Websites come and websites go; it’s a fact. It’s also a fact that websites which have exceptional website content don’t go very often. In order to win and retain business you need to be able to attract, keep and excite people’s attention but for many that isn’t always an achievable target. However without website content that can do this and do it quickly you are losing visitors and potential customers to your competition so if you can’t create the website content that will achieve this and more you should consider getting someone who can.

Website content for visitors.

In bygone times keyword cramming your website content was the order of the day; it got you ranked high on search engines affording you plenty of hits to your website but in due course people realised that the visitors they were winning weren’t actually taking advantage of the offers on site or clicking the affiliate links. Search engines also cottoned on pretty quickly to the art of keyword cramming and eventually devised a cunning plot that penalises you for the excessive use of keywords within your website content. This article uses a keyword density of just over 6% for the keywords ‘website content’ and that is just about right. You need to get the balance just right; not making readers obviously aware of the over existence of the term website content but including it often enough that it will get you brownie points with search engines.

Website content for search engines.

Search engines don’t employ millions of people to trawl through the millions of websites and then judge how good the content is, instead they use robots or spiders that will crawl your website and measure the use of your keywords in order to ascertain the relevancy and usefulness of your website content. If they find it has too high a percentage they judge you to be a keyword crammer and you will be penalised. If it’s too low they determine (rightly or wrongly) that your website content isn’t relevant to potential visitors. Again you get penalised. You have to get the balance just right.

Website content that sells your product.

Your website visitors are your potential customers and they should be treated as such, but the average online shopper is very different in temperament to the high street shopper. They want to see useful content surrounding your products and they want to see it on a relevant topic. The latest and most common way to do this is through the use of a number of articles; these articles serve a couple of very useful purposes that we will discuss in a minute.

You should use website content that informs, excites and compels people to purchase your product and it should do so quickly. The average website visitor will give you 3 or 4 seconds before they decide whether to read on. If you can hook them within those few seconds then they become very strong leads; you know they are interested in what you have to say. That gives you the first sentence, possibly two to get your message across.

Don’t forget that it can take up to four times as long to read off a computer screen as it can on paper so your website content should be restricted to a minimum of 300 words on a informative page to 1000 words on a page. Any less and you may struggle giving them anything useful but more than this and they’ll stop reading. The optimum word count is between 500 and 700 words.

Articles that give value to your website content.

Used well a number of article pages on your site will serve as keyword specific website content pages and also to give your visitors even more information. If you have 50 keywords you want to use you could use 1 article for each keyword. This article would then act as a separate page of website content that will rank on the search engines for that one keyword. Each well written article that your visitors read will move them one step closer to purchasing your product so use them well.

A final word on website content.

The final thing to remember about website content is that it HAS to be unique. Copied or plagiarised website content will see you heavily penalised by the search engines and where a few dollars may have got you high up in the rankings with very well written website content, using stale copied website content will see you plummet to the bottom end of the search results.

Your business has a web site. You were careful in selecting a designer who understood how crucial your site is to your marketing strategy, and who had the skills to integrate and present your content in a way that fulfills that strategy. It's well designed and optimized. Now you can just sit back and wait for the profits to roll in right? Wrong!

A well designed web site is just the beginning. A good marketing strategy never stops improving, and your web site is a vital marketing tool. How do you improve its effectiveness in bringing in more and more leads and turning higher and higher percentages of those leads into conversions?

You do this by understanding everything you can about the people who visit your site. How did the visitor find your site? Did they find you from a link pointing to your site, a search engine? What keywords did they use for that search? How long did that visitor stay at your site? What did they look at? What didn't they look at? How far into a payment process did they get before they abandoned the purchase? What prevented them from becoming a customer?

Knowing the answers to questions like these is extremely important in order for you to refine your web site. You want to to use more of what is working for you and get rid of content that doesn't work for you. It will also keep your site up to date in an ever changing marketplace. Now how do you get this information?

The answer is 'web analytics'. Web analytics gathers information about what visitors do when they are at your web site, and then organizes that data into reports you can customize to suit your needs. Analytics can either be hosted online by a provider of the service or can be purchased as a program that you own and manage. There are many different venders of web analytic services.

