Let’s face it, getting (and keeping) a good Google page rank is no easy task and requires constant attention. Not just in getting reciprocal links, but honing your Meta tags, and keeping your content fresh. But we are here to discuss only one part of the pagerank dilemma. In fact this article will focus more on other, and in some cases, more important benefits of a proper links directory.

Directory Structure

• Categorize your directory well- Meaning the more categories you have the better organized your directory is. More categories means your visitors can locate particular links a lot faster.
• Minimize the depth of your categories- You should not make your directory more than three category levels deep, for instance if you are a travel site and have a category for Jamaica, then the structure example would be Travel>>Caribbean>>Jamaica. Easy navigation for your site visitors is the main reason for this.
• Reason two for minimizing your directory depth- Search engines will spider each page of your website, they will determine the pagerank of each page based on its content, and distance away from your homepage. Use this as a rule of thumb; each level down from your homepage will cost that page “one” pagerank point. Using the example above, this is what is meant here, Travel>>Caribbean>>Jamaica: the Travel” page would have the highest pagerank being closest to your homepage, let’s say it has been give a Google rank of 4, the next level “Caribbean” in all likelihood would have a rank of 3, and so on.
• No more than 20 links per page- There is not a link partner in the world that wants his/her site to be on your link page as link number 100. I would rather be link number 3 on page number three than link number 100 on page one. This is clutter, and useless to all involved, you, your link partner and especially your site visitor. Keep this in mind as well, when the search engines spider your site they will also notice more pages on your site thus determining that you offer more content. Your link partners will also appreciate it.

Relevant Links

• Do your visitors really care if you own a travel site and have links to recipe sites? Of course not. Although locating good quality link partners for your site will take more time, it will be well worth it in the long run. If you have a travel site, seek out rental cars, vacation spots, travel accessories, and the like. Your visitors are on your site because they (at that moment in time) are interested in what your site has to offer, do not change the visitor’s train of thought into anything other than what you want them to think about, in this example, traveling and things associated with traveling.

Make Money from your links?

• Of course! Reciprocal linking is a great way to help your website’s search engine ranking, but making immediate cash from your links is a whole level up from that.
• Join affiliate programs like Commission Junction and add some affiliate links to your directory. For our travel site example, you can get offers like travel accessories, rental cars and the like.

• Have a good mix of links to other sites and affiliate links- You do not want a directory full of affiliate links, this is a major turn-off to your visitors. As a matter of fact, you should have at least a 10 to 1 ratio of regular links vs affiliate links.

Advertise in your directory

• Since you now have a well organized directory with an excellent structure, limited to 20 links per page, and a lot of pages with good advertising space, it’s time to place some banners.
• You can advertise some of those good sites that you are affiliated with and place a banner or two on every page.
• Keep it neat- You should have quality space on the left or right side of your directory add a Skyscraper banner to either side (only one per page though), it is well known that the bigger the banner the more clicks on that banner you should receive. A skyscraper is usually 120 x 600 in size. Add a single banner at the top center of each page as well; make it a different ad, offer something different than your skyscraper. This is the most valuable banner location on any page, use it for banners.
• Sell banner spots- Now that you have a well categorized directory, you can sell ad space to vendors whose products or services appeal to that particular category. You can even offer the top spot on a particular page for sale or as a trade for the same kind of link for your site in someone else’s directory.

Exceptions to the rule

There are those sites that do not fit into any category of your site that have that HUGE Google page rank, and you want them to link with your site. Here is a tip for you to keep those sites happy and get that top rank. In addition to you’re regular links directory, create a separate smaller reciprocal links directory. This may be only 1-3 pages in size. This directory must have a direct link from your homepage (most top rank sites require that), and title it something like “Special Link Partners” or “Recommended Links”. Add only page ranks of say 6-7 or higher to this special directory. This will ensure your most important link partners that you will not be burying their link inside your link directory.

We have quite a large selection of software in our downloads directory at http://www.bullmarketer.com that can help you automate the process of managing your own links directory. One program in particular is Arelis by Axandra.  This software is not only VERY user friendly but offers tons of features. There is a free lite version available for download.

Derek Arnold

Derek Arnold is the President of BullMarketer.com, a webmaster resource site offering many tools for webmasters, marketers, and designers. Also has over 18 years of experience in the marketing and advertising fields. Homepage: http://www.bullmarketer.com  

Interested in getting your website in the top 10? You are not alone!

