Chirag Khandelwal : A Freelance Web designer, Web developer in Mumbai, India

Visite @ www.chiragkhandelwal.com

How to Get Free Publicity For Your Website

If you want to promote your product or service, then consider using public relations. The best part of PR is that it costs nothing. In fact, public relations is one of the best kept secrets of small business owners who are successful. Use these powerful techniques to get picked up by local and national media.

1. Be an expert.

The media relies on experts for their information. The news that gets printed is only as credible as the source from which it comes. Begin by selecting a news related story to comment on. It should be a story that you are qualified to speak about, aligned with your area of expertise.

If your background is in engineering, and a building falls down, you are qualified to speak about the structure and answer possible engineering related questions. Being an expert simply means that you have a background in a specific area and can lend your expertise.

2. Research the reporter.

To get coverage, find the reporter who is covering the news you wish to comment on. For example, if the news is about a specific current event, then Google the current event name followed by the name of a popular newspaper like the Wall Street Journal or USA Today. You’ll quickly find the reporters who have written on the subject. Call the newspaper (contact information available on their website) and ask for the reporter by name. If the operation asks what your call is in reference to, simply state that you have information related to a specific news item.

3. Compliment the reporter.

When you locate the reporter, and contact him, start with a compliment. Reporters take great pride in their work. Be sure to compliment their position on a given topic or their previous work. After complimenting them, you’re ready for the pitch.

Talk to them about your position on the given news story and what you have to offer. Again, referring back to our earlier example of the building, mention that you have an engineering background and have a position on the story. For example, you might be able to comment on why buildings collapse and the structural aspects that could be the cause. Let the reporter ask questions but have a point of view. After the dialogue, the reporter will verify your information such as name and company.

4. Leave a compelling yet non-descript message.

If you’re unable to get in touch with the reporter directly, leave a message - but be discreet. You don’t want to show all of your cards before speaking to him directly. However, if you leave enough information to get them to return your call, they will call you. Reporters follow up with any leads they consider opportunistic.

When leaving a message, simple say, “I have something you need to hear about (fill in name of story here).” Be specific with regard to the story the reporter is covering. You want them to consider your possible information valuable.

5. State your expertise.

After complimenting the reporter about their coverage on a specific article or issue, let them know your position on a given topic and why you are qualified to comment on it. Give them your pitch and be confident that your opinion matters base on the experience you have to offer.

In today’s environment, it’s difficult to attract the media’s attention. The best way to get PR for your product or service is by commenting on current stories being covered by the media. The process is simple. When you hear a news story that you can comment on, find the reporter using Google and the name of a major publication.

Research some of the reporter’s previous articles for background and then contact him directly. Let him know that you have some information that he may find valuable or a comment relevant to the story. Be sure to provide him with your credentials. Lastly, be persistent. Continue to reach out to the media and soon they’ll be calling you for advice.

3 Top Tips for Great Web Page Design

Great web page design is very important to making sure that your customers see your company in the way that you want them to. Just as you put a great deal of effort, time and resources in ensuring that your bricks and mortar storefront is bright, clean, and attractive, your website needs the same kind of attention. This article will explain the top three ways to make your website work for you!

When I started Future Access in 1995, St. Catharines website design guru’s thought that good web page design was no more than putting up a few pictures, a page of text, and that was it. Little to no thought was given to how things made you feel, the logical path you would expect someone to take through the site, or where you wanted them to end up. It was much more about being trendy and cool by being one of the first companies in your industry to have a website at all!

Today, now that bandwidth limitations have been greatly reduced and multimedia content is everywhere, great web page design has become a way for small companies to level the playing field and compete on par with much larger rivals. In my experience, as we have developed better and better websites over the years, our customers’ customers continually give positive feedback (and their business!) to companies that have made effective use of their design.

People have enough stressorsin their life as it is today, and they don’t need their experience on your website to add to them. Everywhere you look, busy, highly pressured individuals are seeking after a Zen-like experience, feng-shui, or just simplicity in general. So should it be on your website. Do away with the unnecessary extras, flashy gimmicks, and fancy doo-dads. Resist the temptation to say everything you want, or put a list of every single product you offer all on one page.

I have come to realize that less is more, and that users really appreciate the simplicity of a clean, uncluttered look on websites. The success of Google’s web page design is a prime example. Look how clean Google’s homepage is compared to its major competitors like Yahoo and MSN. They have so much white space, they even offered a black background for the 2008 Earth Day in order to reduce power consumption on the monitors of their millions of users.

The simplicity and ease of use have allowed a single company to capture half of the market share of the entire search engine industry, and catapult them to market leaders and innovators in many other areas as well. Remember this, give the user what they want (not what you want), and less is more.

Part of keeping your site clean and easy to use is simple, intuitive navigation. Many times in my online browsing experience I have come across websites that have a beautiful homepage, and then completely change the design on their inside pages. Menu items that were clearly outlined across the top have now moved to the left hand side, or have disappeared altogether. I have no idea how I am supposed to progress through the site, and in fact I can get lost altogether on some pages.

I have found that a much better approach is to use clear, consistent navigation. This means that the links to your various pages should appear in the same place and in the same order on every page on your site. If you have many pages for your users to navigate, a drop-down menu can be a very effective tool. Everyone is used to clicking or rolling over a menu at the top of a program like Microsoft Word and have a menu drop down from there. If your website allows them to navigate in the same way, you keep the experience consistent and help users to get around your site with ease.

So now that we have established that your website should be clean, simple, and easy to navigate, how do we make it beautiful? What is going to create that emotional response that you create when people walk through your doors into your bricks-and-mortar storefront?

After years of St. Catharines website design at Future Access, creating hundreds of websites for our customers, I have come to realize that the use of high-quality photography really separates a great site from an average one. The key is to use the right photograph, and not to overdo it. A collage of 9 or 10 images a blurred together on your homepage, many of them indistinguishable because they are wide shots reduced greatly in size will not be effective. Instead, a single large, high-quality close-up photograph that showcases your product or service can work best.

If you want to use more than one image, a moderately paced Flash animation can create extra emotion by having them fade into one another, or by panning across the picture very slowly. A photographic technique called “depth-of-field”, where the foreground of an image is in sharp focus but the distant background is completely blurred really draws attention to the image. Don’t believe me? Check it out next time you are browsing the web and see for yourself!

Now you have all the essential advice you need to create fantastic website. Great web page design includes a clean uncluttered look that eliminates unnecessary information. You need an intuitive navigation system to help people get around easily. And finally, you should use great, high-impact photography to create an emotional response. That’s it! Now, go and check your website to see if it meets these criteria. If not, go to it!

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About the Author: Bill Janzen has been doing web page design since 1995, and owns Future Access, a St. Catharines website design company.

Business Networking

Business Networking On The Internet

Networking has long been one of the most valuable and viable tools a marketer or salesman can have. Way before the Internet became such a business powerhouse, marketers built up lists of potential leads and business relationship partners through networking. Even though a lot of businesses have taken their sales efforts online, there are still lessons to be learned from offline business networking.

Industry And Trade Events

Industry and trade events, business meetings, and seminars are just a few of the most likely venues to meet people interested in your service or product. Offline network marketers have been attending these types of function almost religiously for years. Groups of like minded people naturally flock to these events providing ample opportunity to network and begin to develop relationships.

Social networking websites are a major part of Web 2.0 and offer opportunities for the active networker to meet and make new leads. Much has been made of Web 2.0 as being a more social Internet further enhancing the opportunity for positive business networking. Blogs, forums, and content sharing websites are just some of the types of website that you can get involved in. By leaving memorable and relevant comments with a signature link to your own site or portfolio you can effectively build a profile of new leads and interested customers.

A Pocket Full Of Business Cards

Every networker knows that they need a plentiful supply of business cards. They’re always ready to hand two to anybody that asks (one for the receiver and one for somebody they know that may also be interested). An equally important part of networking, though, is the receipt of business cards. Any business relationship needs to be a two way encounter and that’s why networkers always have a healthy selection of other people’s business cards. This also gives them the chance to follow up on leads and keep in regular contact with any potential clients or referrals.

The link to your website acts largely like a business card. It directs leads to a central location that includes contact information and a raft of other informative facts about you, your service, and the products you offer. Always be ready to link to your website but only do so when it’s called for. Don’t spam and don’t post links where they aren’t welcome. It is true that links help to improve search rankings but illegitimate posting of your link offers only a very short term gain, if it offers a gain at all.

Be Memorable

The most effective offline networkers are friendly, amicable, and helpful. They don’t engage in one sided conversations and listen to the whole discussion as well as offer intuitive and insightful information. First impressions really do last and it’s important that you be memorable for all the right reasons.

Networking online requires the same lasting impression. You should come across as being helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly. In every aspect of your networking it is imperative that you act appropriately - it may be a virtual world, but the people involved are no less real. When using blogs and forums that are relevant to your area, links will only really prove effective if they are accompanied by a genuine comment offering information or help. Simple posts like “I agree” or “great post” won’t cut it with most people.

Build Relationships Rather Than Go For The Sell

Networking is a means of generating new leads. In some circumstances it may prove beneficial to go straight for the sell, but these circumstances are few and far between. Offline marketers know that by building a positive relationship with a lead they will be more inclined to use their service or buy their product over and over again but only when they need it.

Much is made of the power of your leads and for good reason. Building a list of online leads, with email addresses and other data, enables you to keep in constant communication. New product releases, special offers, and joint ventures can all be promoted to the same list with the possibility of selling numerous products to the same people. Building a list of leads is often done by using form of lead capture form on your website - offer a newsletter or a free offer that can only be accessed by providing an email address.

You Get Out What You Put In

Networking, whether it be online or offline, is not a simple task. It is considered a form of guerilla marketing because it can be done for very little money but an expenditure of your own time and effort is required instead. The more effort you put into building a powerful list of leads, the better the results you will acquire. Visit more sites, talk to more people, and grow your list quicker so that it contains more qualified leads.