Analytics packages can be hosted for as low as $30 per month and this price goes up as the amount of data tracking increases. Programs, on the other hand, will vary in cost from free trial versions with very few features, to costing thousands of dollars for complete, full spectrum tracking. Knowing what you need to know about your visitors, will help you decide the level of tracking features you need to get the most out of your web site.

It is important to look at the information gathered in these reports, at the very least, on a weekly basis, and to make changes to your web site based on this information. Trust the data, not your expectations of what your potential customers want. Web analytics is a powerful marketing weapon and sets apart those who are serious about having a web site that significantly enhances their business, from those who are not.

Web developing is becoming a booming industry nowadays. More and more people are attracted to PHP and ASP scripts to simplify or modify their existing websites as well as new development projects. Webmasters now prefer dynamic websites, which can take their own decisions and work out according to the situations, which arises.

There was a time when we used to play around with static HTML pages, but now those days are gone. Even a newbie who steps on the internet to become a webmaster or a web developer knows the importance of Server side languages. The main reason of writing this article was to bring in new tips and help the newbies to learn the languages, which are burning the charts right now. The most valuable resource that can be found on the internet is the google itself. And when you want to look for tutorials and tips or are having problems in remembering some particular function then php.net is the place to look at.

You can also find many resources like free scripts, tools and tips on scripts repositories like http://www.hotscripts.com, http://www.firescripts.com and other Web Scripts database which has listings of php scripts, asp scripts, cgi scripts and java scripts too.

One of my favorite quotes is the one that says "the graveyard is full of good ideas." Maybe that's not the exact quote, but the idea is 100% true.

Every day of the year people with brilliant ideas and breakthroughs go to their graves without ever having developed, marketed or shared those ideas with the world.

There are many reasons for this -- fear, inexperience, ignorance and, worst of all, procrastination.

Maybe they thought they had to get investors lined up, lines of credit from banks and surround themselves with various "experts" before getting started.

And yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

Nobody starts with a million dollar Internet marketing business. They start small. They start with what they have -- even if it's in the garage or basement with an old rotary phone and a computer that is 10 years old.

Most people I know making money online started out with a little ebook or newsletters.

From there, when they get their feet wet and see what works and what doesn't, then they lead into more expensive products and services -- sometimes even full fledged seminars that sell for $5,000, $3,000, $10,000, $15,000. What’s the difference in these products?

The difference is in the value. Money moves in direct proportion to value.

So don't worry about if you only have a five page report or ebook to start with. Just do what you can and build from there.

Build the value, build the content and build your experience from there and you will be fine.

Setting up a website offers a great way to showcase your products and services to potential customers. However, simply having a site isn’t enough; you also need to get it to work for you if you want to grow your sales. And with over 12 billion web pages in cyberspace there’s plenty of competition for visitors and business.

Internet marketing is all about attracting traffic to your site and then converting that traffic once it has reached you.

The two most effective ways to attract visitors are pay per click advertising (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO).

With PPC, companies bid for the terms that they think their target customers will be using when they search the internet. This means that they are able to attract people who are actively looking for their products and services and who are therefore effectively qualified leads.

The highest bidder receives the highest ranking in the search engines’ sponsored listings. Plus, because you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad you can ensure that what you spend is directly related to the business you generate.

SEO is slightly different. It involves making copy and coding changes to your site and establishing links with other websites in order to gain high ranking in the search engines’ natural listings for a particular search term.

As around 90% of search engine users click on the natural rather than sponsored listings, SEO helps companies to attract a higher volume of targeted traffic than PPC. However, both of these marketing methods are incredibly successful when done properly owing to the fact that the majority of internet users rely on search engines to find websites.

Generating sales from your website is also a critically important aspect of any good internet marketing campaign. Ensuring that your website is user friendly, has clear calls to action and is fast loading are all factors that contribute to how likely you are to close a sale.

There are a number of services on offer to help you market your website from SEO and PPC management to training courses and website reviews.

Although each of these services has merits, if you are operating on a small budget, you are likely to get the best value for money from a website review. They tend to be a lot cheaper than other internet marketing services and if you apply the advice from them the rewards can be much further reaching.

