Two Spanish students from Rovira i Virgili University, Isaac Paton and Florencia Manette, opened the 15th of March La Pagina del Millon, a web page through which they hope to pay their university degree expenses
After Alex Tew’s success with “Themilliondollarhomepage”, only a few months ago, now two young Spanish students try to do the same with www.lapaginadelmillon.es.
The page is structured with 10.000 squares of 100 pixels each, at the rate of 1 euro per pixel. People interested in appearing in the page buy the pixels to insert the image which links to their own web pages. This is a way to increase the number of visitors; in the page is showed the comments from the buyers’ satisfaction about the great number of visitors they have with only 100 pixels they bought in La Pagina del Millon.
One of the differences from the English project is that this one is addressed to the Spanish Community.
After three months’ experience, the young university students have collected 20.000 euros, they have been in radio and TV interviews, in pieces of news in the Spanish news papers and also in pieces of news on line.
Other differences from other similar projects are that www.lapaginadelmillon.es offers a serious service and it is shown on the first places in internet search (Google, MSN).
In order to bring out the project in a legal and serious way, the two young university students have established a firm. This implies a supervision of all the terms provided by lawyers. Moreover, an important Spanish Bank gives support to guarantee the safety and privacy to pay on line.
It can be summarized that www.lapaginadelmillon.es is a web page where everybody can take advantages of its possibilities: the students get money to pay their university studies, and the buyers increase their popularity and a great deal of visitors to read their advertisements and go to their own web pages.
There are more ways to get traffic to your site than you
can possibly imagine.
Getting traffic to your site is the single most important
aspect of any online business.You’ve probably heard it
a million times, but without traffic you might as well be
fishing for whales in a shallow creek. Site owners should
try to get traffic from both online and offline sources and
by conventional as well as creative methods.
Excluding the offline methods, here are the Top 5 online
ways we know of to get more traffic to your website.
1. Search Engines
Perhaps the best and most well known of the traffic
generating methods - If not the hardest. Every website
owner who has pages related to your market is competing
for this traffic. It’s going to take more patience and effort
on webmasters part’s to get your pages listed in the major
search engines as well as keep them at the top.This will
be especially true with Google now filing for a patent on
the criteria they will be using to rank pages. You can see
more on that by going to this page
http:/www.cashway.com/googles.htm
To play the SE traffic game you need to optimize your
webpages, provide relavant content and have good back
links to sites that compliment yours.
If you have an existing site you should spend some time
reviewing and optimizing those individual pages for the
keywords and content that you have selected for it. That’s
the one basic task you can do to help improve your site
in the eyes of the search engines. This includes making
sure the keywords are placed throughout your meta tags,
title, description, headlines, body and even in the alt tags
of your graphics on your page.
You can get a more detailed plan for optimizing your pages
by reading the Search Engine Optimization article located on
http://www.cashway.com/articles/search_engine_articles.htm
If you want to get a better perspective on what keywords are
best for your webpage content you might want to download a
Free copy of Good Keywords keyword search tool or use
Overtures’Search Term Suggestion Tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
2. Link Exchanges
I think the second most viable way to get traffic to your
site is through reciprocal link exchanges. It’s a time
consuming process (unless you use automated software)
that you can really develop some long term traffic sources
for you site.
If you want to check the number of links to your site from
within the major search engines you can download this
handy little piece of Free software that runs from your
desktop that will give you a count on the number of links
you have. You can get it here:
http://www.cashway.com/jmag/lpc/lpc_ed.exe
3. Wrting and Distributing Articles
If you have your own website chances are that you’ve
gained some specific expertise in the area associated
with your site. You can turn that knowledge into a traffic
generating machine by writing short, helpful articles
that help solve problems and point people in the direction
of your site.
You can write and submit them to other newsletter publishers
and website owners . Here’s a short list of where to distribute
them:
- Include in your site’s Article Section
- Article Directories
- Ezine Publishers
- Publish in your ezine
- Publish in your blog
- Announcement lists
- Forums
4. Site Content
This goes hand in hand with writing and publishing
articles.You can research using the various search
engines to find articles, newsfeeds and other relevant
content to place throughout your site.
just remember that whatever outside content you
decide to include on your site should be with the
copyrighted owners permission. You should also take
the time to optimize those content pages for the search
engines.