Visiting sites that are highly relevant to your industry and to your product or service will ensure that you gain targeted and qualified leads. These leads are likely to be the most responsive when you later attempt to sell them anything. Be careful never to use underhand or black hat methods when networking online because it can get your link removed, your post banned, and can even cause untold damage to the popularity of your website that is incredibly difficult to recover from; in short, it just isn’t worth it.

Look After Your Leads

Once you’ve built your list of qualified leads you need to take care of them. Don’t just leave them without any contact for weeks or months on end - you need to keep in contact regularly enough that they don’t forget who you are but not contact them too often that they unsubscibe from your mailing list. If anybody does want to unsubscribe then you have to remove them from your list as soon as possible and ensure that no more communication is sent them to them.

Networking is a good business practice. Offline, it has been used for many years to help entrepreneurs, salesmen, and marketers promote their service, product or business. The advance of social networking online means that it is an even more viable method to improve your online business results, generate sales, and offer a superb ROI on a minor investment.

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About the Author: WebWiseWords creates compelling web site content that helps to improve search engine rankings and also improves sales figures. To buy content or find further information visit the WebWiseWords site.

Ecommerce Marketing - Improve Landing Page Performance

Undertaking any new advertising campaign should also entail the optimization of your landing pages. These pages need to be set up primarily to convert the visitors that your advertising generates. No matter the method of marketing or advertising you use, even offline advertising, you should have a clear understanding of the visitors that it will produce.

- What keywords, if any, led a visitor to your page?

- Are your visitors looking for information or products?

- Where are your visitors likely to be from?

The first step to landing page optimization is getting to know the resulting visitors. With paid search and even organic search you should have a good level of knowledge of the keywords that those visitors have used to visit your site. Consider whether the keywords and your campaign in general is geographically targeted, whether it will lead to visitors that want more information or are ready to start the buying process, and their general demographics. The more information you can determine about your new visitors, the more effective your landing page can be.

- Have you included the most relevant keywords in your page?

- Are the images relevant to the topic your visitors want?

- Are ALL of your page elements relevant?

The landing page should be optimized so that it is relevant to these visitors. Page relevancy is always a popular topic. The more relevant a page is to its visitors, the more targeted those visitors will be, and the more targeted a visit is, the more likely they will convert and perform your desired action. Including keywords is a part of page relevancy but generally matching all of the page content to the needs of your visitors is vital.

- Why did a visitor choose to visit your site?

- What did you promise or infer in your advertisement?

- Do your visitors want information or do they want to buy straight away?

If you promise information in the advertising link then you should provide that information. In contrast, if an advertisement implies that your visitor will be taken to a purchase page, then that is where they should be taken. Most searches are done by surfers looking for information on a topic - this may or may not lead to an immediate purchase. By providing the information that a visitor is looking for it provides you with the opportunity to increase brand awareness, and even make an immediate sale.

- What makes your product better than your competitors’ products?

- Why should visitors use your website rather than the next one?

- What do you have to offer that no other service, or very few services, also offer?

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is what makes you stand out from your competition. It’s the reason that your visitors should choose you over any other site. It’s also one of the most powerful conversion tools you have available to you. Many websites do not include their USP because they have yet to identify it - virtually every website and every company has a USP and promoting it early or prominently in the content of your site will help to increase conversion rates.

- Does the first paragraph of content include a summary?

- Have you got all of the important information on the page before the fold?

- Have you used an appropriate web content writing format?

Reading from a computer screen is very different to reading from paper based media. We can’t read as quickly, we digest less information, and we comprehend fewer facts and less information. As such, it is good practice to write differently for the Internet than we would for a magazine or other publication. The very first paragraph needs to be a concise and informative summary of the rest of the page. Sentences and paragraphs should be shorter in length and, therefore, simpler in their reading. Headlines and titles, as well as other formatting, should be well employed in the relevant areas.

- Have you removed any unnecessary links?

- Is advertising kept to less visible sections of the page?

- Have you moved distracting page elements below the fold?

The more external links that appear at or near the top of the page, the more likely that your visitors will leave your site. Similarly, distracting advertisements that aren’t a part of your CTA (Call To Action) need to be placed somewhere less distracting, along with other potential diversions. While these page elements all have a place on websites, they shouldn’t detract from a well optimized landing page.

- What do you want your visitors to do next?

- What will your visitors want to do next?

- Have you clearly defined and implemented your CTA?

The Call To Action, or CTA, is the online vehicle that will drive your visitors to take the next step in the process. What this step is will differ according to various factors. If you sell your own products then the next step for your visitors could be to make the purchase. Alternatively, the desired action could be to sign up for a free newsletter, click an affiliate link, or download a free ebook. Identify what it is that you want your visitors to do next as well as what you believe they will want to do next. Once you’ve identified your CTA you need to implement it on your page so that visitors recognize what they are expected to do.

- Do you have any special offers, reductions, or discounts?

- Do you have any promotional giveaways or other incentives to offer?

- Have you pushed these incentives above the fold?

Incentives are a great way to persuade undecided visitors to take the plunge and move on to the next step. Either have a creative ad made that is relevant to the incentive, or at the very least ensure that it is mentioned in or around the first paragraph of your page. It should also be considered one of your USPs so it is a critical part of optimizing your landing pages.

- Is there any way you can make improvements?

- Are you tracking results?

- Are you prepared to make changes according to those results?

Your landing page is all about getting results. This means you need a powerful analytic package so that you can track the performance of these pages. You should have this software installed on your site anyway, in order that you can track the results of the advertising campaign itself, determine your most successful and least successful pages, and gather important data. Make small changes in a bid to improve page performance, and ascertain the success of those changes before making any others. Keep monitoring and optimizing until you get the best possible results.

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About the Author: The landing page is as important as the advertising itself. Poor landing page performance essentially means wasted advertising revenue while optimized pages can mean excellent sales levels and highly profitable marketing campaigns. Matt Jackson, of WebWiseWords, creates compelling web site content, and also specializes in a range of other web site content writing services.

SEO For Local Markets

Many brick and mortar companies that are catering to their local clientele find it hard to SEO for local markets despite targeting the best keywords. Quite naturally this is not a surprising matter as many of them, although efficient in running their off line businesses, typically stumble over two critical blocks.

Stumbling Blocks and SEO for Local Markets

When local businesses set to do SEO for local markets, many of them invariably ignore the need to think rationally because they are advised by SEO experts to target the big three search engine users and sometimes get confused and tackle this feat on a global level resulting in global traffic. The direct fall out of this step is exposing your business offers, products or services to the world at large only to dilute all other local online SEO efforts. If your product is not global you are in trouble.

So here is the stumbling block number one.

1. Not using localized target keywords, however good they are, will leave your new websites way down the SERP’s locally. Actual localized keywords you should be targeting in which will bring you a steady stream of natural traffic.

The second block where you might probably stumble, especially if you are new to web and optimization is wrongfully assuming internet marketing techniques as something radically different and for removed from the earthly- worldly affairs that we all do by trial and errors over and again. The crux of the matter here is SEO for local markets is only a small part of larger marketing exercises, with certain twists, to get exposure with local locations.

Here is the second stumbling point in SEO for local markets.

2. SEO for local markets is not a marketing technique but a sophisticated local technique of optimizing websites on a local basis. Obviously, the one who knows the pulse of the market is not the SEO expert but can contribute his knowledge to SEO expert.

So, What Is Actually SEO For Local Markets?

Let me dash you through steps involved in SEO for local markets in short.

1. Localize your target keywords. This includes prefixing or suffixing local terms, names, and names of areas, cities or zip codes with target keywords. Example: “remodeling contractors Orange County”, not “remodeling contractors”.

2. Submit to local search engines (find one, if you don’t know already), directories and web based yellow pages.

3. Display your mailing address with street address, zip code and complete. Once your site is indexed, these words gain prominence as a part of content.

4. Submit to local listing sections of Yahoo and DMOZ which is in addition to generalized listing.

5. Don’t leave out general SEO techniques because you want to SEO for local markets which the power of link building which can be done globally as there might not be enough local sites to beat you competition.

6. Get on the local maps of Google, Yahoo, as this generally puts you on front of the local search engines.

7. Exchange links and banners with local businesses as the local traffic exchange will bring you new business. Avoid changing banners or links with competitors but exchange them with businesses that will complement you. Verify their traffic so it’s an almost even exchange.

Dominating local SEO can be done fairly easily, you just have to either hire a professional with a proven track record or take time to learn local SEO. The main concern is to be patient as it takes at least 3 months to start seeing results.

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About the Author: Michael S. Francis the author is a seasoned local SEO expert. Michael S. Francis is the owner of www.seovida.com a Local Business SEO company. Click the link below and join the subscriber list on the home page to take a free local SEO class so you can learn the basics of local seo click here Local SEO.

Why Page Rank is Important in Building Traffic

Google PageRank is important in building traffic to your website for a number of reasons. Before we discuss why, here is quick heads up on how it works.

Page Rank is based on links between your site and other sites, in fact specifically between web pages, since it is links between individual pages rather than complete websites that interests Google. That is because Google lists individual pages and not domains. There is a formula that Google uses to determine the value of each link to your site, which is based on the PageRank of the web page providing the link and also the number of other links leaving that page.

You can see the page Rank in the Google PageRank bar on the Google Toolbar - it is the green bar that shows a numerical value of 0 to 10 when you hover your cursor over it. This value is logarithmic, which means that if it takes 10 links to reach PR 1, then it takes a lot more to reach 2. If Google uses a logarithmic factor of 8, as it might do (nobody knows), then it will take 8 links to your site to get to PR 1, 64 to reach PR 2, 512 to PR 3 and so on. This is very basic, since, as I have stated, it also depends on the PR of the page providing the link and the number of other links leaving that page.