A good website review will tell what changes you need to make to your site to grow your traffic and sales. It should also include a follow up consultation to explain the recommendations in the report and give you advice about how to implement them.

Ultimately, whatever route you decide to follow bear in mind that you need to focus on both increasing both traffic and sales in order to stand out from the crowd and get the business you deserve.

Whenever I teach people how to create instant Internet audio products simply by calling and interviewing an expert, recording it and then uploading it online, people always ask about the legal aspects of this.

They want to know what kind of contract I use, what kind of lawyer to consult, and how to make sure the expert is okay with me recording and using the information.

But the truth is, I don't get anything in writing. And certainly not a contract.

I'm not saying you shouldn't get a contract, but I personally never do.

Some people would say you should get a contract that says you can record and sell their information, but I find if you ask someone to sign this contract it’s hard to get it. And I just do it over the phone where I have the person's verbal consent. That way it is in a real relaxed format.

You simply say, “We have to take care of some details, and just so you know, I’m recording the call and I have your permission to record it, and I may use it on my website. I may sell it down the road. So, I’m also going to give you a copy and you will also have the rights to promote your product or yourself with it when it’s done. Is that alright with you?”

I can't seem to get the song from the "King & I" out of my head as I prepare to write this article

"Getting to Know You
Getting to Know All About You
Getting to like you
Getting to hope you like me"

I can't get it out of my mind because that's what online business is ALL about.

Some say it's search engines.

Some say it's a great pay-per-click campaign.

Yeah, yeah...those things are great, but it's important to get to know people and I'm talking about the people that reach your target market. You know, the people you might think as your competitors.

It's possible you've heard me say it before – competitors can be your partners - but it seems the subject keeps creeping up over and over again.

People ask me questions like, "How do I get people to join my affiliate program?"

And recently, when I spoke at Kelly McCausey's Blogging seminar at her http://www.HotSummerSeminarSeries.com it came up again. We are talking about joint venture blogs, where more than one writer comes together to keep adding fresh content to the blog. When we did the seminar, people seemed excited about the idea, but really weren't sure how to find people to write with them.

Well, here's the solution and I hope you take steps to make this happen for you. It doesn't matter what market you are in, you should ALREADY be getting to know the people who are in the same market as you. You should be developing relationships and talking to one another.

This isn't the cut throat world of offline business where you might be competing fiercely with the restaurant across the street. This is the Internet where joint ventures are abound and are literally a goldmine for your business.

Here's Some Ideas for Joint Ventures:

- Join each others affiliate programs

- Create viral ebooks to give away

- Create a bonus for your partner to add to her product

- Interview each other for teleseminars

- Create information products

- Create membership sites

- Use each other's products as upsells

- Connect each other to other important people

- Co-write that joint blog we talked about

- Co-write and autoresponder series

...the ideas are endless.

The alarm sounds and rudely awakens me from a deep slumber. It is another early Monday morning which means it’s time to get up, get dressed and take my oldest daughter to school. I then head home, turn on my computer and get to work. Mornings for me are the most difficult as I struggle to balance spending time with my youngest daughter (not quite school age and still at home) and muddle my way through and respond to the endless emails in my inbox. Who am I? I am a WAHM.

WAHMs, or work-at-home moms make up many of the small online businesses we find among the plethora of Websites which exist on the Internet today. Why have so many of today’s moms taken the plunge into online business ownership? While every mom’s situation and circumstance is unique, most moms start on the path to home-based entrepreneurship for two main reasons: First, most moms want to be at home in order to take part in the primary parenting responsibilities. Also, many moms find it difficult to make ends meet on their spouse’s income alone. This forces many moms to make a decision as to whether or not go back to work or to find work out of the home. For many moms, the demands of the corporate world are overwhelming and too demanding, so they decide to start their own online business in hopes of controlling the work day in terms of flexibility and scheduling.