These pages should also have links either in a sidebar,
header, footer, etc that act as doorways that visitors can
enter other parts of your site. The more optimized content
pages you have and that get spidered by the SE’s, the
more likely you’ll bring visitors to your site.
That’s a brief look at the best ways to bring traffic to
your website. If you’ve noticed anything at all you should
have seen that all for are strategically integrated to help
you get more visitors to your site
At this point in time it also looks like they are going to be
the best and most accepted ways to get the traffic you
want using search engines and especially without being
penalized by Google for not following their soon to be
patented guidelines.
””””””””””””
Copyright 2005 Ed Duvall.
Guru’s drive unlimited traffic to their sites - why can’t you?
Free ebook shows you how: “8 Steps To Claiming YOUR
SHARE Of The Enormous Traffic Available Everyday From
Search Engines…” AND get Free marketing tools weekly
http://www.cashway.com/biz_rm.htm
Resource box must remain as is if republished.
A websites profitability depends solely on directing visitors to that website. No visitors… No sales…
Its common knowledge that search engines love content related to the theme of your website. Enough related content and you’ll thrust to the top of the search engines like a rocket propelled into outer space.
Writing enough articles on the other hand, is a whole different story. For most of us it’s actually hard work.
It’s not that we don’t have enough knowledge about the topic, rather we don’t quite know how to say it on paper.
But did you know you could use public domain information to create your own articles based on the theme of your website?
All you have to do is go to a few public domain sources and search for related content. Then strip the meat from these publications and form your very own copywritable articles in minutes.
Add your resource box at the bottom of every article you create and you can quickly use the power of written articles to leverage traffic to your website.
Go to http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/search (this will take you to the advanced search screen)
Type in your keyword and see if there are any public domain related works.
For example, I did a quick search for the keyword “psychology” and returned a page of interesting works like “The Journal of Abnormal Psychology” and this happens to be a 10 volume set.
If my website was about Psychology or anything related to that topic I would open the document and search for information that could be developed into an article.
In a 10 volume set I could easily develop 10 - 20 content based articles, give it some of my own personality and there you go… fresh new articles ready to go.
To create even more articles, dominate a particular interest group and be at the top of the search engine listings for your keyword(s) all you need are more resources to find public domain information faster.
Mike Hill is the creator of the Public Domain Sources Directory, dubbed: “The Most Profitable Book In The World” because of all the hard-to-find secret sources he lists inside this incredibly detailed directory. For more… http://www.publicdomainempires.com
You should skip this article if you have more Website traffic than you need. But if you are like many of us and need more that read on.
Content is still the gold standard that Web sites are graded on by the search engine robots. The content needs to be honest and reliable. When it is, you will begin to get a following of visitors.
These visitors will purchase from you time and time again. But first they need to get content from you so they will build that special trust.
How do you build more Web site traffic?
The easiest way is to begin a distribution of your articles to directories, ezine publishers, and article announcement services.
As you do this you will notice more Website traffic. If your experience is anything like mine it will be noticeable in the first or second week after circulating your article(s).
Article Directories
These are sites that devour content and have it available to others, including yourself. Article directories can have many categories for various articles they accept or they may be specialized and only take articles which deal within a small spectrum.
There are hundreds of these sites and you should rely only on the ones that are considered top tier. Usually these have been around the longest and have the widest base of readers looking for “your” article.
Web masters and others look to these “dealers of content” for actual articles or for ideas for their own articles.
Unless you copyright an article it is usually there for the taking and using. As a ethical component for the free use of an article it is expected that the article
- will not be changed
- will have the resource box in tact
- and will reference the author and web site
Article Announcement Services
Another service which will bring you more Website traffic are announcement services. There are a few companies which do this and do it well. They have a list of members to which they announce via email the newest articles.
The biggest ones are Yahoo Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com/) and web-source.net (www.web-source.net/article-announce.htm )
You can get good exposure to ultimately get more Website traffic.
