The Jeffrey And Tracey Info Emporium

Lets face it. It’s all about the hits. The more quality hits you
get to your site, the more chances you will have to promote your
product and make a sale. As a business owner, or someone in the
field of helping a business promote themselves on the web, this
proves to be a true fact. So what can you do to get more quality
hits you ask?

My first suggestion would be to find someone who is specialized
in that field and not looking to rip you off! If you need advice
just email me. If you have done a little bit of research in this
field I’m sure you know what I mean about scam artist. There are
far too many sharks out there waiting to make another buck at
your expense, (and getting rich at it if I might add). As I
mentioned, it’s all about the hits, and if you have something
that is a benefit to others, those hits will come if you planned
and executed properly. There are a lot of steps to take to make
your website successful. The question is; how many of those
steps do you want to take on your own? A good start is by having
your site reviewed.

There are a lot of pros out there that have years of experience
on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to web site promos
ion. By having your site critiqued by a professional can only
lend to your site, becoming a better site. Look at a website
review conducted by NADmedia.net. This review is posted on
webpronews.com. Type in: check your site for visual balance on
Google to find the article. Having your site reviewed could be
the one step that you need in becoming more successful.

We at www.invision-graphics.com
get asked this question allot, how do I improve my page
rank in www.Google.com and how do I get spider bots to crawl my
web-site?

One of the key things to remember when developing your web-site
presence is to always evaluate your competition. See what’s
working for them; how they market their products and services,
and even evaluate their KEYWORD and DISCRIPTION tags.

The key points of using these two Meta Tags, is optimization!

Evaluate your Keywords: look at your web-site and
evaluate it services and products, be sure to do a search in www.Google.com  to help you
pick the keywords that your potential clients may be looking for.

The next thing is to evaluate your site content to see just how
often you’re using these keywords, the biggest mistake that
web-masters make is creating their Meta Tag Description and
Keywords and not including them in their content pages.

To get the best results, is to ensure that you use as many of
your keywords and discretion tags throughout your entire site.

The next thing is your products or images, be sure to include
some of those keywords in your help you optimize your site, and increase more frequent visits
from spider bots.

Google, Yahoo, and Msn all use the following tags:

Be sure to include these in your Meta Tag, as it tells spider
bots to search links to other pages on your site, increasing
your chance of getting better indexed in the search engines.

The next key point is to also ensure you have created page
titles for each section of your site, this is another mistake
most make and they usually brand each page with their site name,
the mistake is that, when your potential client types in to
Google for a specific item or product you lesson your chances on
being pulled up.

Name each section of your site using the Keywords you developed
for your web-site, this ensuring higher page ranking in Google,
and you not being found within the first returned results but
ending up on page 15 etc.

Google looks also for inbound links, these being partner
web-sites that have agreed to become a link partner or affiliate
of your site.

Also update your content regularly, Google loves content,
content, content, the more rich content you provide using your
keywords the better you page rankings will be. The best method
we found is to update your pages 2 to 3 times a week, for
example Monday, Wednesday and again Sunday.

Thus ensuring the Google spider-bot will return regularly as so
will your potential clients, as visitors are most likely to
visit a web-site that is updated with new and interesting topics
or items.

Now use Google, and do a search for your competition, within the
first page results returned looked for potential link partners,
which offer the same resources or products as you.

Contact the administrator or web-master simply asking them to
link exchange with you. Most sites already offer a link exchange
program or an affiliate program. These are perfect ways to
create inbound links to your site that have already established
Google page rank.

List your site in Link Directories that offer a specific
category for your services, these are also excellent ways to
create inbound links as the more inbound links you have
generated to your web-site the higher the page rank in Google.

The key points to getting your site noticed is to optimize the
keywords and use them threw out your site. Get quality link
partners that have the same services or products you offer. The
reason for this is if you link to a Tupper ware site and you
offer fine wine, it isn’t going to do you much good as there is
no common denominator. List your sites in Link Directories that
offer a specific category that best fits your site content and
services.