Why do so many moms choose the Internet as a venue to start a home business? There are a couple of reasons: The Internet (Websites) and email allow for ease of communication. For example, traditional businesses usually handle correspondence via telephone or in person. Can you imagine trying to conduct business over the phone while in the background your child screams for more ice cream? Or imagine as a mom business owner that you have an office and that a client comes in to see you for a meeting, but suddenly your child who is in your office as well, has a potty training accident. What mom could or would ever attempt to conduct business in this fashion? Thus, conducting business via an interactive website or through email allows a mom to accomplish those business tasks which would have otherwise been impossible in traditional settings.

The second reason is the cost involved when starting a business. Traditional methods require a business owner to obtain a commercial office, and of course there is the overhead which is associated with such an office. In comparison, it is relatively in-expensive to start an online business. Most Web authoring tools are cost effective and extremely easy to learn, making the cost of designing a business website almost obsolete. Also, the price of maintaining an online business presence through a Web host is a fraction of the cost of maintaining a commercial office. These are some of the contributing factors as to why more and more moms are turning to Web business ownership.

Today’s moms are able to make their dream of working at home a reality, but some overlook one important factor-balance. While it may seem that the WAHM has it all, a closer look might reveal otherwise. WAHMs struggle to maintain a healthy balance between work and life. As with most of life’s challenges, there are solutions that can help the work-at-home mom successfully manage work and family life, some of which include the following:

- Set boundaries. If possible, set limits on the amount of hours you will work each week.

- Set a schedule. In addition to setting boundaries, incorporate a daily schedule to follow so that you will not become over worked or “burned out.”

- Make time for your family. Remember that you started your online business with your family in mind and be sure to spend as much time with them as possible.

Everywhere you look and nearly every e-mail you open everyone seems to be making a killing?

But what about you, have you made it or are you like the other 95% chasing the next big thing? You know the drill by now you open your mail box and your e-mails some of which are usually made up of the following message….. “Buy this product, it's fantastic your life is going to be changed for ever blah, blah get your copy now!” and you think “WOW” that sounds fantastic you get your credit card out and you go and buy it and start to use it and then you find out later that it was the big thing last year and now it doesn’t produce the results and you’re back at square and probably $100 out of pocket. At this stage you’re probably cursing yourself for falling for it and parting with your cash and you’ll never do it again.

But……

The next day comes and you’re back reading your e-mails and you see the same type of e-mail again except it's for something new that that does this, and that, and you really should get it today, your life is going to be amazing, I’ll build your business for you etc, etc, etc.

I’m sure you know what I mean. It’s a good job they haven’t invented smell-a-vision yet because your mailbox would sure smell bad with the amount of “crap” sitting in it.

So what do you do? Do yourself a favor now and stop everything!! Go to your inbox and do a mass delete. Don’t even read them, if it’s such a great opportunity it will surely come your way again. There are that many opportunities on the internet you’ll never be short of finding one, that right one for you that is,… and not because someone else says it’s the right thing for you.

The reality is that there are so many ways to make money online that the hard part is choosing what avenue you would like to take first! There are several E-commerce opportunities available on the Internet that would allow you to work from home. As with any information you receive from the Internet, be sure to do your homework. Research all companies before you sign up or invest with them.

Affiliate income: Selling someone else’s proven product can be a great way to earn income without a high investment. Using your unique link, you refer customers to their product site and when they buy – you receive a commission. Sometimes as much as 50%! If you have your own product you can also use affiliate programs to drive traffic to your website. Special tracking software is available to keep track of your affiliate programs.

Selling on Ebay: There are many ways to sell on Ebay. Many people clean out the attic and sell what they find. Others scour yard sales and flea markets for unique and/or valuable finds. Still others market their new products by holding auctions and opening a storefront directly on Ebay. For a small fee you can set up an action on Ebay. And don’t worry, you can set a reserve price to make sure you get at least as much as you want/need for the item.

Selling E-books: The number one product for sale on the Internet today is information. The term E-book is short for electronic book. They are books available, for a cost, for immediate download. Any information you have that would be beneficial to someone else can be packaged and sold as an e-book. No printing costs, no shipping costs, high markup. Most e-books are in .pdf format, and can be read with Adobe’s free software Acrobat Reader, which makes them all the more appealing to the layperson.