Here are the top 4 reasons that in my opinion help most to generate traffic and make you money:

1. The higher your Google PageRank, then the higher Google is likely to list you in the search engine results pages. Google take the view than the more other websites link to yours, then the more relevant your web page must be to the topic in hand, otherwise they wouldn’t link to you. In fact, the links are to specific pages in your site, not to the site as a whole, which is why it is called ‘Page Rank’ and not Site Rank.

2. The higher the Page Rank, then the more relevant other people will consider any particular page on your website to be. They will feel more confident that if they visit your site they will have their questions answered and find the information they are looking for.

3. A high Page Rank shows that you have a high number of links on the pages of other websites. There is then the possibility of others clicking on these links to get to your website.

4. The higher your Page Rank, then the more people will want you to link to their website. That means that they too will be likely to visit your site. They will also offer you a reciprocal link if you want one, and that too will provide you with more exposure online.

There are some factors you should keep in mind that could affect your Page Rank. The way your domain name is presented is very important. Take at look at these domains: www.mydomain.com, www.mydomain.com/index.html, domain.com, domain.com/index.html

They are all different URLs that will lead somebody using them to your domain. However, search engine spiders see them all as different URLs, and if you use different ways to write your home page URL, then they will all be listed separately, and all be given a different Page Rank. Thus, the page rank for any one of them will be weaker than your page would have been if you had used only the one way to express it. Get into the habit of expressing your domain in only one way.

There are other ways in which poor use of your website URLs and also injudicious linking policies, can harm your Page Rank, but the main point that should keep in mind is that the your page rank applies to each page individually, and you get a share of the Google PageRank of the page that provides you with the link. If that page has a PR of zero, then you get nothing.In giving my reasons for page rank being important in building traffic, I should stress that it is not one of my more important ways. However, Google takes notice of your PageRank, otherwise why would it bother giving you a Page Rank in the first place. For that reason alone it is well worth building up as many links back to your webpages as possible, not just for the traffic, but also to keep your website in the public eye.

It is the Home Page that is highest listed on most search engines, and also the page is given the highest PageRank, so if you can persuade others to link to your home page in return for a link from a page internal to your site, then that would be a good deal, and is what you should be trying for.

Don’t ask me though, because I would a link back from your highest Page Ranked page!

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About the Author: Page Rank is an important property of your website, and for more information on internal and external linking strategy check out Pete’s website Improved Search Engine Rank where you will find many other SEO tips.

VIRAL-advertising : a new form of really efficient advertising... Well, i used to fwd a lot of links to friends.. even you do

Makemytrip.com - Dilwale Dulhania Kaise Le Jayenge: by Webchutney

Makemytrip.com - Do Not Disturb: by Webchutney

Wrigley's Orbit - Thakur ka Inteqam: by Webchutney

Dove : Evolution : by Ogilvy & Mather

MakemyTrip: Chidiya Udi : by Webchutney

Bingo

MakemyTrip: Moving Train : by Webchutney

Desimartini : the famous : Makkadman : by Webchutney

JugalBandi: for Microsoft Office : by Webchutney

Protex : Daddu ki amanat: by Webchutney


Microsoft Outlook: Chitthi aayi hai : by Webchutney


Airtel : AliBaba Chalis chor : by Webchutney


MakemyTrip : Aao : by Webchutney


5-Star: LostinStar: OgilvyOne

3 Reasons To Use Adsense With Your Content Site

To know why Adsense is essential for your content sites is to know first how it works.

The concept is really simple, if you think about it. The publisher or the webmaster inserts a java script into a certain website. Each time the page is accessed, the java script will pull advertisements from the Adsense program. The ads that are targeted should therefore be related to the content that is contained on the web page serving the ad. If a visitor clicks on an advertisement, the webmaster serving the ad earns a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying the search engine for the click.

The search engine is the one handling all the tracking and payments, providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive and targeted ads without having the hassle to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor the clicks and statistics which could be a time-consuming task in itself. It seems that there is never a shortage of advertisers in the program from which the search engine pulls the Adsense ads. Also webmasters are less concerned by the lack of information search engines are providing and are more focused in making cash from these search engines.

The first reason why Adsense is essential for content sites is because it already has come a long way in understanding the needs of publishers and webmasters. Together with its continuous progression is the appearance of more advanced system that allows full ad customization. Webmasters are given the chance to choose from many different types of text ad formats to better complement their website and fit their webpage layout.

The different formatting enables the site owners the possibility of more click through from visitors who may or may not be aware of what they are clicking on. It can also appeal to the people visiting thus make them take that next step of looking up what it is all about. This way the people behind the Adsense will get their content read and making profit in the process.

The second reason is the ability of the Adsense publishers to track not only how their sites are progressing but also the earnings based on the webmaster-defined channels. The recent improvements in the search engines gives webmasters the capability to monitor how their ads are performing using customizable reports that has the capacity to detail page impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Webmasters and publishers can now track specific ad formats, colors and pages within a website. Trends are also easily spotted.

With the real-time reporting at hand, the effectiveness of the changes made will be assessed quickly. There would be time to sort out the contents that people are making the most clicks on. The ever-changing demands would be met while generating cash for the webmasters and publishers. The more flexible tools are also allowing webmasters to group web pages by URL, domain, ad type or category, which will provide them some accurate insight on which pages, ads and domains are performing best.

The last and final reason is that the advertisers have realized the benefits associated having their ads served on targeted websites. This increases the possibility that a prospective web surfer will have an interest in their product and services, all because of the content and its constant maintenance. As opposed to those who are not using Adsense in their sites, they are given the option of having other people do their content for them, giving them the benefit of having successful and money-generating web sites.

Adsense is all about targeted content, the more targeted your content is, the more target the search engines' ads will be. There are some web masters and publishers who are focused more on their site contents and how best to maintain them rather than the cash that the ads will generate for them. This is the part where the effectiveness is working its best.

There was a time when people were not yet aware of the money to be achieved from advertisements. The cash generated only came into existence when the webmasters and publishers realized how they can make Adsense be that generator. In those days, the content were the most important factors that is taken quite seriously. It still is. With the allure of money, of course.

Article Source: My Articles Directory
About the Author: Webarticlesite is a resource site for those looking to maximize their affiliate marketing or need affiliate marketing advice. Visit us or check out our affiliate marketing articles.

Top 3 Ways to Make Money with Internet Marketing

Wouldnt it be great to run your own online business from home? Well, you might not know this but it is quite easier then you probably think it is. See, there are many people these days that are putting in their two weeks notice to start up a new business from home. What are the majority of people doing to start this you may ask? It is something known as internet marketing.

Internet marketing has been around ever since the internet was invented. Many people make a large income on the web from this and even work shorter hours then the last job they had. I have known that there are tons of people that make way more money then a lawyer, doctor and even a celebrity. These people have never even gone to college and can already make more money then those people alone. This is a business of never ending profit as long as you keep attending to it and you multiply your success. The money comes from multiple streams of income and you wont have to spend all day just to keep it there.

For me right now, I only have to work about 3 hours a day. Dont think that you will be able to work only that little once you start because it is like any other business. It is always timely to get your business started. Once you do though, you will be able to have much free time on your hands and a lot more money to spend.

I am going to give you some tips on how you could easily get started with internet marketing. You should also go out there and do some more research on how to become successful in internet marketing as well.

1. Niche

You need to choose a topic that you know about and can write a thing or two about. Find a niche that is profitable and one that is in demand.

2. Landing Page

Create a website/blog about your niche. Have some articles about it and make sure that it is full of keywords about your niche.

3. Affiliate Links

Make sure that you find some affiliate products that you can promote on your site that is relevant to your niche. You could find some at Click Bank.

You will then of course need to drive some traffic to your site, but that subject has to be explained in a whole other article because it is way to long to describe. Just always remember that motivation is what will get you far.

Article Source: My Articles Directory
About the Author: For more information, you can check out: Profit Lance

How Does Viral Marketing Boost Your Traffic?

Imagine the next time you join a discussion about viral marketing. When you start sharing the fascinating viral marketing strategies below, you will definitely be viewed as an expert. Because you are about to discover the same tactics internet guru's are using to sky-rocket their sales time and time again.



Viral marketing has always been one of my favorite traffic generation tools. Because it is highly effective and it's zero cost.



Viral Marketing is allowing people to giveaway and use your free product or service in order to multiply your marketing quickly over the internet. The idea behind viral marketing is that you include your ad with the freebie people giveaway or use. Below I have highlighted some of the high impact viral marketing strategies:



Encourage people to reprint your articles on their web site, in their e-zine, newsletter, magazine or ebooks. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article. Offer freebies as free bonuses for products or services they sell. The trick is to include your ad on all your freebies.



Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own web site. Some people don't have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board. If you have your own server, offer a free web site on your server. Since you are giving away the space, require them to include your banner ad at the top of the site.



Exchange links with other webmasters. This way traffic is gained from both parties. It's a win-win. But you must do a random check periodically to ensure your links still exist in your link partners sites. If not prompt them. If they are not obliging then remove their link from your site and you move on.



If you find yourself overwhelmed by what you've read to this point, don't despair. If you are new to online business, this is one of the most valuable internet maketing tools must know and use to drive traffic. Read on to get more viral marketing ideas you can use.



Do a joint venture with others by providing free online service to each other's web site, visitors, or e-zine subscribers. These could be free e-mail, e-mail consulting, search engine submissions. You can also give away your free software. Just include your business advertisement inside the software program. The same can be implemented with web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc



Allow people to place an advertisement in your free e-book if, in exchange, they give away the e-book to their web visitors or e-zine subscribers. At the same time, include giveaway rights to their visitors as well. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the internet.



Viral marketing is one of the most effective traffic generation strategies in internet marketing. The tips highlighted above is enough to drive a massive flow of traffic to your site. But they will only work if you put them into practice.

Article Source: My Articles Directory

About the Author: Steven Fu, the author is dedicated to researching and recommending the best passive residual income

5 Tips To Great Web Design

If you're building your very own website it will really serve you in the long run to pay special attention to website design from the outset. Sure you can go back and fix things at a later date, but a lot of damage can already have been done to your online credibility by that point - and that credibility may take a very long time to build back up again, so why take the risk?

