Your goal in doing this is to find out who your competitors are receiving their traffic from. If your competitors are outranking you on the search engines and you want to know one of the many reasons why then this is a first and bountiful step towards your goal. If you want to find out who your competitors are, think outside the box! I own a web design company so there are about 30,000,000 different competitors. I had to narrow it down a little today by focusing on the keyphrase “minnesota web design” on the search engines. Sure, I am working to take on the entire state of designers but that’s a challenge I think I can take head on.

Compiling An Excel Worksheet - The Process

Don’t just go to Google or Yahoo and use this method by clicking on your competitors incoming links. You need to open up an Excel Worksheet and keep track of the following:

1. Your competitors URL
2. The web sites that are linking to your competitor
3. The email addresses of those web sites that link to your competitor.
4. The names of the webmasters whose web sites link to your competitor.
5. An email to be sent to all of the webmasters whose web sites link to your competitor.
6. Send out the email request for a link to your web site.
7. Repeat the process with another competitors URL.

Finding Your Competitors Link Fire

So how do you find out who is linking to your competitors and helping them rank higher in the search engines? It’s easy.

At Yahoo! type in link:http://www.yourcompetitor.com/
At Google type in link:http://www.yourcompetitor.com/
At MSN type in link:yourcompetitor.com/

Effective Methods Of Stealing Their Fire

1. Send an email to the webmaster of whom you want to to have an incoming link from.
2. Make a phone call to the webmaster.
3. Send a letter via traditional postal mail (if you remember what that is bloggers)
4. Always be kind, courteous, and reciprocal in your requests.

Like every other product or service that you are considering investing your hard-earned cash in there are a number of things you should do before choosing a search engine optimization company to optimize your website.

1. Shop around and compare quotes
2. Find out in detail exactly what your SEO company is offering
3. Compare quotes again
4. Check out references and previous campaigns that the companies have conducted
5. Compare quotes again

However there are a number of things you should avoid…

Companies that stress the importance of Metatags What little benefit the META keyword tag had a number of years ago is of less importance these days

Companies that say they will submit your website to the major search engines Search engines will find your site if you have a few links from other websites pointing to it. This “service” is very often listed to bulk up an offering and is pointless.

Companies that say they will submit your website to 40, 400, or 4,000 search engines Same applies as above. But be especially aware of companies that attempt to fool you into thinking that search engines other than Google, Yahoo, and MSN could drive substantial traffic to your website. Sometimes these offerings sound fantastic, but any SEO company worth their weight in salt should (and do) know that this is a redundant activity that just sounds impressive to anyone who is very new to online marketing

Companies promoting “Black Hat” SEO techniques which could result in your website being penalized. The following are only a few of the many techniques.

* The use of hidden text (hiding keywords by using the same font colour as the background colour).

Search Engines will see it and penalize you and your website

* Participation in “link farms”.

This is a sure-fire way to develop lots of links to your website very quickly. It is also the fastest method for your website to be banned from all of the major search engines.

* Keyword Stuffing.

A practice where keywords you are hoping to compete on are stuffed into the ALT attributes of your images, the titles of your pages, and also within the body/content of webpages. The tip to follow is that if you read it out loud and it sounds weird… re-do it.

Email marketing plays an important role in most marketing campaigns nowadays due to its relatively cheap cost and potential for reaching millions of customers. However, we've all experienced the arrival of a new message in our inbox, only to delete it unopened after deciding it is junk. The last thing you want to do is turn off potential customers simply because you are sending out the wrong sort of mail, or sending out the right sort of mail, but to the wrong people. As such, it is worth spending some time looking around for a reliable email marketing company who will manage this for you.

Before you do this it is worth establishing what you want your email marketing campaign to achieve. Will it be to retain old customers by alerting them about any promotions you are running or notifying them about new services or products you are offering, in which case you'll probably be using databases that have been developed in-house? Or will it be to increase sales by attracting new customers, in which case you will be using opt-in databases of consumers who have chosen to receive promotional advertising? If you are seeking to increase sales, ask yourself how focused the databases are towards a specific demographic, and whether the email marketing company owns them or not, because this will determine how impartial their advice is about which database to use.