Taking Surveys: Believe it or not these companies not only ask for your opinion, but actually pay you for it. What a find! By filling in an online survey for these companies you are helping them with market research, and they can reward you by paying you or offering you gifts or special offers.

Earning per click from Adsense: Adsense is a program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to put text, image, and video ads on their sites. These ads then pay you on either a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis. AdSense has become popular because the ads are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the ads is targeted to the website. This service is free and involves a minimal time investment. It is also customizable so that its appearance will compliment your site scheme.

Since the internet has become popular it has become an essential tool for making money. In the mid 1990s making money on the internet was mostly about buying and selling domains, selling hosting, doing web design, pornography, and selling products. Now things have change and there are many more ways to make money on the internet. People can make money off of eBay, affiliate marketing, and content based websites just to name a few. Due to the wide range of ways to make money on the internet everyone is getting involved. Things like ad sense are making it easy and people are taking advantage by putting up websites with the sole purpose of making money. Sometimes people use duplicate content or build sites that ad no value to the internet. Others take offense to that method and say it is immoral to build sites like that.

I feel that the internet has value and some crap but I don’t believe it is immoral to build a site for the sole purpose of making money as it is the goal of many. If you analyze the internet there are a lot of dead sites laying around that people have given up on. Is it immoral to give up on a website? There are many domains that people buy and never develop, is it immoral to leave a domain undeveloped because it is taken up space on the internet. The bottom line is if a person can make money off of a one page website or a website with articles from an article database it is their choice. It has nothing to do with morals it has more to do with jealousy. People that cannot make money off of a worthless site are just mad that they have to do so much to make a site with value just to make the same or less money.

The biggest question site owners are asking these days is "how do I get traffic?" It is definitely much harder with the growth spurt of the Internet, however it's not impossible!

There are TONS of ways to build up your traffic. Here are some of the most common methods.

1. Learn Search Engine Optimization - this is probably the most important way that you want to get traffic and probably the hardest too. Search engine traffic is highly targetted traffic of people who are searching the web for a specific item. If they get to your site after searching for it, you're almost guaranteed a sale or at least a "bookmark for later". lot of ebooks on the subject

2. Trade links with other sites - It's important to get your site name out there.

So trade links with several other sites, even your competitors! People really do look at those links pages and they will find their way to your site from another site.

3. Post on message boards - When you post on highly trafficked message boards, BE SURE to put your site link in your signature! This is a highly effective form of marketing, especially if the message board you are posting at is relative to your site content.

4. Use email signatures - Make it easy for your customers to contact you! When they write to you and ask for more information, be sure that you are using a signature with your site URL and name inside of it. That way if they want to retrieve it later, it's easier for them than having to memorize your URL and open a web browser.

5. Join Yahoo Groups - This is pretty much the same as message boards. Join groups that pertain to your site's content and advertise (but don't spam!!) your site there.

6. Post on free classifieds sites - Sites like Craig's List or other free advertising classifieds sites will accept your site for free! Just do a Google search for "free classifieds" and you'll see a ton of sites come up where you can promote your site!

7. Buy ad space - If your monthly budget allows, you can buy some ad space for your site. Find another site that pertains to your site's content and ask them what their advertising prices are.

8. Hold auctions - Ebay gets TONS of traffic a day, while you're not allowed to post your site URL within your auction listings, you are allowed to put it in your "about me" page. So think about listing some of your products as auctions and advertise your URL.

9. Offline advertising - Get custom t-shirts, bumper stickers, car decals, etc made for your site URL. Then whenever you are out in public, you are passively advertising yourself!

10. Submit your site to directories - If your site is a site about "fishing" for

instance, do a Google search for "fishing directories" and see how many directories are out there that pertain to your subject matter. Most of these directories will allow free submissions.

11. Write articles - Writing articles that pertain to your site is another excellent way to get your site out there. Just write a short, informative article of 5-6 paragraphs and submit it to any site that accepts article submissions and make sure that your article includes a link back to your site in your "author biography".

12. Submit press releases - Even if your site is a small work from home site

(i.e. "Susie's Candles") it IS newsworthy! Let's say your candle site released a new candle called "Vanilla Cream". Submit a press release about it, I'm serious!! A good place to start is called http://www.prweb.com Or you can do a Google search for "submit press release" and a zillion other sites will come up.