Here are five do's and don'ts to ensure that any Website you design lives up to a basic level of good usability from a visitor's perspective.

1) Splash pages are not a good idea

What's a splash page? It's the first page you see when you arrive at a Website. The specific ones that are bad are those that say something like 'Welcome!' and then have you waiting for several minutes while some audio or video presentation loads - not a good idea. Remember, your Website visitors will typically have a very short attention span.

Your site is competing with millions of others and making your visitors wait around will only make them want to hit the back button in their browser and go visit somewhere else. The first page, the 'Home' page, of your Website should be a genuine content page with a fast load time, i.e. not excessive in the graphic department, where all of the other pages and sections of your site are easily accessible from.

2) Don't overdo it with the banner adverts

Excessive use of banner adverts will tend to give your Web pages a slow load time and, particularly if they flash and pulse in a kaleidoscope of color, will irritate and annoy your visitors rather more than they'll entertain them. But they'll make you money, I hear you say? Will they? Most experienced Webmasters will tell you that the days of successful banner advertising are pretty much in the past.

Most Web surfers these days have learned that banners are advertising and obvious advertising tends to get tuned out. You can get away with one or two banners per page that look in context with the general look and feel of your Web pages but overdoing it will only make you look like an amateur. Banner farms are so old hat and don't impress anyone these days, if they ever did.

3) Make your site's navigation menu simple and easy to understand

How many Websites have you found that left you completely bewildered when it came to finding your way around and locating the information that they appeared to promise and that you were looking for? Probably more than you care to remember, sadly. And how many of them did you choose to revisit after having been bamboozled first time around? Not many, right? Well, learn from your own experience here and make sure that you put a lot of time and effort into planning your site's navigation menu so that it is logical and easy to understand. It's a good idea to test it on a few friends to see if they can find what they're looking for without any help from you. If they can't, it's back to the drawing board.

4) Choose your Website color schemes wisely

If you give your visitors a headache when they're at your site they'll a) leave quickly and b) not come back. One of the best ways to achieve those two undesirable effects is to choose some sort of garish color scheme that even your Website's Mother would not be able to love. Pay particular attention in this regard to text. Make sure that your text is of a size that makes it comfortably readable and that it stands out clearly from its background. This is best ensured by sticking with normal black text on a white background.

5) Get rid of that annoying muzak

You don't have cheesy 'tunes' playing in the background on your Website do you? If you do, please get rid of them. It really won't do you any favors, you'll just come across as a complete amateur who really doesn't care about annoying their visitors, and if you want a successful Website, that's not something you should be going out of your way to do. That's not to say that audio and, indeed, video don't have a place on a successful Website.

With the ever-increasing use of broadband Internet connections it is perfectly possible to integrate informative and entertaining audio and video presentations into Web pages that might even be more acceptable to your target audience than plain old text on its own. Just make sure that the audio and video you provide can be turned on and off by your Website visitor and has easily-adjustable volume.

It's really very tempting to just jump right in and start building your Website without much planning but it really is more sensible to spend a reasonable amount of time working things out on paper first. Doing this will almost certainly save you time in the long run by minimizing the number of mistakes you'll have to correct that jumping in with both feet without thinking will inevitable lead to.

Professional Website More Affordable Than Ever

Nothing makes people trust a company more than them having a professional website. Today, there are very few companies in existence that do not maintain some type of presence on the web. A professional website is a necessity for these companies. After all, anyone can build a website anymore, but if the site is anything but a professional website than people may start to lose confidence would could lead to lost sales which can be devastating for any company.

Website designing companies offer a professional website to anyone who is willing to pay their fees. The fees website designing companies charge are based on the amount of work that must go into the professional website, just like any other industry in the world. A professional website can be as simple or complicated as the customer wants. Sometimes, a customer wants just the basic informational site, very basic by design and easy for website designing companies to create thus the fees would be lower.

On the other hand, a professional website that must have functional parts, links and other concepts a website uses may cost much more as the amount of work that will go into it is great.

Website designing companies have professionals on staff that can create a professional website from a bare page. This knowledge has not come to these professionals cheap as many of them went to school for many years to attain such wisdom. So in turn, they expect to be paid for their services. It is important to note that website designing companies hire people who are constantly learning as new concepts, codes and features are invented and released. This is imperative for a professional in this field as they need to keep abreast of what is going on in the world around them to accurately build websites for people This continued education on the part of these professionals has lead to several innovations in web design and how the Internet works.

For a better grasp of what a web site designing company does, check out their web sites. Most times, these companies have constructed sample sites to help educate new customers on what is possible and what is best for them It helps the designer to know exactly what the customer wants and having a website for comparison makes the task all that much easier. This also aides the professionals in being able to provide an accurate quote on what the website will cost. As with most companies, watching the bottom line is very important and certain budgets are set for certain things. Therefore, they know how much money they have to spend to have a website constructed so it is important for them to be able to tell the website designer what they want in order to receive a price that falls within their budget.

When searching for a website designing company be sure to check with the BBB. They will give you the most accurate picture of how the company serves its customers and whether or not they have had any complaints lodged against them. If they do have complaints lodged against them then you know that they are not the company for you, because you do not want to waste money on a company that will not give you the service that you desire.

How to Create a Search Engine Friendly Website

by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com

Over the years of running thesitewizard.com, I have had numerous webmasters write to me asking why their web pages do not appear in the search engine results page even though they directly search for terms that should yield their page. More often than not, a quick visit to their site reveals that they have created a web page that is not search engine friendly.

This article brings together some of the main points on how you can create a website or blog that is search engine friendly.

1. Add Text to Your Images, Flash and Videos

   The first thing you should note about search engines is that their software can only read text. When I say text, I don't mean text that you embed in an image or text that you place inside a Flash file or those that appear in a video. I mean text like the text you see everywhere on thesitewizard.com's articles - plain, unadulterated, ordinary text.

   While it's true that some search engines have the rudimentary ability to scan a Flash file, you cannot assume that this ability is sophisticated enough to obtain all the information you want them to have. In fact, I suspect that only Google can do this, and even then only to extract straightforward links embedded in the file. And certainly no search engine I know can view an image file or video and determine the text that it contains.

   This is not to say that you cannot create a photo-album site, Flash game site or a video site that ranks in the search engine results page. You can still place your pictures, Flash, videos on your site. However, you should write content for each of these non-text elements to describe them.

   For example, you should describe each picture in the "alt" text for the image. For those who don't know what I'm saying, images are put into a web page using HTML code like the following:

   <img src="http://www.blogger.com/name-of-image.jpg" alt="Picture of a search engine ready website" />

   Notice the "alt" part in the example HTML code above. Here, I described the image as a picture of a search engine ready website. You should of course replace that text with a brief description of what your image really shows. While search engines cannot actually see your picture, they can read your "alt" text and will include that in their index for your web page.

   Likewise, for sites with video files or Flash file, you should include additional text on that web page describing your what your video shows or what the Flash file does.

   To put it another way, when designing your website, make your website more accessible for blind and other visually impaired visitors and you will also reap the side benefit of making your site more search-engine friendly.

2. Validate Your HTML Code

   I have written elsewhere on the importance of validating your web page. By validating, I mean checking to make sure that your HTML code does not have errors. Note that I'm not talking about spelling or grammar errors here. I'm referring to the underlying HTML code that allows the web browser to format your web page according to how you want it to appear. If you use a WYSIWYG web editor like Dreamweaver, Nvu or Mozilla Composer, such code is usually generated behind the scenes by the editor as you type your text.

   Whether you write your HTML code by hand or use a WYSIWYG web editor, it is a good idea to always run the final code through HTML and CSS validators. You can find details on how you can do this in my article on HTML validation at http://www.thesitewizard.com/webdesign/htmlvalidation.shtml

   While the search engines don't care whether your HTML code is error-free, they rely on the basic correctness of the code to find out which portions of your web page to index. If your HTML code contains errors, it is possible that only portions of your web page are included in the search engine's database. The errors, while undetectable in a web browser, may lead the search engine software to think that some of the text on your page is part of the HTML formatting information rather than your site's content. As a result, the search engine may ignore that text, and your web page will not be shown in its results page.

3. Create Relevant Title Tags

   Many search engines give additional weightage to the text appearing in the HTML <title> tag for your page. Note that this is not the title that you see in the body of your web page. Rather, it is the non-visible text in the HTML code that the browser uses to display in the title bar of the browser window. The search engines use that tag as part of its algorithm to determine what your page is about.

   A number of new webmasters don't bother to set the title tag to something meaningful. Instead, they just put their site name in the title tag of every page on their website. They should, instead, put the site name only in the title tag of their home page, and place a meaningful title on each individual page of their site. For example, on a page that describes a product "Widget XYZ", the title tag should read "Widget XYZ Product Features" or something like that. If you feel that the name of your website is important to have on every title tag, place it at the end of your title for the sub-pages on your site, for example, "Widget XYZ Features - XYZ Company".

4. Use Straight HTML Navigation Links on Your Website

   I wrote an article some time back on the importance of a good navigation system for your website and how one website I examined used only JavaScript-generated links to lead to other pages on the site. Since the search engines do not understand JavaScript, they were not able to find the other pages on the website.

   While that article only mentioned JavaScript-created links, this problem also applies to websites that rely only on links embedded in Flash files. Google is said to understand such links, but until search engine robot technology improves so that all search engines can easily figure out the links embedded in Flash files or JavaScript code, any website totally reliant on such links is surely at a disadvantage compared to websites that use straightforward HTML links.

   Again, this is not a call to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You do not have to ditch all JavaScript code or Flash files from your website. Instead, what you need is to provide a way for search engines (and visitors who do not have JavaScript-enabled or Flash players) to visit all the pages of your site. Put simple HTML links on your web page linking to the other pages in addition to your state-of-the-art gadgets.

   You should also add a site map to your website and link to that site map from your main page. That way, search engines and human visitors who don't have JavaScript or Flash facilities can find their way around your site.