While traditional link exchanges still hold some value, it may
be time to add a different tactic to your link-building arsenal.
Why? Because it appears that swapping links doesn’t provide
quite as much ‘oomph!’ for moving up in the search engine
rankings as it used to, at least not for sites in highly
competitive niches. Many sites that were on the first page of
results and relied heavily on exchanging links have lost those
coveted positions after recent search engine updates (especially
the ‘Jagger’ update at Google).

Disclaimer: Only employees who are in the know at the search
engines can say with certainty which factors determine rankings.
The decrease in link exchange benefit is speculation based on
testing and some consensus among ‘experts’ outside of the
engines.

Build More One-Way Links

Assuming that it’s true about link exchanges becoming an
obsolete way to get higher search engine rankings, it’s wise to
find ways to build one-way inbound links. At the very least, no
web site owner should rely completely on one form of link
gathering. It’s never smart to put all of one’s eggs in the same
basket, after all.

The rub here is that most site owners still pursue link swaps as
their ‘bread-and-butter’ means of building links. That can play
against you in your own link strategy if you don’t continue to
offer exchanges. What to do?

What you need is a sort of hybrid approach. That is, find a way
to appeal to the barter mindset of exchanging something of value
for something else of value that most web site owners have
ingrained in their modes of thinking. Along those lines, here’s
a great way to continue building links without swapping them:
offer original, unique content in exchange for a one-way link.

Trade Content for Links Instead

Here’s how it works…

Instead of offering to exchange links on your links page, write
a short notice that you will write a few hundred words of
original, exclusive content (300-500 is plenty) that the other
site owner may use on his or her site. In exchange, they must
post a link to your site on either their home page or another
important page that is linked directly from the home page. Make
it clear that your link must not appear on their links page,
where it would just share space with many others. For the value
to be equal, your link should get special handling in exchange
for that great page of new content.

Now, expect not to get too many takers at this stage. The link
exchange notion is pretty ingrained in most site owners. That
being the case, there’s another part of this strategy you should
definitely pursue.

Be proactive! Seek out related sites from which you’d love to
have a link, and approach the site owner or webmaster with an
offer to write a page of high quality content in exchange for a
return link. We’ve been following this strategy for months with
our network of sites and the results are impressive! You can
expect a much higher rate of agreement from this approach than
the tired old “I love your site! let’s exchange links!” routine,
which is increasingly too time consuming to be worth the effort.

Some Important Points

First, follow through and write truly excellent content. Don’t
just dash off a quick article that doesn’t convey useful and
interesting information. Savvy web site owners will quickly
refuse to post your link if you abuse the situation in this way.

Second, make the content you give away original and exclusive.
This is your ‘hook’ - your best selling point. If you try to
give a site owner the same content that appears somewhere else,
you’ll lose a wonderful opportunity to get a great one-way link.

Perhaps the most important point of all is to use this strategy
only with closely related sites that have high quality content.
Be picky! Start by checking out the top ranked sites in your
niche. Search Google or another major search engine to get a
list of the top sites, then visit each one and, if you deem it
worthy, find their contact information and send a short, polite
inquiry to see if they are interested in an exchange of content
for a link back to your site.

When other site owners approach you from the notice on your
links page - again, be picky. You’ll be spending some of your
valuable time to write them a page of high quality content. You
will want a high quality link in return. If a site does not meet
your high standards, take a pass. In all cases, if you agree to
the content-for-link exchange, always request a link from their
home page. It’s the best possible place for your link and, at
worst, the other site owner will refuse and suggest a different
page. It can’t hurt to ask!

Ultimately, the real long-term value in following this
link-building strategy is the return on your investment of time.
The relatively short amount of time you invest in writing the
content you give away may produce dividends in traffic and
higher search engine rankings that last for years. Viewed from
that perspective, doesn’t this make good sense?