13. Have great interactive content - People will bookmark your site if you have interactive and dynamic content. Have polls, message boards, interactive games, news items, guest books, item of the day....whatever! Just make the site relevant and have good SUBSTANCE in your site content. Don't overload it with silly animated graphics, sounds, etc. That just makes it look like you had nothing else to fill your site up with but this annoying stuff. And Flash intros are only good if you are two years old and need to see flashing lights and colors. Most of all they are slow loading, and people generally click away if they see Flash.

Want to increase your Google Adsense income, make more money from your website and increase search engine traffic? Here’s some tips for boosting your Adsense revenue.

Forget the current obsession with ranking highly in the search engines – in particular, ranking high in Google. You can spend hours on optimizing your site for the search engines without any immediate results, meanwhile your Adsense ads are sat there feeling lonely and neglected!

The Key to Increasing your Adsense Income - Traffic

So your website is up and running, you’ve got plenty of optimised pages, but you’re wondering just when you’re going to get that first elusive cheque from Adsense – or you know that you could make more money if you could increase your traffic.

There are some simple things you can do to increase your Adsense income immediately that will also help to build your income over the next few months too.

1. Build links to your site – not just any links, but links with sites which have related content. You can build your initial links using the free service provided by Link Metro. To further build and develop your links, there are two strategies that I have found useful. The first is to type in your keywords, and the phrase “add url” or “submit site” and you will find several sites that are related to your content that are actively looking to exchange links. This can be time-consuming, but there is software available to make this easier, such as that offered by SEO Elite.

2. Write articles and submit them to article directories – this can bring instant traffic to your site. You don’t have to write much, just 250 words or more. If you’re not sure what to write, visit the forums to see what questions people are asking and answer those questions! If you’re serious about submitting articles as a way to immediately increase your website traffic, you may wish to consider using article submission software to submit to dozens of article sites. This strategy also creates one-way links back to your site which again will help you to rank well in the search engines over time.

3. Write a free report or e-book and use it as a viral marketing tool to get your website information right across the internet. This is easier than it sounds as a free report can be just a few pages, or can even comprise a few articles that you’ve obtained free from the article sites!

4. Visit forums and other sites or blogs and leave a comment. Ensure that you leave a link back to your site and create an intriguing “signature” that get people interested in visiting your website. This strategy will also create links back to your site too!

5. Have your own blog as part of your website and update it regularly. If you struggle to write articles, you may find it easier to write in your blog (or web log). You can make entries of any length – the longer the better and make sure you use your keywords in your blog too. You can also add affiliate links which can provide an additional source of income too. Make sure you “ping” it to the search engines every time you update it, with Pingomatic and you’ll get immediate traffic. The search engines love fresh content and so will return regularly to visit your site to add any new pages, but mostly they see the regular updates as related content that also will improve your search engine rankings.

6. Add RSS to your site – this is an easy and quick way to add fresh, keyword-rich content to your site. If you find a related ezine or website that is offering RSS, just add this to your site and you’ll be getting loads of free visitors from content that somebody else has written!

7. Last, but by no means least, build your list. Just think of the hundreds of visitors that are going to visit your list every day, never to return. Just imagine what could happen to your traffic if you could capture the email addresses of these visitors and get them visiting your blog or site regularly? How about then selling to them via affiliate links once you have built up the trust between you and shown yourself to be an expert in your field? If you look at all the people who are making big money on the internet, they all have their own opt-in list. You can do this simply by using someone like A Weber to set up an autoresponder and by adding a simple PopUp, PopOver or PopUnder on your site to collect emails.
This really is the secret to building long term profitability for your site and your business.

There are many different reasons out there fore creating a link campaign; after all, it can benefit you in so many different internet marketing strategies. In fact, links – especially one way links, but all links do count – are among the most determining factors for your rank among search engine spiders and indexers.

Since links are one of the vital components to the algorithm used by Google and the other big search engines, the creation of links for your website should be a major part of the efforts that you put forward.