5. Eliminate Apparent Content Duplication

   If you use a blogging service, blogging software or some other content management system (CMS), you will need to watch out for duplicate content on your website.

   By duplicate content, I mean pages on your website that are identical to other pages on your site. If you manually create your website using a web editor, this will probably never happen. However, some of the automated services mentioned earlier create alternate routes to the same article. For example, a content management system or blogging software may duplicate the same article you wrote under two different URLs, such as www.example.com/archive/article-name.html and www.example.com/2007/01/05/article-name.html. Another manifestation of this is when your software adds a session id to the URL. Since every visitor receives a different session ID, he/she will link to your page using a different URL.

   The problem with duplicate content on your own site is link dilution. As I mentioned in my article on How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google, Google and other search engines take into account the number of links pointing to your page to determine how important your web page is. If you have identical content appearing on two different pages on your website, some sites will link to one page while others will link to the alternate page. The result is that neither of those pages will be regarded as very important in the search engine's index since you have effectively halved the links pointing to your article.

   Find a way to remove that feature in your software or service of allowing your article to be reached under different URLs. In the case of session IDs, see if you can use cookies instead to track individual users. Solutions like blocking out alternative URLs from search engines using a robots.txt file may seem like a possible solution, but they do not solve the problem of link dilution.

6. Remove Hidden Text

   Nowadays, everyone knows that it is counterproductive to use hidden text on your website. By hidden text, I mean text that is included in the main body of your web page but is not actually displayed on the screen when visitors view your page in a browser. In days of old, some unscrupulous webmasters used such text to add keywords to a web page to influence search engine results. Search engines try to deal with that tactic by not showing pages which they think contain hidden text.

   As mentioned in another article, More Tips on Google Search Engine Results Placement, I inadvertently discovered that sometimes search engines wrongly penalize sites even if the hidden text was innocuous - for example, text that only showed for people using a particular browser to tell them that they may not be able to access certain features of the website due to deficiencies in the browser. If you have not read that article, you might want to take take a look to avoid facing the same problem.

   You should also be aware that if you use a free web host, your site may contain hidden text on its pages without your knowing. In my investigation of some free web hosts for thefreecountry.com's many free web hosting pages, I discovered that a few of the hosts that place advertisements on your websites include hidden text around the advertisements to influence the type of advertisements shown on your web page. This may lead to your website being penalised by the search engines through no fault of your own.

   Unfortunately, you cannot simply look for a free web host that does not impose ads on your website, since such web hosts regularly disappear overnight due to the lack of a viable revenue model to sustain their service. If you can afford it, the best solution is to get a domain name and place your site on a commercial web host.

Creating a search engine friendly website does not necessarily mean that you will get top listing for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. It is however a necessary first step if you want to rank anywhere near the first few pages of the search engine results. A site that is not search engine ready may not even appear in the results for any query. The tips in this article are the pre-requisites for any website aspiring the top positions in Google, Yahoo, and the other engines.

Footnote: if you are running a WordPress blog, you may also want to read the article How to Make Your WordPress Blog Search-Engine-Friendly.

Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Heng. All rights reserved.
Get more free tips and articles like this, on web design, promotion, revenue and scripting, from http://www.thesitewizard.com/.

This article can be found at http://www.thesitewizard.com/sitepromotion/search-engine-friendly.shtml

7 Basic Rules for Internet Marketing

Internet marketing strategies involve driving targeted (people who are interested in what you have to offer) traffic to your website, blog, or sales page.

That traffic then has to be converted into sales. This simple formula illustrates this process:

Traffic + Conversions = Sales

Keeping this formula in your mind will help you in your internet marketing efforts because you will realize that you not only have to generate traffic, but also turn those visitors into buyers.

Furthermore, here are 7 basic rules to follow when applying this formula. These rules are relevant to all forms of marketing but are especially important for online marketing where inexperienced people can "burn" a lot of money quickly and become very discouraged.

1. All marketing involves RISK.

Whether you are trying something new or "copying" a strategy that has brought good results for others, there is still an element of risk.

When speaking of risk, you tend to think of gambling which makes for an appropriate analogy here.

For internet marketing, we try to reduce the risk and swing the odds in our favour by doing keyword research, learning skills like ad writing, article marketing, and pay per click, and other general marketing activities such as knowing what your target market is interested in.

2. Test small first.

Reduce your risk by testing a marketing approach on a small scale first. If it works, then increase the scale and create momentum.

This is how to make money!

3. Be consistent.

Successful marketers do something to propel themselves forward everyday. That is their secret.

A good practice is to create a to-do list every night featuring 5 actions that you must complete the following day.

By doing this at night before you go to sleep, you engage your subconscious mind and the next day you will know what you have to do and be on target to complete these tasks.

This is a very powerful process. Try to do this, one day at a time, until it becomes a daily habit.

4. Set a budget.

Determine what you can afford to spend on advertising on a monthly basis. In this way you can set and manage your expectations.

This should also prevent you from trying things you cannot afford.

5. Diversify.

Spread your efforts as much as you can over many different sources. This will also reduce your risk and help you to discover what works.

Remember that if one internet marketing method that you try does not produce results, you have not failed. This just means that you are one step closer to finding something that DOES work.

6. Learn how to write effective copy.

The skill that will make or break you in internet marketing is copywriting.

It is especially important to learn how to write headlines. There is a ton of good information online that is free regarding headlines and copywriting. Just do a Google search.

7. Take action, test, and track.

Tracking is essential because you absolutely need to know the results of your marketing efforts.

Once you start getting results, you can employ simple tests to see if you can improve. Often this testing involves strategies that are free.

One such strategy that comes to mind is split testing. You can do this for free, and it can provide incredible returns. Generally speaking, split testing involves making slight changes to a landing page or adwords ad, often just the wording of the headline, and testing it against a current version.

I have seen very simple changes DOUBLE the productivity of an ad. It's not only amazing, but also a lot of fun! Marketing takes work. You simply cannot get something for nothing. Massive action creates massive results.

So take action and do not be afraid to fail. Remember to minimize your risk.

About the Author: Mark McCullagh is the author of the internet marketing strategies that work, especially for network marketing.

New guidance for handling security incidents

When it comes to security expertise, you have two options: become a security expert or hire a security expert. There really is no middle ground. How prepared is your IT department or administrator to handle security incidents? Many organizations learn how to respond to security incidents only after suffering attacks. By this time, incidents often become much more costly than needed. Here's some guidance on responding to IT security incidents. Learn how to define an incident response plan and contain the damage and minimize risks. And here are six easy steps that every company should take to enhance computer security in terms of getting the proverbial biggest bang for the security buck. Each suggestion is described in some detail with links to more in-depth treatment, templates, and tools. For a heads-up on the latest malware, including e-mail and desktop threats, find it all in one convenient location on the new Malware Protection Center. This new portal includes the top current detections, an updated malware encyclopedia, and handy links to update your defenses. You can also submit suspect files for analysis.

A final security note: If you are running Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets, they are subject to cross-site scripting style bugs. These bugs are extremely serious because script in the Sidebar is capable of running arbitrary code in the context of the locally logged-on user. This article outlines some of the secure programming best practices that should be considered when building Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets. Check out Inspect Your Gadget for some of the secure programming best practices that should be considered when building Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets.

Another risk for your organization comes in the form of regulatory compliance. Learn how to reduce the complexity of compliance using familiar Microsoft tools and technologies and turn compliance into a competitive advantage. In addition to regulatory responsibilities come social responsibilities. Learn how to drive environmental sustainability practices with Microsoft Dynamics. The information in your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system might already be waiting to help you make a positive impact. Visit Green Central for resources to help your business succeed while reducing stress on the planet.

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation

How to Use Offline Advertising in Internet Marketing

Knowing how to use offline advertising in internet marketing can give you a significant advantage over your competitors, since many do not use offline methods to advertise their products.

Offline advertising is particularly relevant if you are selling a product, or offering a service, that attract customers locally. For example, you could offer a fitness aid at your local leisure center. Many leisure or fitness centers will allow you to put a free poster offering your product, but even if they charge you for it the price is usually small. Perhaps you have a golf training aid that you can advertise at your local golf club.

Local classified ads are also a good means of getting your product some local publicity. The classified ads pages or even adverts placed on selected pages of your local press, frequently provide you with local orders. The beauty of these is that they are very easy to follow up, either with back-end products or new ones. You need not even restrict yourself to the local press. How often have you seen an internet marketing advert on the national press? They are not uncommon, and although expensive, they must produce a good return.

If you have a niche website, it could be worth your while browsing round your local newsagent and checking out the magazines on display. You know the kind - all these racks upon racks of magazines on every topic you can think of. Have a word with the newsvendor and find out some of the more popular magazines that cover your niche. These could be good publications for placing your adverts, especially if they are not too expensive and they have a good circulation.

Poster campaigns can also work well. You can advertise with posters in many shopping malls, and some stores also offer you the opportunity place an A5 poster for only pennies a week. Have your own business cards printed with your internet business contact details, such as website address and email address in addition to your phone number. Put your website address on everything, and have a signature that use on all correspondence. Not just emails and forum postings, but also offline correspondence such as letters, invoices, receipts and anything else you send to other people.

Another form of offline marketing that most people have never heard of, let alone use, is buzz advertising. This type of advertising has been growing in popularity recently, especially by offline businesses. It is used extensively by some auto companies and by cosmetics companies. Buzz advertising involves getting a verbal buzz going about your website or product. Some companies pay people specifically to verbally promote their products by approaching strangers, striking up conversations and bringing up the product in the conversation.

"Say, have you heard about the latest perfume from ----!" While not yet common it is getting more popular. Of course, the buzz need not be started off by someone you have employed to do it, but you can do it yourself. You can get your family and relatives involved as well. Before you know it, everybody might be talking about your product or your great new website. That's how YouTube and MySpace got so popular.