© John Schwartz http://www.web-article-w
riter.com (all rights reserved)

Challenge often come our way but it is the way we accept it that
makes us either grow or suffer defeat. I have been taught that i
should rather respond to them than reacting to them. Reacting to
them is giving life to it. One of the common ways by which we
react to these challenges is through FEAR. Someone said fear is:
False Evidence Appearing Real. That is why Prsident Theodore
Roosevelt said “The only thing we need to fear is fear itself.”
Most times 90% of our fears never really happen, so it’s useless
to react as if the FALSE is REAL. Responding to our challenges
is dwelling on the possible solution that best solve our
problem. Someone said “There is no hopeless situation, only
people who think holeplessly. You are not responsible to what
life throws at you but are definitely responsible to what you
make of it. So many people have allowed life’s challenges to
cancel their lifetime because they’ve decided to react to their
mountains rather than use it as an elevator towards reaching
higher. As Andres Lara said “Life will blow against you. Dont
resist its flow, because what you resist (react to) will
persist. You cannot control the fact that the wind is blowing
north when you are going south, yet you can control you sails.
You cannot control where you start, yet you have absolute
control of your actions and, therefore, of where you end up.”
Your energies should be directed on how to turn your problems
into propellers. The Most awful situation can become solution
when we set our minds right. As the Chinese said “You cannot
prevent birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can
prevent them from building nests in your hair.” We are only
capable of achieving the impossible when we make out challenges
solutions and just like Robert Schuller said “For every mountain
their is a miracle.”

The miracle can be found when we are willing to look for it.
Just as the bible says, it is only as we seek that we’ll find.
Indeed every adversity has in it a greater or equivalent
benefit. Here’s a quote from the man who escaped from Cuba, had
no money,was homeless but turned out to be a Nationally known
speaker, a president of inspiration magazine, and an author of
many books Andres Lara : “There is always a creative way to turn
your weakness into a strength. Your job is to fine that way.”
The victory within is dos not assert itself until we are ready.
God has made the way, find that way!

Should link exchanges be used? What are link exchanges? Do they
really work? These are just a few questions that most webmasters
come across at a link exchange. In this article I will try to
help you understand link exchanges and if they truly work like
some say.

Link exchanges are sites that help webmasters find link partners
for the benefit of traffic. Link exchanges such as
www.linkexchangeit.com or linkmarket.net are one of those that
help you get link partners for traffic. They are used by some to
get more link popularity to increase their ranking in the search
engines like Yahoo! or Google, which both use to calculate web
pages ranking in the search engine results.

Over the years link exchanges have been criticized by both
webmasters and search engines, even have been targeted by search
engines. They have been called link farms and link scams. The
truth is that they are not link farms, link farms are network of
sites that link to each other for the benefit of a higher
ranking on the search engines. Most link exchanges are not so
called link scams. How can you tell the difference between
non-link scams and link scams? There are a few things that you
should look at closely at link exchanges.

1) Do you have to upload a web page or file to your site?

2) Are they in the search engines?

3) Are most member’s sites spamming?

4) Does the link exchange look professional?

If any of these are true about the link exchange you should not
join and leave fast as you came. It is important to look at this
very careful because you are investing in your site and this
could crush your site’s future.

Link exchanges have proved to be successful both for getting you
a good ranking and getting more traffic to your web site. Link
exchanges are one of the most powerful tools you can have by
your companies side, but like all things they have a down side
because they can be abused and used the wrong way, so be
careful!

You have probably been to a site that had a section called a
“Guestbook”. Many sites ask you to “sign their guestbook”, and
many of these guestbooks also permit HTML code in the guestbook
comments, meaning you or I or anyone can visit guestbooks on web
sites all day long and systematically create links back to our
sites from hundreds of other site’s guestbooks.

Naturally, some web marketers (probably the ones that think exit
pop-ups are useful) think that by signing guestbooks and adding
links by the hundreds they will improve their link popularity
scores at search engines. Before you get excited and do a Google
search on the phrase “sign our guestbook” (1.9 million BTW) and
head off like a link monkey, here’s my take on the whether
guestbook links are valid, ignored, or penalized, and if they
have any impact on the success of a web site’s link popularity.

Guestbook links are really no different than FFA links, if you
think about it. FFA (Free For All) pages are pages where a link
can be obtained by anyone (even a script) without human
intervention, meaning no person even looks to see if the
requesting site has any decent content. Such link lists are
obviously useless. Ask yourself when was the last time you went
to a FFA link list to find a useful web site. How about never?