Email Marketing Company Checklist

Regardless of your marketing campaign goals, there are a few basic areas that you should investigate to determine how proficient your prospective email marketing agency is:

# The ability to write good, clear, readable copy in the tone of voice most appropriate for your product. Nothing is less appealing than opening your mail and being confronted by blocks of badly written copy. Check the samples of previous email marketing campaigns the company has been involved in. Ideally the copy should be simple, have clear links to a website or email address, and condensed so that all vital information appears on one screen.

# Equally, nothing is more appealing than receiving emails that are easy on the eye and structured so you can easily navigate them and understand what they are about. Your potential customer might be opening your message at home, and the last thing they want is anything resembling a work email. This is nothing that a professional HTML designer can't handle, so check that the email marketing organisation has one on their books.

# Mail should be a personal thing, so ask for ways that your mail can be personalised for individual recipients and particular demographic categories, like people who have chosen a certain clothing brand or leisure activity. Once again, look at the company's previous email marketing campaigns to assess how generic or customised they can be.

# The first thing we notice of any new message in our inbox is who sent it and what the subject line is. Ask the email marketing company whether any research has been done to identify which subject lines work better than others. Ideally, the subject line should be intriguing and not too salesman-like.

# Beating the spam blockers isn't just a question of presenting yourself in the right way, but also of hanging out in the right places. For instance, if ISP administrators receive a number of complaints about unwanted emails coming from your address or if they see you consistently send out undeliverable emails, you will be blacklisted as a spammer. Make sure the email marketing company takes the necessary measures so this never happens.

# Keeping your mailing lists as up to date as possible is also very important, so make sure that the agency has a system for adding email addresses and deleting them if they are returned to sender, sent out in duplicate or invalid. And if people choose to unsubscribe, make sure they stay unsubscribed.

Response Handling and Email Tracking Capability

The previous points have focused on the presentation and form of the emails you send out, but what about the response? In order to ensure that your email campaign is run as professionally and profitably as it can be, you'll want to check that the email marketing agency also has these bases covered:

# Response handling. Will there be an automated version of your entire sales process attached to the email that includes the necessary legal documentation, response forwarding and auto-response facilities? Will there be somebody at the end of the line if the customer wishes to call up with a query or to make an order?

# Feedback analysis. Will the email marketing company be able to provide you with comprehensive feedback reports to help you target your marketing more effectively in future campaigns? Can a click tracking programme be implemented that identifies who clicked what, when, and how many times? Has the company enough experience to give advice about the frequency and optimum time that the emails should be sent out? And how broad is the company's customer service support when you wish to contact them regarding a particular issue?

Intro

So there you are, sipping on your Manhattan at an after hour with a few colleagues and friends. Like every Thursday the discussion focus on your respective business, discussing business strategies and marketing tips. You wait for a pause in the conversation, and you announce that your company is thinking about using e--mail marketing in his next customer acquisition plan. Glasses are put down, and brows are frown all around the table. Isn’t this the reaction you expected? After all, isn’t e-mail marketing a nicer word for spam?

What is e-mail marketing

Spam or not, e-mail has officially become the standard for communicating on the Internet, with the number of e-mails users growing daily. Rarely will you pick up a business card that won’t contain an e-mail address.

E-mail marketing is the practice of sending sales letters or newsletters by e-mail to a coveted audience. While some find it annoying to scour through an inbox full of sales messages, e-mail marketing is one of the most cost-effective campaign a business can run. Every e-mail sent to a potential customer should follow the principles of direct response, meaning each message is to request an action from the receiver: either direct the customer to your website by clicking a link, or simply forging your customer relationship by exposing your brand.

How can it help my business?

A couple of years ago, almost anybody would have been excited to receive a single e-mail. Now in 2006, e-mails communications are under strict laws, not even mentioning the overzealous spam filters that might block your message from finding its recipient.

Risked or not, the benefits associated with e-mail marketing are undeniable:

- Increased response time: Your customer and you can communicate as quickly as it takes to send a quick message, opposed to the delays with traditional phone and mail systems.

- Cost reduction: Contrary to regular mail where a good chunk of your budget is spent on postages costs. E-mails cost only a few cent, and can be sent anywhere in the world.