Ezine Publishers
Here there are literally hundreds if not thousands of the publishers. Most of them have a dual business both allowing you to add content articles and to get your articles to them so they may be used for ezines.
When you look into ezine publishers you will find that they are usually have niches for themselves. That is they usually look for a few categories of subjects. For expample, there are only about 5-10 who deal with articles on gardening.
As you submit your articles for use to these services you will need to know which niche or niches that your article fits best.
By using these various avenues to get your articles out there you definitely will see more Website traffic. It is amazing how fast a growth you will see. It is not uncommon to see your site double or triple its traffic stats.
What does it take to submit to these?
I’ve got to admit it does take considerable time to submit your article, one at a time, to all of these potential services. Just to submit to about 40 directories it takes me about 6 hours.
Save Yourself 4-5 hours
I have found a way to cut this time down to about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. This is a tremendous savings of time for me and it is done correctly.
If you’d like to see how I do this, I invite you to go to http://www.start-internet-business-from-college.com/web-site-marketing-strategy.html
Do you need to save 4 -5 hours to work on other important parts of your
business? If so you need to look at this. You will be happy you did
Proper Use Of Meta tags For A High Google Ranking
Google is currently the web’s most popular search engine. Getting a high Google ranking is a must if you want your website to succeed! In addition to being the most used search engine in its own right, Google also provides the search results for other mega-sites, including America Online. By following a few simple guidelines, you can watch your site climb up the Google ladder and your traffic will climb right along with it. This article will show you how to make effective use of meta tags to help your website climb that ladder!
It’s imperative to use “Google friendly” meta tags. Meta tags give a web browser important information about your website. Here are the most important meta tags for achieving a top ranking on Google:
1 - Title Tag - The title tag is the most important meta tag on your web page. Be sure to use a few of your primary keywords in your title tag. For example, the title tag on my homepage is:
As you can see, my title tag contains 8 very important keywords and 2 key phrases: handcrafted, Appalachian, bird houses, and bird feeders. This is what is known as “spider food”. When Google’s spider crawls my homepage, it finds these keywords in the title tag. It also finds these same keywords sprinkled throughout the text (content) on the page. This effectively “links” the keywords in the title meta tag to the content on the page. This “linking” provides a high level of “relevance” for my site when someone goes to Google and does a search on one of my keywords, helping my site rank high in the search results for those keywords or key phrases.
2 - Description Tag - Another important meta tag is the “description” tag. My description tag looks like this:
As you can see, my description meta tag contains several of my keywords and key phrases. This is important because it ties in with the title meta tag and the page content. When other websites link to yours (also very important for a high Google ranking), they link to you using link “anchor text”. The anchor text is the “clickable” part of the link. By providing the other webmaster with very specific anchor text (which includes your keywords), that anchor text will tie in with your site’s meta tags and keyword-rich content. This makes for a very well optimized web page for Google ranking purposes. Proper meta tags and effective linking strategies form the backbone of a good site optimization plan for Google. You can find a detailed step-by-step guide to getting a top 10 listing in Google and Yahoo on our website:
http://www.rlrouse.com/SEO.html
About The Author
Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Handcrafted Bird Houses And Bird Feeders. He has written several how-to guides that explain how to get high search engine rankings and top placement in Google. You are invited to visit his site: http://www.rlrouse.com
Asking another webmaster for a reciprocal link is standard practice on the Internet. Webmasters have been asking other webmasters for reciprocal links since the beginnings of the Internet. The very nature of the web is linking websites to one another. It is of even higher importance, now that AltaVista and others have changed their ranking algorithms.
If a webmaster considers your email spam, then he can report you. If your emails are unique, without commercials, and are personalized with unique personal information about the webmaster’s web site that you are emailing, then it would be hard to call your email spam.
All webmasters must be responsible in their asking for reciprocal links. This includes following simple rules and guidelines in choosing web sites to include in your link directory.