The world wide web is a great way to gain exposure in whatever you do. Having a website gives you the ability to have publicity and to be seen by people from all over the world.

Just having a website does not get you instant recognition. It is earned by strategically marketing your business and website. Remember, by putting up a website you are immediately entering yourself into a competition. The World Wide Web has become so saturated with websites, it’s nearly impossible to be noticed… unless you have a plan.

The easiest way to be found on the web is to be listed in the search engines, such as Google or Yahoo. You can easily do this by paying to be seen by using Google Adwords or Yahoo Marketing. This can be effective, but expensive.

Ultimately, you want to have your website to show up naturally on the front page of the search engines. Follow these 8 simple steps towards optimizing your website and you will see a positive difference in your website ranking.

1. Comprise a list of search terms you want people to find your site with. For starters, this should be 3-5 word search strings. i.e. McDowell Mountain Ranch Real Estate or Toledo Organic Dry Cleaners. Something that is specific to your business or hobby.

2. Load your website with original content. Take the time to write the information in your own words. Search engines will not give you credit for someone else’s work.

3. Add the key words from item 1 to your content on several different pages of your website. For example, it is better to have 500 pages with your key words listed once than to have 1 page with your keywords 500 times.

4. Know your target market.

Write content that will interest them and bring them back for more.

5. Add fresh content daily or as often as possible. Ideas to keep your site fresh include blogging, writing articles, interviewing people, and adding polls or RSS feeds.

6. Keep your site for an extended period of time. There are many sites that come and go on the world wide web. The longer your site is around, the higher the search engines will rank you.

7. Drive people to your website by sending out flyers, sending out mailers, emails, writing articles, blogging, linking to other sites and gaining as much exposure as possible.

8. Submit your site to the search engines on a monthly basis. There are many search engine submission websites. Some are free and others charge a fee. Google “search engine submissions” to find one you like. Either way, you must submit to the search engines or your site will not be seen.

As your site ages and gets more information, you will see a higher ranking for your website. This does not happen overnight, but by consistently adding information, you will create a website that provides value to the end user. And ultimately, that is what the search engines are looking for… Providing good information that the end user wants.

To see an example of a relatively young site, 9 months old, that is getting great recognition – visit www.MMRTrailTalk.com. It is loaded with information that the end users love. The owner has added information on a regular basis and before long, it was loaded with useful information that the consumer loves.

Website are fun to own, work on and benefit from. However, they can take a substantial amount of time. Have a strategy and work your strategy. You will see the best results and have the most satisfaction with your website. Enjoy!

One of the favorite link building tactics of internet marketers is article marketing. Submitting articles have been done for the longest time because of the many benefits it provides.

There are two kinds of articles being distributed.

The first are articles already written by an author. These articles are republished, with permission, as long as no part of the article is edited or removed. The agreement is for the resource box to be kept intact together with the links and other relevant information.

The other method is submitting your own articles. You can do this if you have sound knowledge about your business. In addition, writing skills is also required. You cannot just write about anything and everything. The articles should be information as well as interesting enough to be read.

Some of the benefits of article marketing are:

1. Guaranteed links.

Links placed inside articles are guaranteed to be live and distributed. This is what articles do best. You can use the keywords in the articles to link to your website. The number of people that will read your article will be the same as the number of people who will see your link and check out your business.

If you have tried requesting webmasters for your links to be included in their site, you would know how difficult it is to do so. It does not only take time, there is also the possibility that you will get turned down. In article marketing, you only have to make sure you have a quality article and you are assured of it published and even reprinted all over the internet.

2. Time-efficient.

Getting back links to your

site usually take ages. Not if you are distributing articles. Most article submission sites take 24 hours or less to publish articles. There are even those that post articles the minute you finish submitting them. Instant exposure and instant back links.

It is easy to find sites to submit your articles to. A search in Google or Yahoo will come up with hundreds of websites that accept articles. You only have to distinguish which ones are good or not. It pays to check out the sites first before you start adding them to your list.

3. Free.

Those under the budget will find that article marketing is the top choice to market their business because it is for free. No budget is needed to distribute articles. No hidden charges too. Registration on some sites is the only thing required.

Time and effort is all you have to put out in article submissions. You also have to follow the submission guidelines that come with each site. As long as your article is within the standards of the site you are submitting it too, then you will really get more benefits out of free submission sites.