- Firmer control on your campaign: Electronic tracking makes it much easier to track and analyze the response on an e-mail marketing campaign, than having to wait for the responses from a traditional mail campaign.

Final thoughts on e-mail marketing

Since it’s a thin red line between spam and an official e-mail, you have to be careful. We strongly recommend building a list of e-mail addresses earned through your website, instead of renting a list and blindly send your company’s name to a list of person that most probably do not care about whom you are.

In e-mail marketing, personalization is the key. The more your message is personalized to its recipient, the greater your chances are of building a relationship. It’s about putting the right message in front of the right person, at the right time.

Today has been a busy bee day. I’ve already worked through a large directory list submitting my web site to approximately 100 directories on the net. Of course, I judged each before submitting for content relation to my own web site and the sites’ Google Page Rank of importance.

This is an older and time honored technique of quickly developing a link system between your web site and others. It also helps eliminate irrelevant reciprocal link exchanges between your site and others. Finding closely related content to link and be linked from has never been easier than this technique. I wanted to quickly show you how so after reading this blog and taking notes get started!

First, go to Google and type in one of the following. It’s pretty self explanatory.

1. intitle: add+url “keyword phrase”

2. intitle: submit+url “keyword phrase”

3. intitle: add+site “keyword phrase”

4. intitle: submit+site “keyword phrase”

5. intitle: add+your+site “keyword phrase”

Simply put, when you go to Google and type in one of the preceeding examples Google will return results of relevant matches. These matches are the web sites most likely to be 1) Related to the content of your web site 2) Allow you to submit or exchange links with that site 3) Boot your search engine ranking when you get your link on their site.

So what do you do after you get these results from Google by using the methods above? Open up an Excel Worksheet and keep track of where you find the best chances for submission. Document them and then go back to those directories in a month or two and see if your listed yet. Keeping a careful eye on your submissions is necessary for your web site’s optimization.

If you’ve been reading my online book I am sure your up to speed on link building and how it can boost your web sites ranking on the search engines. Now it’s time to get started with the busy work. But don’t worry, I’ve went ahead and made it a little easier for you today by providing a few lists of the best directories on the internet to get you started.

But before jumping the gun, remember that you must submit your web site to the section of the directory that pertains to your web sites theme. The web site you’re looking at would likely go into a Marketing or Advertising section. If you have a web site on Cats then put it in the Cats section. Don’t think you’ll get more exposure by putting your web site into another section because it’s highly popular. More than likely your site won’t even get listed. Obey the rules, drink a lot of caffeine, get hooked, and work all day until you have an exaustive sweat draped over your forehead and you’ll build a giant list of reciprocal lists through your directory submissions.

In addition, never forget to use your keyword or keyphrase in your submissions to these directories. You’re looking to boost your ranking for certain key terms and this is the best way of going about it.

In todays world online, everything is about finding information. How many times do you say 'I'll google that" or how many times a day do you turn to the internet to find out something?

What people are looking for is information - info about how to grow tomatoes, keep bees, build their business, find info on Tom and Jessica, what to do for their kids party, researching real estate, finding a great massage therapist or whatever it is that people are looking for. We are in information overload!

The key to building a website that works is to provide that information that people are looking for and build a website that attracts traffic because it is search engine optimized and full of quality cross links.

A website that works will be on the first page of all of the search engines and show quality content that matches the keywords searched for and gets the click!

Once you get people there, all you really need to do is to talk about what it is that you are passionate about.

Your website will be all about that subject - a little niche of your own. The one that you are the expert on! Providing as much content as possible on a specific topic - and it has to be high quality content - not just lines of links and ads! (I have seen so many bad websites out there and I wonder if they are making any money-let me know if you are. You know they are the ones with just the same article on every page even though the nav bar says something different and then they are just full of google ads. I really hope Google will start cracking down on these!)

If you think you don't have anything to write about, you have probably been stuck in a dead end or high stress job for too long and have forgotten what it is that you are passionate about! What is it that you talk about passionately and wake up thinking about (besides the teenagers not coming home and the wars in the world).

You spend a lot of time and effort to build out and market a site. You are getting a lot of traffic, but the site isn’t profitable. What now?