The first step to accomplishing this is to understand that there are different kinds of links, all with their own values, strategies, and uses. While all links do have their importance, some create better results than others. By understanding them, you’ll be able to ensure the right kind of link campaign is working in your favor.

• Reciprocal links – these types of links occur when two sites exchange links so that each one has a link to the other’s site.

• One-way links – also known as inbound or in-bound links, these occur when a site links to another’s without receiving a link in return.

One of the most common strategies for links is reciprocal linking. When done correctly, however, this link strategy can be extremely time consuming. It has to do with searching throughout the internet for sites that are relevant to your own website’s cause, and then contacting their webmasters to request an exchange of links.

This communication has to be a personalized e-mail to each and every one of the webmasters, not just a spam-style form letter. Naturally, they will all have the same elements to them, but they all need to be geared directly toward the site in question, or no webmaster will even consider it.

An example of a successful reciprocal link request email can be as follows:

Dear Mr. Doe, webmaster of gwidgetsRus.com,

As I searched through quality sites with topics relevant to my own for a link exchange, I came across your Gwidgets R Us website. I am writing to request an exchange of links between your site and my own. Below is my site’s information. Please feel welcome to have a look at what we are all about before making your decision.

Title: Online Gwidgets
URL: http://www.onlinegwidgets.com
Description: Online Gwidgets provides educational information about gwidgets to its visitors, and sells both gwidgets and their parts for fair prices.

If you are indeed interested in this link exchange, please reply with the precise information you’d like me to post on my site, and where you’d like it placed.

If you are not interested in this link exchange, your lack of reply will be enough to make your intentions known.

Thank you kindly for your attention and time.

Bob Smith
bobsmith@onlinegwidgets.com
www.onlinegwidgets.com

When and if you receive some replies to your email, it is important that you add their links as quickly as you can, and confirm this addition by sending them another email with a link to where they can find their addition.

Of course, you will need to check the sites of your partners as well, to make sure that they have added the link when they said they would. Furthermore, you’ll need to check up on them frequently to make sure that they continue to link you, and that they have not dropped your link over time, or closed down altogether. While the majority of webmasters are completely honest individuals, there are those out there who will try to take advantage of your partnership to create a one-way, not reciprocal link to their own sites.

In-bound or one way links are the most coveted links as they give the best results with search engines. However, many people find them too daunting to try to achieve. The truth about inbound links, however, is that they’re not at all difficult to obtain.

The easiest source of inbound links is by using directory submissions. There are a large number of free directories out there where you can submit your site. This submission is worth the time and effort for as many as you can.

There are also fee-based directories out there. Depending on your budget, this may be worth your while as well, as long as they have categories relevant to the subject of your website.

Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent email messages supposedly from a legitimate company or organization in order to trick someone into giving out personal and confidential information. This information could include a user ID, password, credit card number or even a Social Security number. At its most basic level, Phishing is a form of identity theft. It is one of the fastest growing cyber crimes, and there are estimates that 1 in 20 people who receive a Phishing email will respond to it with their personal information. Since the criminals who send out these Phishing messages are good at what they do, it’s important to be able to recognize a Phishing email so you won’t respond to their request and become a victim of identity theft. Here are a few signs that the message you have received might just be a Phishing expedition.

• The email message is generic. Phishing emails are sent out in bulk to thousands of people, so you’ll see a generic greeting like ‘Dear Valued Customer’ and not directly addressed to you by name.

• The message gives a false sense of urgency. Phishing emails are developed and designed specifically to push the recipient to immediate action. If there is no compelling reason to respond to the message, you won’t. But if there is a fear of some kind of consequence for not providing the requested information you might just be motivated to act quickly.

This fear, urgency or even panic created by a Phishing email begins right with the subject line. Here are a few examples from actual Phishing messages:

‘Online Alert: Online Account is Blocked’

’Fraud Report’

’Credit Card Declined Notice’

’Unauthorized Account Access’

The text of the message builds upon the initial sense of urgency. A message may state that your account will be closed within 24 hours if you don t verify your information. Sometimes the messages state that there has been suspicious activity on your bank account, or your credit card has been charged by an undesirable web site.