Spreading your website out there is just some articles away. Like the swine flu, your articles can be passed on from one website to another. But unlike the flu, your articles together with your website are not something your readers will want to get rid of.

Exposed: the shocking secrets of how to make massive cash fast, revealed to you in these breakthrough FREE videos that blasted me from nothing to $5,118,213 in record time: Delta Squadron

I just reviewed a new website and I’m in shock. Or, maybe, I’m just depressed about my failure to convince people to do what I tell them so they can make money.

I’m not talking about complicated marketing strategies. Most websites, marketing and the like, fail on the basic stuff.

For example, this webmaster wants to sell products. He wants to make money online. He’s got a bunch of good products at great prices. I know this because he told me. No one else knows this after visiting his website. He’s kept it a secret.

Let’s go back to the basics and see if your website passes these simple tests …

What is the purpose of your website? If your immediate answer is anything other than “to make sales,” I hope you don’t own a business website. Otherwise, let me pound this into your brain:

You are in business to make sales. That’s where the money comes from.

When people visit your main page, what’s the first thing they see? If all I see is a nice long message about what a great guy you are (who cares?) and how you want to run a good business (I hope so or you should not be in business) and if I have any questions, I can send you an email (I knew that anyway) and how you look forward to doing business with me (of course you do, that’s why you have this website), what’s the point?

I came to your website in response to an ad or a referral so I’m looking to buy something. Why are you wasting my time? I want you to sell me the product. Take my money.

Pick any large retailer that does big business on the Internet. What’s on

the front of their website? Pictures of stuff to buy. Links to buy more stuff. They want your money. They are relentlessly working to get it.

Go to my website for “Mining Gold” at:  http://www.ipcgold.com/ad/100/CD3839  and read the first thing you see.

You can’t miss it. I made it large – bold – and incredibly obvious. I make you an offer to invite you to do business with me. I lay out all the information in a carefully ordered flow.

No wasted words. No extraneous links. No stories about my family vacation. No comments on the World Cup. This is a site for business.

I’ll have well over 200,000 unique visitors this month and I want to capture their attention immediately.

Recent stats show the average time spent viewing a web page was 52 seconds. But, how long do you spend viewing a web page when you either get bored or can’t quickly find what you want?

You’ve taken your own small business idea and put it up on the web to make money. Don’t be afraid to let people know you are running a business and don’t be afraid to ask for their money.

If you can only remember one thing from this message, remember this:

If you’re going to spend money to promote your website, you’d better make sure people know what to do when they arrive.

Yours in success,

Shawn M. Casey

Internet Millionaire Shawn Casey’s “Mining Gold On the Internet” is one of the best selling Internet books with over 85,000 copies sold. In “Mining Gold”, Shawn reveals the same step-by-step strategies he uses to create millions in Internet sales => http://www.ipcgold.com/ad/100/CD3839  Benefit from Shawn’s 7 years of Internet experience and learn from someone who has actually made millions online.

With the web today you “sorta haveta” have a rank in the major search engines if you want to be seen. I mean with 250,000,000, yes 250 million searches a day on Google™ alone, how are your visitors and potential customers going to find you?

Now, there are numerous ways in which a Search Engine ranks a website; by keyword density, relevancy, content, etc. etc.. But Link Popularity is an ever growing statistic in how the Search Engines continue to rank websites.

Link popularity, is how “popular” your website is. That is how popular your site is compared to other websites. To put it another way; it is the number of “other websites” that have a link on their website to your website. Did you get that?

Now, although Link Popularity “building” is a large science and art in itself, I’ll briefly touch on a couple ways in which you can see how popular you are and how to go about improving your link popularity.

A small side note though, is link popularity is a BIG way in which Google™ ranks their search results. They refer to this as “PageRank”. With the Search Engine, FAST, they call it “link score”.

Now there are quite a few software programs and sites that can help build your link popularity as well as check your popularity.

Now, there are many ways to check your link popularity. But if you simply want to get a small idea, a little way for you to do this is go to any search engine and type in,

“link popularity”, without the quotes, and there will be lots of results for you to choose from. And then simply pick a site and check your site popularity.

Now, a small way to build your popularity is by going to the altavista.com engine and type in “link:yourcompetitor.com”, and the results that show up will tell you what sites have posted links to your competitor’s websites.

