Two excellent reasons for search engine optimization are: high rankings with the search engines, increased traffic, letting your visitors find you easily and of course, profits.

A short note on keywords here - be ready with your list of keywords and key phrases. Basic search engine optimization starts with keyword location. Here are some tips on where to place keywords:

1. Title tag - to help the search engine know what the page is about. Title tag is right at the top of your page within the ‘head’ tags. Placing the keyword here will attract focussed traffic to your website. Since it is the text in the title tag that is visible to the traffic, use the text keyword there.
2. The keywords you use in the anchor text must be the ones used to link to that page with other pages on your website. Try and link as many keywords as possible to a specific page
3. The text in the title tag must also appear in the body of the page so that the search engines know that it relates to the title. It will also let your traffic know that they are in the right place for the info they are looking for. The same keywords must be used in the text of the content on the page.
4. Avoid using the same title tag on all pages of your website. If you do this, the search engines will assume that all pages are identical and wont index them. Use the headline of your page as the title tag. This will tell the search engines what the page pertains to and index it.
5. Keyword stuffing is bad practice. Spamming the description or keyword meta tag must also be avoided.
6. Forget about link farms - search engines don’t approve of them. when you link to another site, you must make sure that the content is complementary and relates to your site.
7. In your navigation menu, put links instead of images - search engines cannot read images. Instead, use keywords in these links so that when your visitor has the mouse over these links the title of the link is visible to them.
8. If you have to have images, describe them with the alt tag. Search engines will find it easy to index these images and find your page. it will also help view your website in any browser.
9. Preferably go for manually submitting your website to the search engines. The use of submission software could make you end up paying a penalty or even getting banned. Once submitted, the search engine robots will follow your links and index your website.

You must also use your keywords in domain name, file names and folders. Make sure you have a site map for your website for easy navigation. Good content goes without saying.

Popularity: 59% [?]

One of the best tips to getting more money out of your website lies in the website itself. Many AdSense-enabled websites only generate a small amount of income because the website only has a few pages. Consider this. Suppose you have a website that has about 10 pages; chances are that you aren’t generating that much money. Now take your website and divide it into five sections and work towards adding more pages to each section. If you can add 300 pages of content to each section, that’s 1, 500 pages! With a few simple promotion tactics, you can start generating $30 a day from a single section. Compare that to the measly amount you get with a 10-page website.

Choosing Sides

An important thing to keep in mind is to make sure your website is divided into relevant sections. Most of them should deal with subjects pertaining to popular AdSense keywords or tools that people like to use. Let’s take a look at some of the sections you could incorporate into your website.

• Use a search page as your home page. It’s a useful section to have because a search page is something everyone uses. Many people click the AdSense ads that appear on search engines.
• Add a shopping section. Lots of people use the internet to shop online and to find information on buying something as small as a pair of shoes or as big as a house. Having a section dedicated solely to shopping is a great way to generate AdSense revenue.
• Computers are another useful section to have. A majority of computer users today don’t have much technical know-how. When it comes to virus issues, upgrading problems or just questions about new computer models, most people look to the internet to find more information. This is a perfect way to generate AdSense income with relevant computer ads.
• Have a finance section. This is a particularly hot topic- people are always searching for ways to either improve their credit, get out of debt or for new ways to invest. Coherent content and AdSense ads relating to credit and finance can result in some serious earnings for you.
• Other popular sections you can consider are cars, diets, loans, health and travel.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Like web optimization, you have to be careful with the methods you use to generate traffic to your site. You surely wouldn’t want people to ignore or dismiss you as spam or just another advertiser. Here are some traffic-generating tips that will get you lots of traffic without letting you get blacklisted.

• Writing articles on your AdSense keywords is probably one of the best ways to generate traffic for your site. Make sure the content is clear, informative and to the point. At the end of the article, encourage readers to visit your site. There they can learn more about your product or access more articles. Remember to add your name and website’s details at the end of your articles.
• Submit these articles to ezines and article directories. Encourage people to use your articles and share them with others. The more your articles get spread around, the more traffic they generate.
• Start a blog. Blogs attract a lot of visitors, often more than ordinary websites. You don’t have to post every single day- just a couple of times a week is enough. In fact, you can use your articles as posts itself. Remember to provide a link to your site on your blog.
• Swap links with other websites. This can greatly increase your traffic. If you exchange links with a site that generates a lot of traffic, you automatically get that traffic coming your way as well.
• Join networking sites, forums and groups that are related to your niche market. Interact with others and take a pro-active part in the community. Try and get involved in projects that are mutually beneficial- for example, you could showcase a person and their product on your blog. They could do the same for you in return.
• Give people an incentive to visit your site. Getting access to useful information is a good lure. But let’s face it, people love getting things for free. That doesn’t mean you have to hand out free samples every time- offering items like discount coupons or eBooks attracts lots of traffic as well and that often translates into AdSense clicks.

Remember that a good portion of the traffic you generate needs to translate into clicks and sales. In order to do that, you need to constantly think of new tactics to attract customers and encourage them to click on the ads. You also have to keep your website in optimum order. This is probably the most time-consuming part of keeping your online business going.

Popularity: 49% [?]

Through careful research, I have put together a list of phrases you can use that will have focused traffic rushing to your website every day. So read on -

“Bookmark This Web Site Now”

Ensure that your website has this option. By telling your visitors to bookmark your website, you increase the chances of their coming back. Let them know why they should bookmark your website - because you add new content everyday, etc.