If you have a van or pick-up get your business name and website address painted on the site. It's easier to get a buzz going if people see your website in their face all the time, on vehicles, on posters, in newspapers and magazines, and even chalked on walls! Well, perhaps not the last one, but that would sure get people noticing your website! Do you get the idea? Get your website name known in every way that you can.

How about a local radio slot, with you explaining the virtues and benefits of your product, service or website? Stress the benefits, and you need not restrict it to local radio. Try for a national radio slot or even TV if your business is sizeable enough. There are no restrictions to the advertising methods you can use. Hire a loudspeaker and shout it from the rooftops!

Online advertising methods are very effective in internet marketing, since they can be visible to people all round the world, but if you know how to use offline advertising it can also work very nicely for you, and bring you a lot of business you would not otherwise have.

About the Author: Andre Sanchez - How to Use Offline Advertising in Internet Marketing was originally published at http://www.affiliatemarketinglife.com.

4 Simple Techniques To Make Traffic Exchanges Work For You

Let's face it the majority of traffic you receive from online traffic exchanges is junk. It's mostly users who only want to earn credits while giving nothing in return. Most of the time the people who view your pages don't even look at it! However, I've been using traffic exchanges effectively for the last year using a few systems I've developed. Read on for more information...

Create Individual Squeeze Pages To Build Your List

If you are in to internet marketing then you absolutely must have a list! It is especially important if you are marketing only to online income seekers.

I've found that when I take the time to make a squeeze page with the traffic exchanges site name and letting the traffic exchange users know how joining my list will increase their exchange credits my response rate is through the roof!

I typically make a standard landing page but I'll include the exchanges name in the headline. As always, I'll give out something of value for free for joining my list.

This has worked for me time and again. I can chalk up to 600 extra subscribers from this technique exclusively.

Create Individual Pages To Promote Other Traffic Exchanges

What better way is there to get tons of traffic exchange credits then referring others? Most traffic exchanges will earn for you on multiple levels. This means that you will earn a percentage of credits when your referral earns credits. This can stack up quickly and earn you a nice stream of residual traffic.

Another great way to utilize free traffic exchanges is to create individual squeeze pages that promote other traffic exchanges you're a member of. It's a great way to virally increase your downline while at the same time building a nice stash of free traffic credits.

It's easy to do this. All you need to do is create an individual landing page for each exchange you're a member of. You have to make sure that each landing page is promoting a different traffic exchange.

Also don't forget to include in the headline the name of the traffic exchange the landing page is being promoted in.

Promote Relevant Free Offers

It is easy to see that most people surfing exchanges are freebie seekers. The best offers to direct them to are related free offers. Promoting programs like Instant Buzz or Free Advertising Blog is a great sell for any traffic exchange. It is generally a waste of time to promote anything that requires an initial investment.

Using these techniques I've managed to increase my overall income by a sizable amount.

Article Source: My Articles Directory
About the Author: Want To Turbocharge Your Link Building? Get This Free Report Today And Explode Your Link Building Efforts Exponentially: Free Link Building Report. For more excellent information, visit my blog Fun Internet Marketing

6 Free Ways To Make Money Online

Regardless of whether you are operating an online or offline business, it's important that you reduce your costs, thereby increasing your profits. Although advertising is an investment in your business and not an expense (if done correctly), you should be on the lookout for free methods of marketing, and free ways to make money online.

Once the sales start to roll in, you can then invest some of your profits into paid methods of advertising. But let's focus on some of the free methods for now.

1. Article marketing is probably the most effective free way to make money online (and my favourite). Writing articles does take up a lot of time, but I feel that there's nothing more satisfying than creating quality content that can help people solve a problem.

Once you submit your article to the article directories, you will begin to get targeted traffic from people that are interested in what you have to say. Web masters and ezine publishers will also pick up your article to use on their site or in their newsletter, which will give you even greater free exposure. Don't forget to research keywords and place them in your article. This will enable your article to rank well in the search engines (more free traffic).

2. Blogging is also an excellent way to drive free traffic to your web site. You can set up a blog for free, add regular content, link to your main site, and promote affiliate products. Make sure that you "ping" your blog every time you add content. This will alert the blog directories that you have made a new post, which will bring in the traffic. The search engines love blogs because of the fresh, regular content. So if you are consistent with this method, you will be getting picked up by the search engines more and more.

3. SEO (search engine optimization) is simply the on-page and off-page optimization of a web site. You optimize the content on your site by placing well-researched keyword phrases that target the right audience. With off-page strategies, the idea is to get tons of back-links to your site (from article submitting and a linking campaign) so that you rank well in the search engines. If you can get on page 1 of the search results for your keywords, you will get massive amounts of free traffic.

4. Forum participation gives you the opportunity to ask questions, learn, and also to help other people. If you have a link to your web site in your signature file, not only does this give you back-links to your site, but it also allows people to click through to your site. Make sure that you contribute useful information, rather than blatant advertising.

5. Linking is a campaign of creating links pointing back to your site. One-way links are much better than reciprocal links in terms of ranking with the search engines. So apart from submitting articles with your link in it, you can submit your URL to link directories either manually or with submitter services or software. Or you can approach high-traffic web sites that are related to your niche and ask if they will link to you. The benefit to them is that they have useful content and links to offer their customers. So it's win-win for both of your businesses.

6. Traffic Exchange sites allow you to surf members' web sites in exchange for advertising credits. These credits give you views or visitors to your site. The best use of traffic exchanges is to promote your own compelling lead-capture page to get opt-in subscribers. If your page is short and attention-grabbing, you will get more people signing up to your offer, rather than losing them with a long sales page. Once you build your list, you can follow up until you make the sale, and then consolidate that with back-end sales.

Free ways to make money online usually involve more time and effort. But if you work these methods on a consistent basis, the long term results are often better than the paid methods. And you'll also increase your bottom-line profits by reducing your advertising costs.

Article Source: My Articles Directory
About the Author: Andrew Jones has been a business owner for the
past 10 years, and is now an Internet Marketer and
Plug-In Profit Site owner. Discover the best
free ways to make money online.

How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog)

by Steve Pavlina

1. Create valuable content.

Is your content worthy of being read by millions of people? Remember that the purpose of content is to provide value to others. Do you provide genuine value, and is it the best you’re capable of providing?

When I sit down to write, I sometimes imagine myself standing on an outdoor concert stage before an audience of a million people. Then I ask myself, “What shall I say to this audience of fellow human beings?” If a million people each spend five minutes on this site, that’s nearly 10 person-years total. I do my best to make my writing worthy of this differential. I don’t always succeed, but this is the mindset that helps me create strong content.

Think about the effect you want your writing to have on people. Since I write about personal growth, I want my writing to change people for the better. I want to expand people’s thinking, to raise their consciousness, and to help them eliminate fear from their lives. If my writing doesn’t change people’s thinking, actions, or awareness, then my value isn’t being transferred well enough.

When you focus on providing real value instead of churning out disposable content, your readers will notice. And they’ll refer others to your site — in droves. I typically see at least 10 new links to my site appearing each day (mostly via trackbacks but also via vanity feeds). I’m not going out and requesting those links — other bloggers just provide them, usually because they’re commenting on something I’ve written. Many fellow bloggers have also honored StevePavlina.com with a general recommendation for the entire site, not just links to my individual blog posts. It’s wonderful to see that kind of feedback.

Strong content is universally valued. It’s hard work to create it, but in the long run it generates lots of long-term referral traffic. I’d rather write one article I’m really proud of than 25 smaller posts. It’s been my experience that the best articles I write will outperform all the forgettable little posts I’ve made. Quality is more important than quantity. Quantity without quality, however, is easier, which is one reason so many people use that strategy. Ultimately, however, the Internet already contains more quantity than any one of us can absorb in our lifetimes, but there will always be a place for good quality content that stands out from the crowd.

If you have nothing of genuine value to offer to a large audience, then you have no need of a high-traffic web site. And if there’s no need for it, you probably won’t get it. Each time you write, focus on creating the best content you can. You’ll get better as you go along, but always do your best. I’ve written some 2000–word articles and then deleted them without posting them because I didn’t feel they were good enough.

2. Create original content.

Virtually everything on this site is my own original content. I rarely post blog entries that merely link to what others are writing. It takes more effort to produce original content, but it’s my preferred long-term strategy. I have no interest in creating a personal development portal to other sites. I want this site to be a final destination, not a middleman.

Consequently, when people arrive here, they often stick around for a while. Chances are good that if you like one of my articles, you may enjoy others. This site now has hundreds of them to choose from. You can visit the articles section to read my (longer) feature articles or the blog archives to see an easy-to-navigate list of all my blog entries since the site launched.

Yes, there’s a lot to read on this site, more than most people can read in a day, but there’s also a lot of value (see rule #1). Some people have told me they’ve read for many hours straight, and they leave as different people. I think anyone who reads this site for several hours straight is going to experience a shift in awareness. When you read a lot of dense, original content from a single person, it’s going to have an impact on you. And this content is written with the intention to help you grow.

Although I’m not big on competing with others, it’s hard to compete with an original content site. Anyone can start their own personal development web site, but the flavor of this site is unique simply because no one else has had the exact same experiences as me.

While I think sites that mainly post content from others have the potential to build traffic faster in the beginning, I think original content sites have an easier time keeping their traffic, which makes for a more solid, long-term foundation. Not everyone is going to like my work, but for those that do, there’s no substitute.

3. Create timeless content.

While I do occasionally write about time-bound events, the majority of my content is intended to be timeless. I’m aware that anything I write today may still be read by people even after I’m dead. People still quote Aristotle today because his ideas have timeless value, even though he’s been dead for about 2300 years. I think about how my work might influence future generations in addition to my own. What advice shall I pass on to my great grandchildren?

I tend to ignore fads and current events in my writing. Wars, natural disasters, and corrupt politicians have been with us for thousands of years. There are plenty of others who are compelled to write about those things, so I’ll leave that coverage to them.

Will the content you’re creating today still be providing real value in the year 2010? 2100? 4000?