And since ANY site owner could do the same thing–sign a
thousand guestbooks–how much credibility can such links truly
have? None. If I run a site that sells snake oil I can spend my
days signing the guestbooks of the best sites on the web and
leech some link popularity from them? Nope.

The real question here is do search engines know about this scam
yet, or do they count guestbook links as additional links for
poplarity rankings? My hunch is that since guestbook links are
not in any way an indication of content quality, then they do
not matter at all.

If ANY search engine currently gives any credit or rankings
impact for guestbook links, this impact is only because the
engine hasn’t yet figured out the guestbook trick, and soon
will. In fact, since the majority of guestbooks pages have the
word guestbook in the URL string, it would be absurdly easy for
the search engines to simply ignore any link that appears at any
URL with the letters guestbook in it.

And I’ll bet you if they don’t already ignore them they will
soon.

My last point is more philosophical. If the reason you are
seeking a link is because

a). The link can be obtained automatically or in bulk numbers
and b). You are trying to inflate links for SEO purposes, then
the bottom line is it’s all bullsh*t, and no matter if the
engines figure it out today or next month, the tactic is based
on a lie and shouldn’t be done.

Until next time, I remain,

Eric Ward, EricWard.com - The Link Mensch

Only a couple of years ago the ‘Link Exchange’ was quite new and
an excellent place for savvy webmasters to exchange quality
links with those who were like-minded. Many Link Exchanges,
mostly based on the original few, have sprung up promising an
unending stream of reciprocal links with as many sites as you
dare dream. There’s no problem with this however, they must be
used correctly to be of much benefit.

Firstly, it’s no great secret that the majority, if not all, who
practice reciprocal linking do so in order to improve their PR
(Google Page Rank), which in turn, can have a definite effect on
one’s rankings in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). The
actual degree of this effect is anyone’s guess as Google have
always been extremely secretive about anything regarding the
algorithms or components, which decide the SE ranking of any
given website (or page for that matter).

PR alone will not do it for you, but I have seen too much
evidence that it does definitely help your rankings when you
have a ‘good’ PR provided that the links pointing to your
site are from related websites (i.e. sites with similar
content whose visitors would be interested in your site). An
incoming link is seen as a recommendation or ‘vote of
confidence’ from a website, so the higher the PR of the PAGE the
link is from (not just the Home or Index page), the more weight
the ‘recommendation’ from that website carries. So, the upshot
is, PR is the reason, result and purpose behind webmasters
spending so much time, money and resources building reciprocal
and/or incoming links.

To make your efforts and costs more efficient, you need to
ensure that you use the Link Exchanges correctly. When you
don’t, you waste so much time (and that of those you request
links from) and you also blow your chance for a good, high PR
link a little later down the track.

Most webmasters, when they first list with an Exchange,
generally have either a low PR or none at all. Many then proceed
to request links from as many sites as their membership allows.
Sadly, far too many of them request links from websites, which
are not related in the slightest way however, that’s not why
we’re here today. I’d be “flogging a dead horse” if I took up
that particular issue (again!). Simply, it seems to me there are
still millions out there who, for some reason, think a link from
a Lung Cancer website will assist their Poker/Gambling site in
the SERPs or a link from a Diet website will help their Real
Estate site! I can’t understand the mentality…

But I digress (as is one of my faults), back to the issue at
hand. Obviously, when requesting links from other sites, you
need to take account of the PR issue, as it stands at that time.
If you have no PR or a PR1, there is not much chance of being
‘granted’ a reciprocal link from a PR5 site or page. The problem
is, if you request such a link while you’re still in the ‘low
PR’ bracket, that site will forever be listed as “requested but
rejected”, you don’t get a second chance once your PR improves.
So, six months later, when you have a PR4 (through much sensible
and hard work), you can’t ask again, the chance is gone.