Organizing a Tightly-Themed Vertical Link Directory
Reciprocal links do increase your search engine positioning if used properly.Tightly-Themed Link Directories get high ratings from search engine robots, but only if they are true resources of organized knowledge. Search engines are getting very smart in their query result rankings. They include all kinds of advanced calculations pertaining to how the links point to you and away from you. They can include keywords in their algorithms, and now they know how tightly linked your Themes or subjects are. Don’t try to fool them into better positioning by including a lot of web sites that are outside your web site’s real Themes in your Link Directory.
Your Link Directory’s Themes must match the Themes of your web site. You must not let your zeal to email, and perhaps get a reciprocal link overpower your need to create a true web resource. You don’t want to create a directory that includes all the knowledge of mankind and also sounds like a soft drink. You should be happy with organizing a tightly Themed Vertical Link Directory. Be the best in your area, linking only sites that relate to you.
A smaller, tightly-themed Link Directory will grow much faster than a diluted, loosely-themed, large bulky one. Your web site’s traffic will quickly increase, not only with visitors from your Reciprocal Link partners but will also increase from Search Engine visitors, once their robots quickly find your Link Directory pages through your Link Partners!
Email General Guidelines
If you are including web sites in your Link Directory just because you want to send an email and possibly get a link, then you are spamming in mind and spirit. The webmaster who receives this kind of email is not a happy camper. He or she is proud of his achievements in creating traffic to his site over the last few years, perhaps millions of hits every month, only to receive an email asking him to link to a web site that in no way can remotely match his web site or be useful for his visitors. This is spam. Remember the phrase reciprocal links? Please change it to Reciprocal Themed Links. This is important !
DO NOT commercialize your email in any way.
It shouldn’t look like spam or people will think it is. Do not include ANY links in your email signature area except links to your web site. Keep it short and to the point. Ask for a reciprocal link and that’s it.
This message should only be a few lines, and not a long narrative with rules and guidelines. Save that for your information on your link directory. Use a unique email reciprocal link message.
It is possible for webmasters to receive the same basic message from another webmaster. Each reciprocal link request MUST look different by being fresh and original.
Do not use Let’s Trade Links as your subject. Let’s trade Links is probably the most used email subject line on the Internet today, as there are thousands of webmasters using this phrase. If you keep this subject line, then you are sending the same one as everyone else. It will not be accepted or worse, it will look like spam.
Personalize every email message
Include a personal comment in the email message to each of your selected email addresses. You could include something like: “I really like the animations you had on your home page.”, “.. and loved your background image” or “I loved the content on …… page”. This personal comment should prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that you personally visited their web site.
Use logic when selecting those to receive an email.
Before you can send a reciprocal link request, you need to explore their web site to decide if you want to include them in your link directory. You need to also use some thought in who you send a message to. A super large web site will probably not trade links with you in the beginning, perhaps you should save those for later. If you cannot find a links page, they are not going to trade links either. Think before sending email.
I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.
About The Author
Marc Oswald Singer
CEO WSP Advertising Inc.
http://www.wspromotion.com/
In today’s world of website promotion and traffic building, a whole new set of terms and definitions have developed. To be a successful webmaster and/or website owner, it is important to know the meanings of some of the most popular link exchange and search engine terms.
1. Algorithm: The mathematical computation used by major search engines to determine which web pages will be displayed in query (search) results.
2. Click-through rate (CTR): The total number of possible clicks on a web page divided by the actual number of times a link on that same page is clicked.
3. Cloaking: The process of sending a version of a web page to a search engine that is different from the one a user sees on the site. Cloaking is considered to be unethical but is often used to increase the potential ranking of a website. Most of the search engines will penalize a website or web page if they discover it is cloaking.
4. Dead link: A hyperlink that does not lead to a page or site. This usually occurs when a server is down, the page has been moved or deleted, or the site no longer exists.
5. Directory: An index or list of websites compiled by people and usually organized by topic or theme.
6. Doorway page: A page that has been created for the sole purpose of attempting to get a higher ranking in the search engines. Most of the major search engines will penalize websites that use doorway pages.
7. Hidden text: Text that is visible to the search engine robots or spiders, but not to the website visitors. Hidden text is mostly used to add extra keywords to a page without adding additional content. Most of the major search engines will penalize websites that use hidden text.