Writing for future generations helps me cut through the fluff and stay focused on the core of my message, which is to help people grow. As long as there are people (even if our bodies are no longer strictly biological), there will be the opportunity for growth, so there’s a chance that at least some of what I’m creating today will still have relevance. And if I can write something that will be relevant to future generations, then it will certainly be relevant and meaningful today.

In terms of traffic building, timeless content connects with people at a deeper level than time-bound content. The latter is meant to be forgotten, while the former is meant to be remembered. We forget yesterday’s news, but we remember those things that have meaning to us. So I strive to write about meanings instead of happenings.

Even though we’re conditioned to believe that news and current events are important, in the grand scheme of things, most of what’s covered by the media is trivial and irrelevant. Very little of today’s news will even be remembered next week, let alone a hundred years from now. Certainly some events are important, but at least 99% of what the media covers is irrelevant fluff when viewed against the backdrop of human history.

Ignore the fluff, and focus on building something with the potential to endure. Write for your children and grandchildren.

4. Write for human beings first, computers second.

A lot has been written about the optimal strategies for strong search engine rankings in terms of posting frequency and post length. But I largely ignore that advice because I write for human beings, not computers.

I write when I have something meaningful to say, and I write as much as it takes to say it. On average I post about five times per week, but I have no set quota. I also write much longer entries than most bloggers. No one has ever accused me of being too brief. My typical blog entry is about 1500–2000 words, and some (like this one) are much longer. Many successful bloggers would recommend I write shorter entries (250–750 words) and post more frequently (20x per week), since that creates more search engine seeds for the same amount of writing. And while I agree with them that such a strategy would generate more search engine traffic, I’m not going to take their advice. To do so would interfere too much with my strategy of delivering genuine value and creating timeless content. I have no interest in cranking out small chunks of disposable content just to please a computer. Anyone can print out an article to read later if they don’t have time to read it now and if the subject is of genuine interest to them. Part of the reason I write longer articles is that even though fewer people will take the time to read them, for those that do the articles are usually much more impactful.

Because of these decisions, my search engine traffic is fairly low compared to other bloggers. Google is my #1 referrer, but it accounts for less than 1.5% of my total traffic. My traffic is extremely decentralized. The vast majority of it comes from links on thousands of other web sites and from direct requests. Ultimately, my traffic grows because people tell other people about this site, either online or offline. I’ve also done very well with social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg.com, and reddit.com because they’re based on personal recommendations. I’ve probably had about a dozen articles hit the del.icio.us popular list within the past year, definitely more than my fair share.

I prefer this traffic-building strategy because it leaves me less vulnerable to shifts in technology. I figure that Google ultimately wants to make it easy for its visitors to find valuable content, so my current strategy should be in alignment with Google’s long-term strategy. My feeling is that Google would be well-served by sending more of its traffic here. But that alignment simply arises from my focus on providing value first and foremost.

5. Know why you want a high-traffic site.

I write because my purpose in life is to help people become more conscious and aware — to grow as human beings. I don’t have a separate job or career other than this. Because my work is driven by this purpose, I have a compelling reason to build a high-traffic web site, one that aligns with my deepest personal values. More web traffic means I can have a bigger impact by reaching more people. And over the course of the next few decades, this influence has the potential to create a positive change that might alter the future direction of human civilization. Most significantly, I want to help humanity move past fear and for us to stop relating to each other through the mechanisms of fear. If I fail, I fail. But I’m not giving up no matter how tough it gets.

Those are big stakes, and it might sound like I’m exaggerating, but this is the level at which I think about my work today. Everything else I do, including building a high traffic web site, is simply a means to that end. Today I’m just planting seeds, and most of them haven’t even sprouted yet. A high traffic web site is just one of the sprouts that came about as a result of pursuing the purpose that drives me. But it is not an end in itself.

What will you do if you succeed in building a high-traffic web site? If you someday find yourself in the privileged position of being able to influence millions of people, what will you say to them? Will you honor and respect this position by using it as a channel to serve the highest good of all, or will you throw that opportunity away to pursue your own fleeting fame and fortune while feeding your audience disposable drivel?

Although I launched this web site in October 2004, I’ve been writing articles since 1999, and feedback has allowed me to understand how small slices of my writing have affected certain people in the long run. After reading something I’ve written, people have quit their jobs, started their own businesses, changed religions, and ended relationships. While some people might find this level of impact ego-gratifying, for me it intensifies my feeling of personal responsibility for my writing. I’ve seen that I’m able to have an impact on people, so I damned well better make it a good one.

This “why” is what drives me. It’s what compels me to go to my computer and write something at 3am and not stop until 10am. I get inspired often. The #1 reason I want more traffic is that it will allow me to help more people. That’s where I direct my ambition for this site, and consequently I’m extremely motivated, which certainly plays a key role in taking action.

6. Let your audience see the real you.

My life and my writing are intricately intertwined, such that it’s impossible to separate the two. When someone reads this web site, they’ll eventually come to know a great deal about me as a person. Usually this creates a skewed and inaccurate impression of who I am today because I change a lot over time — I’m not the same person I was last year — but it’s close enough. Getting to know me makes it easier for people to understand the context of what I write, which means that more value can be transferred in less time.

I’ve told many personal stories on this site, including my most painful and difficult experiences. I don’t do this to be gratuitous but rather because those stories help make a point — that no matter where you find yourself today, you always have the opportunity to grow in some small way, and no matter how small those changes are, they’re going to add up over time to create massive lifelong growth. That’s a lesson we all need to remember.

When I find ways to turn some of my darkest experiences into lessons that might help others in similar situations, it actually transforms those painful memories into joyful ones. They take on new meaning for me, and I can see that there was a positive reason I had to endure such experiences, one that ultimately serves the highest good of all. Oddly, I now find that it was my darkest times that help create the most light for others.

With respect to privacy, I don’t really care much for it. I do respect other people’s right to privacy, so when people tell me personal stories via email, I don’t turn around and re-post them to my blog. But I’m OK with being rather un-private myself. The need for privacy comes from the desire to protect the ego, which is a fear-driven desire, and fear is something I just don’t need in my life. My attitude is that it’s perfectly OK to fail or to be rejected publicly. Trying to appear perfect is nothing but a house of cards that will eventually collapse.

I think allowing people to know the real me makes it possible to build a relationship with my audience that’s based on intimacy and friendship. I dislike seeing people putting me on too much of a pedestal and using labels like “guru” or “overachiever.” Such labels create distance which makes communication harder. They emphasize our differences instead of our similarities. Communication between equals — between friends — is more effective.

More genuine communication means better connections with your audience, which means more repeat traffic and more referral traffic. This isn’t a manipulative game though, and excessive or overly dramatic self-disclosure for the purpose of linkbaiting will only backfire. Your reasons for storytelling must be to benefit your audience. The traffic benefits are a positive side effect.

7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences.

If the stuff I’ve written on this site means I’ll never be able to run for a political office, I can live with that. I’m willing to write what is true for me, even if it goes against my social conditioning. Being honest is more important to me than being popular. But the irony is that because bold honesty is so rare among civilized humans, in the long run this may be the best traffic-building strategy of all.

People often warn me not to write things that might alienate a portion of my visitors. But somehow I keep doing the opposite and seeing traffic go up, not down. I don’t treat any subjects as taboo or sacred if they’re relevant to personal growth, and that includes diet and religion. It’s no secret that I’m a vegan ex-Catholic. Do I alienate people when I say that torturing and killing defenseless animals for food is wrong? Perhaps. But truth is truth. I happen to think it’s a bad idea to feed cows cement dust and bovine growth hormone, to pack live chickens into warehouses where the ammonia from their feces is strong enough to burn their skin off, and to feed 70% of our grain to livestock while tens of thousands of people die of hunger each day. I also think it’s a bad idea to pay people to perform these actions on my behalf. It really doesn’t matter to me that 999 people out of 1000 disagree with me. Your disagreement with me doesn’t change what went into producing your burger. It’s still a diseased, tortured, chemical-injected cow, one that was doomed to a very sad life because of a decision you made. And you’re still responsible for your role in that cow’s suffering whether you like it or not.

That last paragraph is a good example of the kind of stuff I write that makes people want to put me in a cage, inject me with hormones, and feed me cement dust. It wouldn’t surprise me terribly if that ends up being my fate.

I write what is true for me, regardless of public opinion. Sometimes I’m in the majority; sometimes I’m not. I’m fully aware that some of my opinions are unpopular, and I’m absolutely fine with that. What I’m not fine with is putting truth to a vote.

I take the time to form my own opinions instead of simply regurgitating what I was taught as a child. And I’m also well aware that there are people spending billions of dollars to make you think that a burger is not a very sad, diseased, tortured, chemical-injected cow. But I’m going to keep writing to help you remain aware of things like that, even though you may hate me for it. That defensiveness eventually leads to doubt, which leads to change and growth, so it’s perfectly fine. I’m good at dealing with defensiveness.

I don’t worry too much about hurting people’s feelings. Hurt feelings are a step in the right direction for many people. If I’m able to offend you so easily, to me that means you already recognize some truth in what I’ve written, but you aren’t ready to face it consciously yet. If you read something from me that provokes an emotional reaction, then a seed has already been planted. In other words, it’s already too late for you.

My goal isn’t to convince anyone of anything in particular. I’m not an animal rights activist, and I don’t have a religion to promote. My goal is to awaken people to living more consciously. This requires raising people’s awareness across all facets of their lives, so they can make the big decisions for themselves. It requires breaking social conditioning and replacing it with conscious awareness and intention. That’s a big job, but someone has to do it. And if I don’t do it, then I have to admit I’m just part of the problem like all the other hibernating bears.

A lot has been written about the importance of transparency in blogging, and truth is the best transparency of all. Truth creates trust, and trust builds traffic. No games, no gimmicks… just plain old brutal honesty. Even the people that say they hate you will still come back, and eventually those people will become your most ardent supporters. Even if they don’t agree with you, they’ll learn they can trust you and that your intentions are honorable, and trust is more important than agreement.

