and quit wasting your time? I hate to say this, but it depends. If you are able to learn from your mistakes and constantly tweaking your efforts and streamlining your products and services, you will have a good chance to survive. If you are a pure copycat and never ever invest a minute of your time to analyze your situation, sorry you have no future in this business.

I know I will stir up some heavy duty emotions with statements like these. However in my opinion it is the brutal truth. You have a choice. You can go out there and experience it first hand and most likely get burned or you can take a break now and analyze your situation. If you still believe you got what it takes, go for it. Everybody else, quit before somebody gets hurt.

Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Collect more free software and bonus content for your own web site at http://www.online-business-idea.com

In the previous three installments of this series, we covered a wide variety of different search features and strategies using the (currently) most popular search engine: Google.com

Today, I am going to take one of the earlier techniques of using the “wildcard” function “*” (the asterisk symbol, you know, the star like thingy above the #8 on your keyboard) and have some fun with it. Let’s begin.

According to Google: “A wildcard in a Google search query can be indicated by an asterisk and will match one or more entire words of text so that the query matches a contiguous sequence of words.” Here’s an example:

A search for [anti-spyware software *] will return searches for “anti-spyware software programs” and “anti-spyware software applications”. You could also search for [ * spyware ] which will return searches for “about:blank spyware”, “remove spyware”, “get rid of spyware”, “anti spyware” and many others.

You can also ask Google a question using a wildcard like this:

[how do I remove * spyware]

This query will return results about how to remove certain types of spyware like:

“how do I remove Kazaa spyware” and “how do I remove Xupiter spyware” etc..

If you really want to expand your search horizons, try using more than one wildcard. Perform the search [ how do I * * spyware] will return resulys such as: “how do I detect harmful spyware” and “how do I get rid of spyware”.

If you are real daring, use THREE wild cards like [how * I * * spyware] and Google will return back results such as: “how did I get infected with spyware”, “how do I remove nasty spyware” and “how can I get rid of spyware”.

Starting to see the possibilities? Now go get Googling!

If you missed any of the first three installments in this series, you may find them at: http://spyware.pcwash.com/articles_1.html

Traffic, or the volume of users who visit your site, is what ultimately dictates the success or failure of your enterprise. You may have the best looking site on the planet, offering the most beneficial package for would-be customers, but if no one gets to visit it, all would have been for naught.

Thus, generating traffic for your online business should be of utmost importance. Here are some proven ways in increasing the quantity of users who would visit your site.

1. Use Overture. Overture is a Yahoo subsidiary that offers a very useful keyword suggestion tool that could help you come up with the right keywords. Using the right keywords would rake in more visitors for your site. Simply punch in the words that are related to your products or services, and see how many searches were made for those particular entries. The more searches there are, the more you should consider using those keywords in your site.

2. Submit your site to the many search engines on the web. People who are looking for particular information use search engines to determine their destination. You would want to have your website shown once a search is made.

3. Know the value of keywords. Search engine spiders are sent to fetch the keywords embedded in your site, so it would serve you well if your pages are populated with the right keywords you’ve acquired from Overture.

4. Provide quality content. Populating your site with keywords would be useless if done carelessly. Your visitors would be looking for information, and it would be best to give them that. Otherwise, they’ll just leave as quickly as they came. Remember, you want quality visitors, those who have the highest possibility of purchasing what you have to offer. You have to provide good, informative content for them so that they’ll stay. Try to publish articles or special reports on your site, where your keywords are strategically positioned in the body of your content at a density level of at least 2% (2 mentions of the keywords per 100 words of the body).

5. Consider setting up multiple sites. It has recently been discovered that the number of sites linked to yours influence your search engine ranking. By setting up multiple sites under different domains, and linking them together to form a congruent whole, you will be able to climb up the search engine ladder.

6. Link exchanges. You may also exchange links and/or banners with webmasters who operate a site that is related to yours. This would increase the possibility of cross-jumping visitors who would get exposed to your site and the products or services you offer.