Then simply visit a site and look for a contact method, be it an email address, phone number, etc. and express an interest to them in trading links. It is a win-win method for both sites so, you have nothing to lose. Some might happily oblige, and some might not. It’s certainly worth a try.

In summary, link popularity can be a never ending chore if you have a website. This is because having links on related websites to your website is a very good form of Targeted Traffic which never really quits, because most related links stay up for a long period of time, thus providing a continuous stream of targeted traffic, which, by the way is totally cost free.

And Search Engine traffic and reciprocal link traffic are the best forms of Targeted Traffic there is online. And both are free.

Burke Ferguson holds both a BSc. degree in Computer Science as well Certification in Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Strategies. He regularly publishes The ACE! newsletter, in which he shares his experience, methods, and knowledge about what works and about what is ‘BS’. He can be contacted by http://www.the-ace-ezine.com or http://www.altacanweb.com

This article explains in detail the various issues related to the linking campaign that you will need to mount, to establish your worth in the algorithms of search engines . Some of the issues that we will be tackling in this & subsequent articles are:

-Creating one way incoming links to your site.

-The identification of resources to link.

-Evaluation of the resources identified.

-How to approach others with your link requests( some samples).

-Where to put the link the link in your web site.

-Where should the incoming link to your web site be placed in others site.

-The almighty anchor text.

-Linking software evaluation.

-The donts of linking campaign.

-Sundry tips & trips.

-How to maintain the linking ledger.

Before we begin with the details of your linking campaign(LC) we are assuming that your site has some great content or some good tool or something which creates unique value(UV) for visitors. Remember to keep the UV as the lynchpin of your web site linking strategy. Think about is like this. Would you want to link to someone who doesn’t have anything of merit on his or her site.

Hence the first step should be to set up your house properly before inviting others (SE, editors & web masters).

Now that you have created noteworthy inducements lets get started with the LC. Pls remember that one good quality incoming link is better than 100 inferior quality incoming ones. The quality of the linking campaign is very (allow me top add one more very) very important.

First item on the agenda is to generate & create one way incoming links into your web site. These links are at the highest priority as far as our LC goes. This is because the SE sees them as they are: one way links. This gives it a significant vote. In other words the SE knows that you have not traded a link Some one has found genuine merit in your web site & has linked to you. They value that link higher than others (all others remaining equal).

Hence our first effort should be directed towards creating these. Now some of the ways to do this is:

Get the directory listings first. There are numerous directories( Dmoz, Yahoo, Zeal) etc which one can submit a site to. With some one like dmoz you can aspire for more than one incoming link as well. You can try some of the paid options of URL inclusion if your budget permits

it ( business.com, yahoo.com etc) Then there are multiple, regional & topical directories which one can look for & get the site submitted to. Then of course there are some portals which are hubs for the theme that your web site is on. Find them & submit to them( a great way to look for them is to go to Teoma & give your key search term in their search box .On the results page look at the resources sections. The hubs of your theme or domain area will be listed in there)

Once you have found & listed into these directories, hubs, portals etc what do you do. Take the next step for creating one way links.

That is become the internet guru on your subject matter. To get yourself to that status write articles & columns on your subject matter of expertise. These articles should be genuine content which adds value to the reader & are not just under cover publicity campaigns for your product or service. Once these articles are created include your bio ( obviously with your hyperlink into it- this is great place to control your anchor text so be judicious ) & submit that article to various online resources & content providers.

To find a listing of those do an online search for the keyword Article banks.( the most cited resource for this is http://www.coachmaria.com/articles/articlebanks.html) Choose you targets & start to submit articles.(Don’t forget to host that content on your site as well). This is generally what people will link to.

Another place to contribute these articles is to the sites which are ranking ahead of you on your key search phrase. Most probably they will also have quality content on their site. So if you have genuine content, they will welcome your contribution.Another way to create links through your content is to give permission to other web masters to host your content on their site as long as they credit you for its creation by including your signature file.

A small play on this is to create teaser articles which brief your content & then link back to your site for detailed text & do the submissions as above. This is a great way to attract traffic.

I’m Online Marketing Consultant at Mosaic Services- a SEO Company based in India. I regularly write and submit articles on various SE specific topics.

To find more articles, please visit my site http://sem.mosaic-service.com

Directories are important to your ranking and success with Search Engines. In a nutshell, search engines are completely automated and usually there is no need to submit. Directories all have human editors who review your site and you do have to submit to them to be listed. But you must submit the right way or you are wasting your time.