8. Treat your visitors like real human beings.

Even though I’m sitting at my computer writing this, seemingly alone, I know you’re a real human being reading it on the other end. My apologies to sentient androids who may be reading this years after it’s been written. You aren’t just a number in my web stats. Despite the technology involved and the time-space differential between my writing and your reading, there’s still a human-to-human connection between us that transcends time and space. And that connection matters to me. I feel its presence whenever I do my best writing.

While I imagine being on a stage in front of a million people when deciding which topic to write about, once I actually get going, I imagine having a one-on-one conversation with a friend. This means revealing some of myself and being honest, as the last two points already addressed, but it also means genuinely caring about you as a person. And that’s perhaps one of the best kept secrets of my success as a blogger. I actually care about helping you grow. I want you to become more conscious and aware. I want you to experience less fear in your life. And my concern for your well-being isn’t conditional upon you liking me.

I happen to think we have a lot more similarities than differences. Based on what I know about myself, I imagine you’d like your life to be better tomorrow than it was yesterday. I imagine you’d like to be happier, more fulfilled, and more at peace with yourself. I also imagine you’re living below your potential and could use some help overcoming fear and solving certain problems to enable you to tap more of that potential. And finally, I imagine you wouldn’t believe me if I said you can have it all for only $19.95 (as well you shouldn’t).

The reason I work so hard to create original content and then give it away for free is because I want to help as many people as possible. I genuinely care what happens to this beautiful planet and to the people who live here. It’s possible I actually value your life even more than you do. This is the kind of motivation that never wanes. I sometimes lose sight of it when I get caught up in the details, but the connection is always there, waiting for me to tap into it whenever I want. This provides me with a wellspring of creative ideas and an inexhaustible passion for contribution.

I don’t need to play stupid marketing and sales games with you. There’s nothing for you to buy here. Even if I add some products in the future, I’m not going to try to manipulate you into buying something you don’t need with a slew of false promises. I might make more money in the short-term by doing that, but it would sever our genuine connection, create a wall between us, and reduce the level of impact I’m able to have. Ultimately, that approach would lead to failure for me, at least in terms of how I define success. I can’t help you grow if I violate your trust.

I cannot force anyone to grow who doesn’t want to. But there are a lot of people on this planet who are now ready to let go of low-awareness living and start pushing themselves to the next level of human existence. And they need help to get there because it’s a difficult journey, and there are strong forces working against it.

Real human beings helping real human beings is ultimately what traffic growth is all about. That’s precisely what a link or a referral is. If you align yourself with the intention of genuinely helping people because you care, you’ll soon find yourself with an abundance of traffic.

9. Keep money in its proper place.

Money is important. Obviously I have bills to pay. Money pays for my computer, my high-speed internet connection, my house, and my food. I just returned yesterday from a vacation that money paid for. My wife and I had a great time partly because we didn’t have to worry about money at all on the trip. We did everything we wanted to do without being hampered by a lack of funds. And this web site paid for it.

It’s important that I generate some money from my work, but it’s not necessary that I extract every possible dollar. In fact, relative to its traffic levels, I’m seriously under-monetizing this site. But money is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. Making a positive contribution to the world is a lot more important to me than money. Money can be useful in achieving this objective, but human relationships are far more important. The funny thing is that the less I rely on money, the more of it I seem to have.

I’m already making more money than I need to pay my bills, and my income from this site keeps going up each month. If I simply keep doing what I’m doing, I’ll probably end up becoming fairly wealthy. But money is an extremely weak motivator for me. Very little of what I do today has a profit motive behind it except to the extent that money will fuel more important goals. That tends to confuse certain people because some of my decisions align with earning money, but many don’t. While I do consider myself an entrepreneur (at least it’s less isolating than “guru”), I only see money as a tool for enhancing and expanding my contribution.

While many entrepreneurs pursue money for the purpose of becoming wealthy, I chose a different route. I sought to earn money for the purpose of increasing my freedom. I don’t want to get myself stuck in a pattern of working for money, so I’m constantly turning down opportunities to make money that would restrict my freedom. For example, I don’t do any consulting or coaching. Consequently, my calendar contains very few fixed appointments. This doesn’t mean I’m idle. It just means I spend my time doing what I freely choose to do instead of what others would have me do. I require this level of flexibility to do my best work.

By paying close attention to how I earn money and not just how much I earn, I keep money in its proper place. This allows me to stay focused on my purpose without getting wrapped up in less important concerns like building a brand, closing sales, or doing phony marketing.

I dislike it when other people use one-dimensional sales and marketing tactics on me, so I avoid using these techniques on this site. I’ve sort of unplugged myself from the current capitalistic system and set up a side system of my own that I find much more congruent with conscious living. I would love for other people to have the same level of freedom I enjoy each day. I’m sure I’ll continue to improve my approach over time, but it’s working wonderfully so far. Imagine having a business with no products, no inventory, no sales, and no customers, but still generating an abundant positive cashflow.

Since the income generation is largely on autopilot, I can focus my time and energy on creating content instead of on doing marketing or trying to sell something. And being able to devote so much time to content creation without worrying how I’ll pay my bills makes it a lot easier to build high traffic.

Some business models make it very challenging to build traffic. You have to spend a lot of time and energy just on lead generation, and then maybe you try to monetize those leads by selling a product or service. It’s always an uphill struggle.

I give all my best content away for free. Word of mouth does the rest. So my traffic building strategy is more like flowing downstream. It hasn’t been a struggle for me at all. And once you have sufficient traffic, it isn’t that hard to monetize it without becoming an ogre.

We’ve all heard the expression, “Build a better mousetrap, and they’ll come.” And we’ve also heard marketing and sales people say that this is just plain wrong — you have to market and sell that mousetrap effectively too. I say they’re all wrong. My approach is the equivalent of, “Build a better mousetrap and give it away for free, and they’ll come — and they’ll bring friends too.”

10. If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

One thing that turns me off about typical self-help marketing is that authors and speakers often position themselves as if they’re the opposite of their audience. I’m successful and you’re not. I’m rich and you’re not. I’m fit and you’re not. You need me because something is lacking in your life, I have exactly what you lack, and if you pay me (and make me even richer and you poorer), I’ll show you how you can have it too. And if it doesn’t work for you, it just means you’re even more of an idiot than the people who provided my testimonials.

I’m sure you’ve heard this sort of nonsense many times before.

All of this I’ve-arrived-and-you-haven’t stuff is stupid. It suggests that life is about destinations and that once you’ve arrived, you’re done growing and can just relax and sip fruity drinks for the rest of your life. But there’s more to life than border crossings. If you go from single to married or from non-millionaire to millionaire, that’s fine and dandy. Crossing the border into parenthood was a big one for me. But that’s only one day of my life, and to be honest, I didn’t have much control over it except for a decision made nine-months earlier (and it seemed like a pretty attractive idea at the time). What about all those other days though?

Growing as a human being is something I work on daily. I’m deeply passionate about my own growth, so naturally I want to share this part of the journey with others. If I start marketing myself with the “I’m successful and you’re not approach,” I hope someone will come put me out of my misery, since that would mean I’m done growing and ready to die. I don’t expect to ever be done growing as long as I exist as a human being. There are always new distinctions to be made and new experiences to enjoy. And yes… plenty of mistakes to be made as well.

One of the great benefits of focusing on helping others is that it gets fear out of the way. Without fear you become free to just be yourself. You’re able to take intelligent risks and remain detached from any specific outcome because the journey is more important to you than the specific stops along the way. Personally it’s not the destinations that excite me but rather the unfolding process of discovery. I love the anticipation of wondering what lies around each new bend.

If we are to help each other, we need to be partners in the pursuit of growth, not opponents. So it makes no sense to put up fake walls between us. The ego needs walls to protect it, but if we can get past the fear-based needs of the ego, we’ll make a lot more progress.

There are plenty of things I could do with this site that would make me more money or grow traffic faster in the short-term, but I won’t do them because they’ll just put more distance between us. I’ll be on my side, you’ll be on your side, and we’ll each be slightly afraid of the other. I’ll be worried that maybe you won’t buy what I’m selling, and you’ll be worried about getting ripped off or taken advantage of. We’ll just be drinking yet another round of fear, which is exactly the opposite of what we need to grow.

One of my biggest challenges in life right now is figuring out how to help enough people switch their primary polarization from fear to love. Our emotions are an energy source for us (they drive our actions), and most of the world is still driven by fear energy. Watching TV news is a good example; we can actually feel energized by watching others suffer. Hurting animals is another example; we eat their fear for breakfast. But there’s another fuel for human consciousness, and perhaps the best way to describe it is unconditional love. This isn’t the squishy emotion of romantic love — it’s a sense of connection to everything that exists and a desire to serve the highest good of all. Unconditional love, when it becomes one’s primary fuel, cultivates fearlessness. In this state you still have the biological fight-or-flight response, but you aren’t driven by emotional worries like fear of failure or fear of rejection. You feel perfectly safe regardless of external circumstances. And when you have this feeling of unconditional safety, you’re truly free to be yourself, to embrace new experiences, and to grow at a very fast pace.

Personal growth is not a zero-sum game. If you grow as a human being, it doesn’t harm me. In fact, ultimately if all of us grow as individuals, it’s going to make this whole planet better for everyone. When enough people switch their primary polarization from fear to unconditional love, this planet will become a true paradise. That’s a good thing for all of us, one that’s more important than all the money in the world.

Perhaps you have a less ambitious goal for building web traffic than raising human consciousness and working towards world peace. That doesn’t matter. You can still make helping others your primary focus, and if you do that, you’ll find it relatively easy to build a high-traffic web site. If you align yourself with serving the highest good of all, you’ll receive plenty of help along the way, and best of all, you’ll deserve it.

Do your best to help your visitors out of genuine concern for their well-being, and they’ll help you build your traffic and even generate a nice income from it. It’s as simple as that.