8. Hyperlinks: Used to link one or more documents or pages together.
9. Inbound link: The links that direct users to another website. When a user arrives at one site from another site, that link is known as an inbound link.
10. Keyword: A word or phrase which is used when searching for a website in the search engines or directories. These are the words or phrases that webmasters use to describe or explain the content of their website.
11. Keyword Density: Represents the frequency that keywords appear on a page. Keyword density is the ratio of a keyword or key phrases to the total number of words on a particular page. This is an important issue for search engine rankings. The more often the keyword appears on a page - the higher its search engine ranking. However, if the keywords are repeated too often, it could lead to the page being penalized for spamming.
12. Link Building: The process of creating inbound links to your website. This can be accomplished by requesting reciprocal links, being listed in e-zines, newsletters, and directories.
13. Link Exchange or Reciprocal Links: The process where two webmasters agree to place each other’s link on their website.
14. Link Exchange Program: Most link exchange programs are where webmasters sign up and agree to host and link to a member’s only directory or links page.
15. Link Farm: Link Exchange programs that do not offer anything but a bunch of unrelated links. Most link farms collect email addresses and use them for sending unsolicited emails (SPAM) to webmasters that sign up for the program.
16. Link Popularity: The number of websites that link to a particular site. Many search engines use link popularity as a factor in determining the search engine ranking of a website.
17. Meta Description Tag: The tag present in the header of a web page that provides a short description of the contents of the page and/or the website.
18. Meta Keywords Tag: The tag present in the header of a web page that lists words which represent or explain the content in the body of the page and/or the website.
19. Pay Per Click Search Engine: A search engine in which the ranking of the sites is based on the amount paid for each click from that search engine to the site.
20. Outbound link: A link that directs users to another website. When a user arrives at a new site from your site, that link is known as an outbound link.
21. Search Engine: A computerized index of the web pages which creates a searchable database. Examples are Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
22. Search Engine Placement/Optimization: The process of ensuring that a website ranks high in the major search engines.
23. Spider: Also called robots or crawlers. This is a software program used by search engines to crawl the internet, storing URLs and indexing the keywords and text on web pages.
24. Traffic: The actual visitors to a website.
25. URL: (Uniform Resource Locator) is used to designate the address of a website.
Lesley Dietschy is a freelance writer and the creator/editor of The Home Decor Exchange and the Home & Garden Exchange. The Home Decor Exchange is a popular home and garden website featuring resources, articles, decorating pictures, free projects, a shopping marketplace, and more. The Home & Garden Exchange is a unique link exchange directory dedicated to home and garden websites. Please visit both sites for all of your home, garden, and website needs.
http://www.HomeDecorExchange.com
http://www.HomeGardenExchange.com
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking to generate revenue. While FREE traffic from the search engines seems the most logical way to go, actually staying ahead of the game can be tough. Here are my top 3 ways to send your traffic counter spinning without the headaches.
1. Trading Links With Other Webmasters:
By mutually agreeing with another webmaster to trade link exposure on each others site, you’re expanding your market reach significantly. Not only does this generate instant traffic from the link partner, but you’ll also BOOST your Google PR and link ranking with other search engines as a bonus.
This helps you rank better in the listings, generating even more FREE traffic, without doing any complicated SEO.
There are some great tools to help you get started trading links. Some of them are even free. I don’t recommend them personally because annoying banners or other types of ads compete for the same space, doesn’t look very professional.
Alternatives to FREE software worth checking out are…
The ALMIGHTY Zeus - The one I use. Tough to get used to, but an excellent piece of kit. The darn thing learns and just keeps getting smarter the more you use it. (And a FREE trial so you can become a master before you buy)
http://www.cyber-robotics.com
Reciprocal Link Manager - Not as sophisticated as Zeus but much easier to learn if you’re pressed for time.
http://reciprocal-manager.com/
Axandra’s Arelis - Lots of great reviews for this one and more in the Zeus mould.
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm
2. Writing Articles to Publish Online:
This technique is a very close second to my favourite one which I’ll share in just a moment. The amount of exposure you can get from writing a simple article is astounding.
After you’ve written it up, you submit to the major article directories, then just sit back and watch the traffic stream in.