If you think getting listed in search engines is slow, try directories. Getting listed in directories takes time but it is well worth it.

One of the good things about getting listed in directories is that Google puts a LOT of weight on sites that are listed in directories. DMOZ is the most important one to Google (and therefore should be the most important one to you).

Junk sites can get listed in the search engines, but try getting a junk site past one of the human directory editors. You can’t even get useful sites that are poorly designed past the “eagle eyed” directory editors. Maybe that’s why Google puts so much weight on sites that have achieved the status of being listed in directories.

There are a LOT of directories, but there are only a few that you should bother with now.

Here are the major directories

www.DMOZ.org — Free. Submit to DMOZ first. (DMOZ is also called “Open Directory Project” on their website). They take a LONG time to get your site listed, but do NOT resubmit or your site will go back to the bottom of the stack. To find out about the status of your site getting listed go to www.Resource-Zone.com and ask questions in the discussion forum directly to the DMOZ editors.

www.Gimpsy.com — Free or pay $20 for 72 hr. inclusion and higher ranking for 90 days.

www.JoeAnt.com — Pay $39.99 or become an editor and it’s free. All editor applications are automatically approved. I suggest you become an editor. You’ll learn a lot.

www.GoGuides.org — Pay $39.99 or become a “guide” (same as editor for other Directories) and it’s free.

www.Business.com — $99 a year, but well worth it if you sell your products to businesses. You’ll get a lot of interested and qualified traffic.

www.Yahoo.com — Yahoo is no longer worth the $299 a year fee in my opinion. Skip this one.

Here’s how to get listed in these major directories.Of course, you have to submit your URL to the directory to get listed, but before you do that consider the following steps:Don’t jump the gun and submit a site that is under construction.

Make sure your site is well designed, easy to use, has useful content, no spam, no tricks, no broken links, etc. A human editor is in charge of “widgets” and she wants all of the sites in her widgets section of the directory to be useful to

the directory visitors.

By all means spend a LOT of time reading the instruction of each directory before you submit. Don’t rush to submit your site until you understand what the directory is looking for and how they want you to do it.

Your directory title and description are very important to getting your site listed in the directory. They are also important after you’re listed. Your title and description are what potential visitors to your site will see in the directory listings.

Here are some tips for writing your title and description for directories.

Do NOT use any marketing hype (Never use words like “best”). Stick to the facts. Be descriptive. Choose your most importnant keyword phrase, but don’t try to stuff a lot of keywords in your title and description. Tricks will kill your chances of getting listed. The human editor has to like you and your site before your site will get listed. So follow the rules!

The most important thing to do is to submit your site in the right category. Drill down to the most specific category you can. Look at your competitors. What category are they in? Look at the sites that are in the category you choose. Look at their titles and descriptions.

You want to follow these examples, but you don’t want to be exactly like these sites. Directories don’t want sites that contain basically identical information to what’s already in the directory.

As soon as your site is completed submit it to DMOZ and get the clock to start ticking. A listing in DMOZ will automatically get you listed in the Google search engine and in the Google directory.

Of course, you can get listed in the Google search engine much quicker by having incoming links from other sites, so don’t wait on DMOZ to get you listed in the Google Search Engine. Do depend on it to get you listed in the Google Directory.

A lot of people say they don’t want to spend the effort trying to get listed in the directories because it could take three months. (I’ve seen it get done in one month, but sometimes it has taken six months.)I know people who said this over a year ago. They could have had a much higher PageRank and a LOT more free traffic by now if they had spent a few hours back then submitting their sites to the directories.

Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen and some people wonder what happened. You have to make things happen if you want to get high rankings in the search engines.

Craige Stacey has been studying search engines optimization as a hobby and has achieved some very good search engine positions in the past for membership software

When promoting any product or service every hitto your website counts.

So assuming your site converts a percentage of visitorsto sales, the more traffic, the more sales you make!

I have read a number of articles lately on how to write good ad or sales copy and optimising websites.

What I have not seen is how to get consistent numbersof hits to your site. Well may be, that is not quite trueas you are constantly blasted with email about drivingtraffic to your site. But most of these options require you to get your bank card out. You know the rest !