7. Promote in online communities. Join forums, mailing lists, discussion boards and similar gatherings of people online. Most of them would start threads asking for help. Aid them with your field of expertise. Establish connections, and then invite them over to your site. Often, some of these mediums allow you to have a signature where you could put a link to your page, and this would most certainly bring in some visitors as well.

8. Create your own means of inviting past guests to visit your site again. You could build your own mailing list to keep in touch with them and offer some promos from time to time. Or you could incorporate a forum in your website to provide for a venue for your visitors to come together and discuss certain topics. This would simulate the semblance of a community they could call their own, and they would keep visiting your site to join in the discussions.

9. Constantly change your content. Not only will this method win the favor of search engines, this would also increase the possibility of attracting visitors you once lost.

10. Use Adword. Adword is a pay-per-click service that requires you to pay Googles in exchange for a prominent display of your website’s link whenever a search is made that is related to your keywords.

At the early stages of your site’s existence, traffic may come slow. But do not be discouraged into resignation. With the techniques shared in this article, you would increase the flow of visitors in due time, resulting in a high level of activity for your online venture. And with a prosperous site naturally comes a prosperous business.

Bob Bastian is a full-time Internet Marketing Consultant, prominent opt-in list builder and info product creator. Recently Bob launched “Private Label Publishing,” a service that provide HIGH QUALITY business contents with private label rights. The price? It’s FREE! Simply visit his website at: http://www.PrivateLabelPublishing.com

You can rest assured no sites receive top search engine rankings by chance in competitive keyword markets. They spend time and money to acquire and maintain their search engine positioning. Targeting your keyword market precisely and applying the principles in this article will help you compete in any keyword marketplace.

When crafting your web pages for the search engines remember that a search engine spider is not human. They only read the html code for your website, they do not actually “see” what your site looks like.

1. Use static html pages not dynamically generated web pages wherever you can. Some dynamically created WebPages are not indexable by the search engines. If they can’t index your pages you might as well not exist no matter how useful your website might be.

2. Use your main keywords in meta " title " tag, meta " description " tag, and meta " keywords " tags. This tells the search engines what you feel the webpage is about.

3. Use your keywords in the first line of your web page " body " and within " header " tags throughout your html document. Use " bolding" of keywords where appropriate. Using your keywords within bold and header tags makes them stand out as important. Also having them near the beginning of your web page is also an indicator of importance in the search engine’s eyes.

4. Use your keywords in img ” alt ” and link ” title ” tags. These tags don’t show up as visible text but they can help give a search engine a better idea of what your link is about. Resist the urge to stuff a lot of keywords into these tags but definitely use them to your advantage and place a select few of your most important keywords in there.

5. Don’t use a lot of tables in your html. Use css style sheets to store webpage "style" definitions if you can. Storing style information in Css reduces the overall size of your WebPages considerably allowing them to load much faster.

6. Don’t use a lot of outbound or affiliate links within your webpage. Keep your web pages focused on providing content first, not making money. . Search Engine’s don’t like WebPages that are just filled with affiliate links and banners. These pages have little or no content and do not score well because of this.

7. Maintain a high “visible text: graphics” ratio on your webpage. This is a similar idea to 6 plus your pages will load faster with less graphics on them.

8. Repeat your major keyword phrases near the end of your webpage in a sentence with the keywords bolded. Optionally place a short sentence in a header tag.

After you have created your webpage and applied these principles upload the page to your web host and visit the following URL to analyze your work:

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/web-page-analyser.shtml

I have chosen this tool because it is very easy to understand and it is free. Use the suggestions this site provides and re-edit your webpage. When you have the page optimized to your satisfaction visit:

http://www.submitexpress.com

and submit your webpage URL to the major search engines for Free.

Congratulations, you’re first “optimized” web page is on the internet and submitted to the major search engines. Get some rest, this is only the beginning of your adventure

About the Author

Michael Lawrence is the webmaster for http://www.cobrasurf.com providing Free Web Traffic and Free Website Promotion.

He also publishes a Blog which can be found at http://cobrasurf.blogspot.com containing articles on website promotion and internet marketing.