As an added bonus you start to gain more respect within your industry. Articles have this uncanny knack to create an aura of expertise around the writer.
You also benefit yet again with search engine ranking, as other webmasters with mailing lists publish your article on their site. Creating yet another link back to you.
Articles are a VERY effective pre-selling technique too.
How much more targeted would a prospect be arriving at your website after reading one of your articles in an email or on another site?
Not only did you get the recommendation from the publisher, but if they enjoy reading your article and get some value from it, you’ve already broken down one of the main barriers of selling…
TRUST!
Here are some cool resources to get stuck into:
Editorial guidelines:
http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
Some great “How To” advice:
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/howto.html
And a nice BIG list of directories and announcement lists:
http://www.marketingchick.com/howto/article-marketing.shtml
3. Viral Marketing:
Viral Marketing is defined as “Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do”; E.g. When Hotmail users send e-mails, they “infect” the recipients with the tagline at the bottom of their messages.
If you UNLEASH a ‘Viral Marketing’ campaign, it will just keep on multiplying, spreading your message around the web like wildfire. I absolutely LOVE this method of sending quality traffic to my website for FREE.
Generating free traffic with ‘Viral Marketing’ is easily the most rewarding use of your time. Taking good steps to craft the right offer and layout of your ‘Viral Marketing’ message is essential. But get it right, and not only will a truck-load of qualified visitors come to your website, but an air of respect and expertise is generated around you and your business.
Copyright 2005 Andy Murray
Andy Murray is a marketer and publisher writing informative reports to help grow your online business. Get his latest offering “Unleash Your Viral Marketing Potential” for FREE by simply following this link:
http://www.zerohourmarketing.com/Viral-Marketing-Report.htm
There has been a lot of talk over the past few months, even more so with the latest Google update, about the value of linking. What types of links are better, which types are still seen as value added to a website. Well if the truth be told, the only people who can tell us are not saying anything. I am speaking of the engineers at Google and the other search engines, the very people who are the one who determine the value of all linking.
According to some people at the various search engine optimization companies, reciprocal links are no longer being considered when determining link popularity for a website. Just like so many of the other theories search engine optimization, outside of the engineering labs, no one really knows for certain. I have read some of the reports that have been issued on this topic and these reports are far from conclusive, offering little more than contradictory examples taken over several days of testing.
So aside from a wait and see what happens next stance what can we do? Rather than adopt a reactive position to this uncertainty I feel that it would be far better to move forward and be proactive by changing my linking strategies. As long as there is any kind of controversy regarding reciprocating links, there really isn’t much point in relying on them to help build link popularity.
Personally, I still place a value in reciprocating links as a valid means of trading traffic and will continue to utilize them however, as more and more misinformation gets spread over the Internet it will become increasingly more difficult to exchange links with quality sites. So what is a webmaster to do now that this style of linking seems to be on its way out? Simple - adapt or disappear off the search engine radar. Well Google’s radar anyway.
For my consultation clients I am going to suggest that they be extremely selective on who they link with now. Spend more time evaluating the potential linking partners. If the site measure up to their standards of web development and the theme of the linking site matches their site in some manner then, go ahead and trade links.
Before they trade links with any site they should make sure that the partner site is placing their link on a page that has some “on topic” content rather than a page that contains just random links. If possible only trade links with sites that employ some form of directory system so that all of the links contained on any given page share a similar theme. I will also be suggesting that they set up their own directory style system broken into categories and every page in each category should contain a topical block of text that ties all potential links together. Setting up their own system like this will make linking with their site more desirable.
Another strategy I will be advising my clients on is the use of 3 way links. For those of you who do not know what three way links are here is a brief, simplistic description: Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, Site C links to Site A. Pretty straight forward eh? The process is pretty straight forward but the application often is not. The only way three way links work is when all the parties involved are honest and are willing to maintain those links.
Recently I tested one of my sites and discovered that approximately 80% of the sites I traded links with were not honoring our agreement. Now I fully expected that there would be some shiftless webmasters out there who would be less than trustworthy but, I never expected the number to be so high.