When you are a PR1 or 2, only request links from sites with PR1,
PR2 and maybe some PR3 pages. Don’t waste you chance by trying
to get high PR sites to link to you while you offer no benefit
to them. What they are effectively doing by linking to sites
that are much lower than themselves, is giving away some of
their “PR Power” to you and getting nothing in return (actually
a negative effect) from you.

By the same token, having said this, it’s wise when you receive
requests from sites that have a PR lower than yours that you
don’t ALWAYS disregard them. Take a look at the website,
consider their Alexa traffic ranking, a good amount of traffic
is an indication that the site owner is getting hits. Even if
it’s via Traffic Exchanges, it proves at least that they’re
serious about BUILDING their website to be a worthwhile resource
and this, to me at least, means PR will come and when it does,
you will already have your link from them. It’s basically a
‘term investment’.

Have a look at their Link pages and see if they are linking
sensibly or stupidly. If they’re using a ‘Directory program’, my
advice is to give them a miss. They can’t possibly be only
linking with related content if they have a huge list of
different website categories, can they? Simply, take into
consideration the entire look and feel of the site. It doesn’t
take long and you’ll be surprised how easily and accurately
you’ll be able to predict which ones will end up with higher PRs
in the next Google ‘update’, from which you will benefit. It’s
also worth considering that if a website is banned, those sites
that link reciprocally can be affected negatively by
‘association’. Yes, it’s true!

As with everything else, building a website is a long, continual
and time-consuming endeavour, which happens slowly (contrary to
what some SEO gurus or ‘experts’ promise). There are no short
cuts, in fact, the Search Engines are now very aware of all the
so-called ‘tricks’ and as far as linking is concerned, a large
jump in the amount of incoming links over a short period,
especially multiple links from higher PR sites could bring your
site under suspicion of using ‘unnatural’ techniques, such as
purchasing high PR links etc, which could get you banned but at
best, certainly won’t help your cause.

Patience is the key to achieving your website goals and if you
don’t have it, and are tempted to try the ’short-cuts’ or go mad
trying to collect as many links as possible from all and sundry,
you’ll end up much further behind, rather than progress with any
great speed. It’s true that your PR will increase with links
from ‘unrelated’ sites but these unrelated links can only hurt
your chances in the SERPs. Google themselves explain this in
their info pages.

Always remember what the ORIGINAL purpose for linking was and
why it was practiced and why incoming links were, and still are,
valued by the Search Engines. A link from a related site is a
‘vote of confidence’ that they feel their visitors will benefit
from your content and hence, evidence that your website is
considered to be of value in a specific category. How can a
recommendation from a totally unrelated website carry any weight
at all? Of course, it can’t and where these types of links
exist, it smacks of ‘linking to boost PR’ without any thought
given to the value of the website to the visitors (who are the
Search Engine’s customers).

This is why linking correctly is so important, even though the
motivations have been perverted over recent years into a ‘free
for all’ of link requests from unrelated sites, which frankly,
are almost as annoying as spam to me.

One way links are links that direct users to your website from
another place on the internet. They are the type of link that
you do not necessarily need to return. Reciprocal links are
links that you place on your site in return for incoming links
to your site. Permanent one way links are much better, and will
get your site higher link popularity than reciprocal links.

There are two very popular methods for getting permanent one way
links that will send traffic to your website. They include:

1) Writing Articles - How this works is that you write an
article, at the bottom or in the content, you place a link to
your website. Then, you submit the article to an article
submission service that will make your content available for
free or for a cost. The user of you content must then put the
entire article on their site, with your link. And, you have one
more permanent one way link to your website for every person who
uses your content.

2) Submitting to Directories - Submitting your website URL to
web directories is a very time consuming and boring process,
where you give the title and description of the site, in
addition to the URL for your site. The directory will then add
your site and give you another incoming link. Directory
submission is a good technique for getting permanent one way
links.

Because the two ways that are most often used to increase the
number of incoming links are both time consuming and boring, it
is better to ask for the help of a professional who knows what
to do to get you permanent one way links.

Using someone who has experience writing articles and submitting
to directories in order to build one way links is better than
doing this submissions yourself. Why? Because first you don’t
have long hours to waste and second you could generate bad
incoming links if you d not submit your articles or directory
listings in the right way.