The criminals who send out Phishing emails have taken their scam to a new level. Now people are getting Phishing messages that offer a reward for responding to the message. The newest Phishing scam is a message that states you ve won a gift card somewhere (JC Penney, Circuit City and The Sports Authority have been recent ones), and you need to click the link in the email to provide the information where the gift can be sent. Other Phishing emails offer free enrollment in a fraud protection program by clicking the link and providing the requested information.

• The message states specifically “this is not a scam”. How does that saying go if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Legitimate messages don’t need to state the obvious.

• A request is made to verify your information, and a link provided for you to do so. Phishing emails will use some tactic in order to trick the recipient into providing confidential information. This request is often tied in with the false sense of urgency created in the message. The link will take you to a very authentic looking site and ask you to fill in certain personal information. If you recognize you’ve made a mistake and you try to go back to a Phishing web site you probably won’t find it. The average lifespan of a Phishing web site in December 2004 was 6 days.

The link that is included in the email message for you to click and provide information might look legitimate, but it isn’t. Often the criminals will create a web site that has almost the same name as the original web site. They might add the word “verify” or use some other word along with the company name. You should never click a hyperlink in an email, especially if you don’t know who sent it to you.

Knowledge can be power when it comes to protecting yourself from identity theft and Phishing scams. Be aware of the tricks a criminal might do to steal your information, and don’t fall prey to them.

Everywhere you look and nearly every e-mail you open everyone seems to be making a killing?

But what about you, have you made it or are you like the other 95% chasing the next big thing? You know the drill by now you open your mail box and your e-mails some of which are usually made up of the following message….. “Buy this product, it's fantastic your life is going to be changed for ever blah, blah get your copy now!” and you think “WOW” that sounds fantastic you get your credit card out and you go and buy it and start to use it and then you find out later that it was the big thing last year and now it doesn’t produce the results and you’re back at square and probably $100 out of pocket. At this stage you’re probably cursing yourself for falling for it and parting with your cash and you’ll never do it again.

But……

The next day comes and you’re back reading your e-mails and you see the same type of e-mail again except it's for something new that that does this, and that, and you really should get it today, your life is going to be amazing, I’ll build your business for you etc, etc, etc.

I’m sure you know what I mean. It’s a good job they haven’t invented smell-a-vision yet because your mailbox would sure smell bad with the amount of “crap” sitting in it.

So what do you do? Do yourself a favor now and stop everything!! Go to your inbox and do a mass delete. Don’t even read them, if it’s such a great opportunity it will surely come your way again. There are that many opportunities on the internet you’ll never be short of finding one, that right one for you that is,… and not because someone else says it’s the right thing for you.

For those who want to be among the throng who are rushing to send out their greeting cards via every possible types of mail service, then online greeting it is.

Although this is a wise choice, it is important to note that there are some things that should be considered first before opting to go HTML. There are many cases where the texts do not appear the same from one computer to another.

Also the images that you have put into them may seem messy or cluttered. Besides, loading time will become an impossible task if there are a large number of images used in the greeting.

Here are some thoughts about HTML email that may help you decide to go or go against HTML email:

1. Email is probably the most spammed way of technological communication. With everybody already going online and trying to market anything and everything under the sun, this is understandable.

2. Most security issues and virus breakouts are caused by email or messaging software and users who do not know better than to click a link or run an attachment. Enough knowledge and understanding on the things that needed to be done is the solution to these.

3. The display size of email programs is totally unknown. Take note that nobody is opening emails full screen by default.

4. Multipart emails, embedded images and HTML, might be filtered out as spam or possible virus threats. And putting on some notice or sign about the fact that you are sending a greeting card is not a guarantee also. They might dismiss it as a stunt.

5. Different email clients support CSS/HTML to different degrees. This is in addition to online email clients like gmail, yahoo or hotmail. It is a bit like frustrating to make everything perfect for about 20 different browsers.

6. Multipart HTML email can get quite big. Your recipients may not have the needed patience to wait for the page to open.

Think about these things first. Do you want to spend a lot of time on something that is very likely not to work out and spook your clients or wish them during occasions?

The solution for maintaining contact with your clients through special occasions? Host your ecard on a server, send them a link.