Although reciprocating linking isn’t too difficult of a task it does require a certain amount of time and effort. To have some unscrupulous webmaster cheat you out of your back link in your reciprocated deal is bad enough but to have one do that to your site in a 3 way link deal is even worse.
You see a 3 way linking deal requires slightly more effort due to the necessity of documenting all of the information regarding this agreement. If you are going to go through all of that effort to set up a three way linking agreement you certainly do not want one of the partners to sour the deal by dropping one of the links without notifying any of the other partners.
The extra work required to establish a successful 3 way linking agreement isn’t too difficult, it is all about record keeping. After you have researched the two sites that you think would make good candidates for your three way link swap, you are going to need to contact them and invite them into the exchange. More than likely you are going to have to lay out the plan and explain to them why a 3 way link deal is good and make sure that they understand that the only way it works is if everybody involved is open, honest and up front about everything.
As part of the research for the 3 way trade you are going to want to make sure that all three sites are in some way related. Not necessarily in direct competition with each other but connected in some way; much like the way a restaurant site would be similar to a hotel site and the hotel site might be similar to a pub site. Pretty simple really as a hotel can contain both a pub or a restaurant, it isn’t too much of a stretch to think that these 3 service based businesses could be related somehow.
Once you have the three sites picked that you would like to trade links with make sure you research them thoroughly. The things you want to be checking for are;
Page Rank
IP
Quality
Age of the sites
Current link popularity
Page Rank
When checking Page Rank you are looking to make sure that everybody is of a similar PR. Don’t get greedy and automatically suggest that your site should be linked from the site with the highest PR. In fact it might be a good idea to suggest that the higher PR site should link to the lowest PR site. Doing this may make the deal seem a little sweeter.
IP
It would be best if all 3 sites were on different IP addresses. Sites that are all residing on the same IP may be misconstrued as being part of a link farm strategy. Why take the chance?
Quality
This one should be a no brainer. If the site isn’t of a quality that you would recommend to your friends or family to visit why would you want to risk the credibility of your site by suggesting that other people go to it? Rule of thumb here on quality is this; if you wouldn’t bookmark the site for yourself, don’t link to it.
Age of the Sites
The age of the site is important because of the alleged age delay sandbox effect in Google’s algorithms. If the site is too new then you may have to wait for the site to mature before any weight is given to the out going links from that site. You should try to make sure that the sites you include in your 3 way linking are at least 1 year old or more. No guarantees that sites over a year are going to be mature enough but at least the odds are better.
Current Link Popularity
The reason you will want to check out the current link popularity is more about the investigation into their linking history. Do they currently trade links with sites that may be considered as being from a bad neighborhood. Do they link to gambling, porn or FFA sites? If they do and they are not part of the gambling or porn world and your site isn’t either then DO NOT link to them.
Three ways linking in this manner revisits the days when linking was more natural. This type of linking will demonstrate to the search engines that you value your linking recommendations and therefore the search engines should value them as well. If the search engines trust your site to make these recommendations then there is no way that the applied due diligence will get you in trouble with the search engines.
Les Romhanyi is an SEO specialist with many years experience placing websites at the top of all major search engines. Big Juice Media is a Sports Betting Marketing company based in Canada. http://www.bigjuicemedia.com
If you don’t have a list of your own then take advantage of
someone else’s to increase web site traffic!
What if I told you that there is a cost effective way to
increase web site traffic and get your ads in front of an
audience of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, or even 50,000 targeted,
eager-to-buy, people…
Would you be interested?
I thought you would be…
The answer is not that hard; in fact it is pretty simple. It is
one of the most effective ways to advertise on the internet. The
little secret is utilizing ezines to promote your product,
service, or newsletter.
You see, there are thousands of ezines and newsletters on the
internet that will allow you to advertise in them. This is a
powerful tool that can increase web site traffic and get your
ads in front of thousands of people. Best of all these are
people that have an interest in your niche! Because they have
willingly signed up to receive the ezine that you are going to
place an ad in.
If you sell widgets then you need to find ezines that talk about
the widget industry. The beautiful thing about placing a
sponsor/solo ad in an ezine is that you are, in essence,
performing a joint venture. In some ways it is better than a
joint venture because you do not have to share the revenue with
someone. You simply pay to run the ad and then wait to get the
results.