I was checking the stats to my web sites and noticed 2 new referrers to my site. It occurred to me the importance of getting consistent visitors or hits to your site.

One site referring traffic was the Ryze Network where I have been posting in the “Promote It” network and receiving a slow but steady number of site visitors. The Ryze network is a place where you receive your own free web page where you are able to add a photo and information about your personal and business interests.

I’m also a member of the “ItsYourCoach” and the Entrepreneurs Opportunities, Ryze Networks and there are hundreds of others to join.

To learn more here is my personal Ryze page.http://www.ryze.com/go/VoIP

You are able to contact other members and join any number of networks which focus on a whole range of topics. Thenyou are able to go that one step further and upgrade to full membership where you can edit the html on your page along with other options.

One of my personal websites is receiving hits most days from Ryze and I am most likely receiving to affiliate sites that I’m promoting through Ryze too.

While I was looking at the posts in a forum I found a new Search Engine – Directory. It is offering Free membership until it officially opens. You are able to add your site to their directory – search listings http://www.4az.com If you list your site it is displayed, highlighted at the top of revaluate search’s.

At present they are offering free membership listings but when they open, any new members will enter an affiliated program.

Another slow but steady number of hits come fromOpportunity.com This only works if you get new membersto join. You are able to send email to targeted prospectsevery week – 100% Free to join and real easy to set-up. You even receive a free email alias and an ID.

http://www.opportunity.com/r/VoIP_NZ

I have used an opportunity.com redirect link or Sub-Domainfor my ezine. You are provided 10 sub-domains – redirectlinks. Having your link in an email ending in an Affiliated link has a good chance of getting your email filtered (dumped)by many ISP’s. So using an Opportunity.com sub-domain for my ezine looks like this.

http://www.the-index-ezine.opportunity.com

If you are getting visitors to your site, Thumbshots Ranking is a way to compare search engine ranking between Google, Yahoo and a few others. Your ranking determines the amount of traffic you will likely receive from search engines.

One thing I noticed was that Google

would only list one linkwhere as Yahoo would list all links to the site or page youtyped into the two text boxes. I have a couple of sites at the top of the ranking and for my Internet-Income-Index.comsite Google listed one link and Yahoo listed 100. So youcan see that each search engine uses different methods ofranking and listing your site.

http://www.thumbshots.org have a poll on search engines preferences. Google has 76% and second is Yahoo with only 8%. That is a big difference.

The Idea behind http://thumbshots.net is to provide a thumbnail image of your site when it is listed in search results.Thumbshots (ThumbNails) are screenshots of web pages to help you locate web sites quickly and easily. Thumbshots display exactly what you would get before visiting a link. Millions of people trust and rely on thumbshots to take control of their surfing.

This is similar to Alexa.com where you are able to askAlexa to visit your site and take a thumb nail image ofyour home page to display beside your site if it comes up in the top 3 results in a search.

Ask Alexa to take a Thumb Nail of your site.

http://thumbnails.alexa.com/update_thumbnail

I am sure getting side tracked from getting hits to your sitebut this is all good info to keep. This is how easy it is toget side tracked when researching one topic, But it stillrelates to promoting your site.

So now to explain more about Thumbshot.com, .org and .netThey have a large directory with results from Dmoz.org andother sources. There are a number of search engines placingThumbnails of web pages beside search results already.

ThumbNail.com are going one step further in that they are creating a directory like Dmoz with ThumbNails and are supplying otherDirectories and search engines with listings.

My prediction is that in the very near future as more peoplechange to Broadband and WiFi many search engines willprovide a ThumbNail beside their search results. Who will be first Google, Yahoo or MSN ?

But in the next year or so you may have to manually submit your site to Alexa.com or add either the Thumbshot.com image or test link at http://www.thumbshots.org/attribution.pxf to your site before they will display your Web page thumbnail next to your listing. As most home or index pages appear in search enginesadd their link there and on any page that comes up in searches.

NOTE: But Some of my website pages are coming up witha ThumbNail some aren’t. Now work this one out. Somepages are coming up with a ThumbNail view of the “Home Page” but then there is no ThumbNail displayed beside the home pagewhen I do a search in the directory at thumbshot.net ??

My Internet-Income-Index.com site shows the ThumbNail without me adding the image or link to my site so they mustalso be indexing some sites and taking the screen shots.

NOTE also that Sites that look cool in real size may not look so hot as a Thumbnail.