Building links to your website is of huge importance and
something you should focus on significantly if getting ranked
high in the search engine results is important to you. If you
have a website, then more than likely getting a high ranking is
of utmost importance. However, you might not know the best way
to go about increasing your links. Consider the following
suggestions in order to build your links and promote your
website.

Suggestion #1 - Reciprocal Link Manager Software

You can always work on gaining reciprocal links on your own,
however if you are very busy then a reciprocal link manager
software will be of utmost importance to you because it will
initiate and setup your new links and then maintain them as
well. The software will continue requesting new links for your
websites and inform you when links have been added as well as
delete any old links that are no longer working.

Suggestion #2 - Weigh Your Popularity

Since the amount of links to your website ultimately determines
your websites popularity with many search engines, it is
important to have a lot of links. However, you need to know
where your website stands in the search engine rankings in order
to see how much work you need to do to increase and maintain
that popularity rating. There are software programs that will
help you do this and it is certainly a smart idea to monitor
your link popularity progress.

Suggestion #3 - Secrets to Link Building

While software can take a lot of the work out of increasing your
links, there is one great secret to link building you should
keep in mind. That secret is the personal touch. If you send an
email to a webmaster complimenting them on their website and
provide a good reason why you want them to link to your page,
you will have a good chance of receiving your request. Keep this
in mind and pinpoint the top 25 websites you are most interested
in having a link to your page, then make the effort to
personally contact them rather than through software. It will be
more effective.

There are many ways to increase your link popularity and you’ll
end up with a highly ranked website because of it. However, keep
in mind that the personal touch will certainly go a long way and
sometimes it is the only way to get the links you really want.
Let your software do the grunt work on the regular list of
websites you want to contact for links, but the really important
ones go after yourself.

This in itself is a tactic like no other, especially in a world
when everything is computerized and run by technology. Remember,
people are still behind those keyboards and when you make
personal contact, you do yourself and your website a favor.

If you want to improve search engine ranking of your web site,
you need to find a large number of high quality links from other
web sites. These are called inbound links. Gaining links from
high ranking sites that point to yours will increase your link
popularity in the search engines.

The most popular search engine Google, places great significance
on the link popularity of your web site. In fact, you can even
get listed in Google without submitting your site to them, by
getting other sites to link to yours. Finding many high ranking
sites that link to yours, will improve the search engine ranking
of your own web site.

Four effective ways to increase link popularity

1. Get your site listed in the search engine directories - first
submit your site to the human edited directories of ODP (Open
Directory Project - dmoz.org) and Yahoo (yahoo.com). Getting
listed in these directories will give your site a boost in link
popularity and improve search engine ranking in other search
engines.

However, this may take some time.

You can get listed much faster by getting links from niche
specific directories. Find these directories by doing a search
on the major search engines with the primary keywords of your
web site.

2. Provide high quality content - people will naturally link to
your site if you have what they want (i.e. articles, software,
etc). This will save you a lot of time searching for quality
links yourself.

Optimizing your content with well placed keywords, will improve
your search engine ranking dramatically. Search engines love
focused content.

Don’t you love it when you immediately find what you are
searching for?

One way of achieving this is by writing and publishing articles.
You can include a link at the end of your article. When your
article gets published, you will automatically have gained a
link to your site.

3. Requesting links from other sites - request links from sites
that ideally have a high search engine ranking. Start by
including a link from your site to theirs. Include a paragraph
describing what your link is about. This helps achieve a greater
number of clickthroughs to your site.

Request that they do the same when linking to your web site. If
you provide this for them (with some of your primary keywords
included of course), and provide quality information, you will
have a greater chance of gaining a high quality link.

4. Write a testimonial - write a favorable review of someone’s
product or web site. Include the benefits you received through
visiting their site. If that person wishes to use your testimony
on their site, make sure they include a link back to your web
site.

These are some of the best strategies you should implement to
increase link popularity of your web site. It will improve
search engine ranking and also boost your web site traffic.