In order to effectively utilize ezine ads to increase web site
traffic, you need to focus on 2 things.
FIND EZINES THAT ARE RIGHT FOR YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE
The first key to effective ezine advertising is to locate ezines
that are in the same industry as your product or service. You
certainly do not want to place an ad about fishing equipment in
an ezine about online marketing!
In my opinion, the best place to search for ezines is the
Directory of Ezines. It is the largest and oldest directory on
the web.
You can find it at http://www.directoryofezines.com
In the DOE (Directory of Ezines) you will find thousands of
ezines. I am sure that you will be able to find some in your
niche market. If not, and yours is an in demand market, then
there is an opportunity to start your own ezine! We will save
that for another article…
Do some research and find out how large their mailing list is,
how often they send out their publication, and how much the
advertising cost.
Do not focus on how large the list is for each ezine. Some
ezines with smaller, more targeted lists can be some of your
most profitable. I recommend visiting the site of the ezine and
subscribing to it so you can get a look for yourself. Please do
not pay for an ad to an ezine without reading the publication
yourself to see if it is a high quality publication.
I would suggest buying ads in as many as you can afford and
tracking the results to see how effective each has been. When
you find one that converts well then you know you will be able
to go back to that one over and over again!
Now that we have located the ezines that we want to advertise
in, it is time to take a look at the second factor for
successful ezine promotion.
WRITE AN EFFECTIVE AD THAT WILL GET THE CLICKS!
In order for ezine advertising to effectively increase web site
traffic you must have a terrific ad that pulls people in and
makes them click. If you are advertising in a targeted ezine
for your market, you already have a laser targeted audience. The
trick is to get them interested enough in your ad to force them
to click through to your site.
Mainly, there are two types of ads in an ezine:
1. Solo Ad
2. Sponsor Ad
First, let’s discuss the solo ad. This is usually the most
expensive ad to run in an ezine. The reason for this is because
it is the only ad on that page. These are also the most
effective ads to use in ezine advertising. Focus Now…These ads
are going to every subscriber for that ezine as a solo email! It
is almost as if the person that publishes the ezine is promoting
the product for you.
There are 3 ways to lay this ad out that work really well.
1. Compile the email like a mini-sales letter. Make sure that
you use direct response tactics that will get the clicks.
2. Put the ad in the form of a brochure that provides the potential
customer with valuable information about the product or service.
Try to make them think that this is a product they can’t live
without.
3. This is my favorite! Write the ad in the form of an
article that endorses the product or service. Give examples of
how you have used the product or service successfully in your
business. Make the article an Advertorial…These work really
well. Most people like good information, so supply them with
some.
The second form of ezine ads is the sponsor ad. Usually, there
are three sponsor ads in an ezine, the top sponsor ad, the
middle sponsor ad, and the bottom sponsor ad. The top ad is
usually the most expensive but you get the best conversion!
The middle sponsor ad would be the next in line in cost and
conversion with the bottom ad being the cheapest and least
converting ad. You need to do whatever your budget will allow,
but I would strongly suggest a top sponsor ad if you are going
to use sponsor ads.
Sponsor ads need to be written much like a classified ad. Make
sure that it applies solid direct response principles, because
the goal is to get the click!
Many ezines also have free classifieds that you can put your ads
in. I would encourage you to utilize these as well. The more
you get your name in front of people the more and more hits you
will begin to see on your site.
One last thing! Make sure that you track all of the ads you
run. When you find an ad that generates a great conversion then
expand your marketing methods using that same ad. You will also
find that some of these ezines perform better than others when
it comes to conversion, so track it!
Ezine advertising will increase web site traffic! It has been a
proven marketing method for me and I am sure that it can be for
you as well. If you will take these tips and use them as a
guide then your sales will explode. Remember, not all ezines are
created equal, so keep looking until you find the ones that get
you the clicks you’re looking for.
Mark Williams can show you how to start and grow your own internet home based business with proven techniques to increase web site traffic. For more tips visit his site:
Increase Web Site Traffic