PETER GREEN.

Editor of ~ The INDEX ~ ezine.

Editor@Internet-income-index.com

http://www.Internet-Income-Index.com

Your Free Weekly Internet Marketing News, Ideas, Resources and Sources Ezine.

What is endorsement marketing?

Endorsement marketing is having famous or reputable peoplerecommend your product or service to others.

It is an important internet web site marketing that cangive your business credibility and propel it to the top.

The endorsers could be celebrities, star athletes, musicians, etc.

Choose people that are related to your business and might actually use your product or service.

Before asking anyone for an endorsement be sure your productor service gives the results you say it does.

They may ask you to prove it before they will agree to give an endorsement.

Once you find the ideal person to endorse your product orservice simply contact them and ask.

When proposing any endorsement deal make it a win/win situation.

Tell them you would get the endorsement and they would get free publicity.

If they’re selling a product or service, you could exchangeendorsements.

If they ask for a fee, try to give them a percentage of the profits instead.

Once you get

an endorsement from someone, use it on all youradvertising and marketing material.

Put their endorsement and picture on your Web site.

Use their testimonial in your ads.

Include it on your product packages.

An endorsement can increase your sales fast.

It gives credibility to your product or service.

People will usually believe a person that’s not related to your business before they will believe you.

May you succeed in your internet web site advertising and make a lot of money.

Warmly,

I-key Benney, CEO

I-key, a Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of “Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System”, (home based business) which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs.

Mscsrrr Millionaire Cash System helps you to generate $1,500+/Week for life, from home or office, part time or full time. No large investment or hassles. Win $1000-$2000 free “cash”…

Write it, offer it for free on your site and they will come. Yeah right and then you woke up.

Or stay in your happy little daze, constantly check your counter 80 times a day and be the only unique visitor your site gets. Either way you are deluding yourself if you don’t think marketing is the key to your success on the Internet.

So easy to say — market your site — but so hard to do. Especially since the Internet is so vast, where do you start?

You start by taking it one step at a time — otherwise because of the size of the Internet, you’ll go insane, get depressed because you feel like you’re tap dancing in place or quit. None of these are viable choices so let’s see if I can help you on your journey to success.

But first, understand this — it takes sheer hard work, persistence and loads of time to be successful on the Internet. Marketing is an every day job because the Internet is dynamic and constantly changing. What worked yesterday, won’t today.

If you have a minimal budget (read that non-existent) at your disposal, it means you must be creative in your marketing endeavors. But before you become creative, you’d better get organized or you’ll still be dancing in place. This means, you build a marketing template to place links on when you go to sites.

This is simply an HTML page with headings so when you visit a site you’ll need to return to next week or month, you just copy and paste the URL and put it on your template. It should be a hyperlink (i.e. <

The first place you’re going to visit is your:

In particular, http://www.yahoogroups.com and http://www.topica.com. Both are a gold mine for marketing purposes. Their search boxes will lead you to lists which pertain to your targeted audience. For instance on my Trabar.com site, I sell a yarn holder my husband makes. It’s pretty unique and the only people interested would be a niche audience of knitters and crocheters so I put these two “keywords” into their search box and on yahoogroups alone, I came up with 207 knitting lists and 112 crocheting lists.

My intent is not to spam any of these lists but I will join the ones I find interesting and post useful information along with my signature line (if their lists do not have rules against this).

Also, I look at their group list main page because a lot of the list owners have their site addresses on these pages. I know if I go to their sites, I will also find a wonderful amount of link pages leading me to other sites. Some will have message boards which let you leave links to useful products but most times you will just join their community and reply to posts with useful information. You, of course, include your URL.

This does two things:

1. Allows you to help people

2. And if message board accepts HTML, allows you to leave a link which search engines pick up on thus increasing your popularity rating.

Remember when you’re doing this to include each site’s URL as a hyperlink on your HTML template because you’ll want to go back and post on a regular basis.

As I said earlier, marketing on the Internet takes hard work, persistence and loads of time but these three suggestions should help. Learning how to market smarter not harder is the key to being successful on the Internet.

About The Author

Judith Tramayne-Barth

MARKET SMARTER NOT HARDER! A Good Read CD doesn’t tell you “how” to market — the 600 link marketing ebook takes you to actual PLACES to market. Why reinvent the wheel when I have done the work for you. To find out more, visit: http://www.agoodread.com