There is a nasty little secret related to Internet businesses that most people either do not want to know or simply ignore. The secret is that some businesses are just not going to be profitable on the web. There can be a variety of reasons, but the simple fact is all the traffic in the world may not make your site profitable. This brings up the issue that should be discussed at the beginning of the process, but rarely is.

Should every business have a site? Yes. Should every business go hog wild trying to market their site on the web? No. A fundamental question that must be considered at the beginning of site planning is whether the site should be active or passive. Active sites are designed to be profitable in and of themselves. Passive sites are designed to simply create an online presence for the convenience of customers – a digital business card if you will with directions, phone numbers and so on.

For example, the site for an artist is typically going to be a passive site. People usually do not search for random art. They search by an artist’s name. Paying for marketing, thus, makes little sense. Instead, the best option is typically to put up a site emphasizing the artist’s name and showing his or her work. If a proactive effort is desired, listing the art on EBay is probably the best option.

Regardless of the path you take, nothing is worse than finding out your site is bombing. Despite your best efforts, there simply seems to be no way to make a profit. Perhaps Google has opened a similar service and you are getting stomped. Perhaps people simply do not buy online what you are selling. Alas, there are a couple of steps you can take to try to rescue something from the situation.

The first step is to consider repositioning your site. Instead of trying to sell something, you can always become an information site. Essentially, you drop the sales pitches and just offer useful information. When you take this approach, people tend to start returning to your site when they need more information, to wit, you get the much cherished return visitors. If you become a credible resource, you may be able to save the day.

If you convert to an information site, the second step is to make some money from it. If you have decent, free traffic coming to the site from search engine rankings, you should give some thought to Google Adsense. Adsense is a program whereby you put ads from Google Adwords advertisers on your site. When someone clicks the ads, Google gives you a share of the bid price. If you have a couple thousand visitors a day, you can make some decent money. In fact, many people are shocked at just how much they make.

At the end of the day, you really haven’t lived until you have built a site that bombs. Instead of heading to the window ledge, take a deep breath and consider your options. Google Adsense is one way to pick up the scraps and recover some of your investment. Over time, you should be able to make back your money and more.

It's pretty much widely known by all Internet marketers that one of the best ways to generate leads is by giving away free content. Like ebooks, audio lessons, video lessons, and things of that nature.

But one thing that is starting to happen is, these things are losing their power.

In fact, I have been hearing for years now how giving away free reports and content in exchange for someone giving you their email address isn't quite as powerful as it used to be.

At least, that is what is seems like.

The truth is, giving away freebies to generate leads not only works, but works as well as ever before -- as long as you do it the right way.

What is the right way?

The answer is simple:

Instead of doing what most other people do -- which is to give away things everyone else is giving away, and that people already have ten copies of -- you give away unique gifts they can't get anywhere else.

In other words, if someone can get your freebie from anyone else, don't use it. Instead use your own proprietary content. Content that has real value to it and that people would actually be willing to pay money for on its own.

If you don't have anything to give away, simply call an expert, record the call and turn that into unique content. You can have an audio file and written transcripts -- true value.

Whatever you do just know that, in reality, nothing has changed.

People still love free things. The problem is nobody wants two copies of something they already have.

And if you’re creative with what you give away -- if you use some real strategy -- it will work for you like gangbusters.

I got an email the other day from a student of mine who wanted to know why his online sales letters were bombing. When I took a look at his strategy, the answer was obvious.

You see, what he was doing was sending a long-winded sales email that then sent them to a website with a long copy sales letter.

And I told him to take his email, chop it down into one or two sentences and then send them to his website.

In other words, send out a short email briefly describing the benefit of what you are selling in an enticing and teasing way...and let that send them to your long sales letter.

Reason why this works so well is because if your short copy does its job -- gets them interested and wanting to know more -- it will be much easier for them to take the time to read your long copy letter without clicking away or getting distracted.

In fact, people who make it to your letter with this strategy will be more likely to stay. They will be interested. And when you're talking to people interested in what you're saying there is no such thing as "too long" of copy.

It's true.

We know this because studies have shown time and again that with a long copy message readership falls off dramatically after 50 words. But between 50 words and 1,000 words there’s hardly any drop off at all.

The people who don’t care will weed themselves off. The people who do care will want to learn everything they can.