“Subscribe To Our Free Ezine”

By asking your visitors to subscribe to your ezine, you will have their permission to send them email communication since they will opt in for it by giving you their email address. Let them know how frequently they can expect to receive your ezine and what they can expect to see in it so that they can look forward to it.

“Participate On Our Discussion Board”

There’s nothing more inviting than to be asked for one’s opinion on things. By inviting your visitors to take part in your discussion board Internet, you will ensure that they return often and meet other like-minded people from the same niche market.

“Sign Our Guest Book”

One good way to make sure you give your customers what they want and to get feedback you can use is to get them to sign your guest book. Internet businesses are dynamic and it’s a customer’s market out there. If you are responsive to customer comments, they will enjoy coming back and also recommend you to others.

“Use Our Free Content”

Let your visitors republish your articles on their website for free. You will increase your exposure, get free publicity, and establish yourself as an expert. Just insist that they include your resource box at the end of the article with a link to your website.

“Tell Your Friend About This Website”

Visitors will be ready to recommend your website to their friends and associates if they had a good experience. You could probably offer them a referral bonus in the form of a free report.

“Take Part In Our Internet Survey”

Another effective way to get your traffic to respond is to get feedback through an Internet survey. You might be able to make improvements to your website so that you can increase traffic.

“Participate In This Contest”

People love to win. When you ask your visitors to take part in Internet competitions or sweepstakes, they will enjoy it. It is also a good way to capture their email addresses so that you can send them the results with their permission

“You Can Give Away This Ebook/Report”

Permit your visitors to use your freebies to the traffic on their website. Don’t forget to include your own ad and links in the freebies so that those who receive it can come back to your website.

“Become our Internet Partner”

Those who are looking to make money Internet will consider the offer. Make it easy for them to sign up and earn by selling your product or services. The result - more traffic to your site since they will link to your website.

Popularity: 26% [?]

In Internet marketing, even though you may not need a website right away, eventually you will have to build one as you grow. The website you build must not only be successful, but also search-engine friendly. We have put together the most vital points that you need to follow to achieve this goal.

Content

This is the most obvious, but sadly the most overlooked. Google and your visitors both love quality content. So make sure that you have plenty of it ready so that you keep refreshing it on your website. Stale content does not work. Google likes ranking a website that frequently has new information with the keywords that the prospective visitor is looking for.

A Website With A Simple Design

There’s a misconception that graphic and html rich websites are best. But that’s not true. A simple professional website that has more text than html is always best. Too many complex components like JavaScript, flash elements etc. can be quite annoying as they take time to load. Can you imagine someone with low bandwidth smiling over this? Also, your website must be viewable no matter which browser is being used by the user.

Smaller Pages That Load Quickly

Size matters - and this time it is small that matters. Your website must load quickly. No one has the time to wait around.

How Much Content

Lots of it. Try and add at least one page per day - a length of 300 to 600 words should be fine. Use your keywords. And don’t forget to use the spell check. Here’s a tip - on your blog, rather than make journal like entries, go for short keyword rich articles.

Keywords

You have short listed keywords relevant to your business. Use them especially in your title and description tag, page subtitles, your URL, on your page in bold, italic and in your content summary at the beginning.

Linking

Within your website, have links between relevant pages. It would be even better if you use your keywords in these links. Link your high-ranking pages with those of other sites. Ensure that the content is complementary.

Site Submission

This is an important activity - you must submit your website to Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, etc. and other search engines and directories. Keep track and resubmit if you don’t appear on their list in 3-4 months.

Monitoring

Keep track of where your focussed traffic is coming from and which methods for attracting traffic are working successfully.

Anticipate

If you plan to introduce something big, now’s the time to build a web page. Why? Search engines need time to index the page and show it to your prospective customers.

Words, Words

Your visitors want content. Write for them. Research for what they are looking for. Your chances of becoming a top ranking website is greatly enhanced when you add fresh content every day.

Popularity: 61% [?]

Here is a list of methods you must NOT use to generate traffic! Why? Simply because they don’t work! Why waste your time and money on them? Here we go!

Through traffic exchanges

The concept of traffic exchanges is this: it is a website with a lot of member websites. If you look at another member’s website they will look at yours and you earn credits in the process that you can use. This does bring in a lot of traffic - you will see your counter go up, but chances of getting focused traffic that will sign up with you or buy from you are very less. Instead, focus on forums, ebook or article marketing!

Buying traffic

Many Internet marketers buy lists. Huge lists are available at affordable prices. But unfortunately, most of these lists have dead information. We already know that quite a few of these list sellers buy domains that have expired. They then use pop-overs and pop-unders to direct visitors to their customer-websites. While this looks very attractive, what if only two out of 100,000 visitors sign up? Suppose you paid $100 for these 100,000 visitors just imagine the waste of money per subscriber!

Another problem here is the authenticity of these lists. What if the list provider sells you someone else’s list and you send them emails without their consent? You will be accused of spamming and get a bad reputation.

Tricking search engines

Every Internet business must use search engine optimization as a strategy - but some try to cheat the search engines by link farming, masking content, etc. As long as there are methods, there will be loopholes. There are plenty of fly by night Internet marketers who will offer to increase your profits instantly. There is nothing ‘instant’ in Internet marketing. Everything requires careful planning and implementation and constant monitoring. “Instant automatic methods” just get you banned from the search engines. So do not think of cheating the search engines.

Be wary of traffic generation scams that tell you that they can bring you millions of visitors at negligible costs. In Internet marketing, often ‘free’ methods like using forums to generate traffic and profits works much more steadily than the so-called ‘cheap’ methods.

Online marketing and affiliate marketing are as challenging as they are interesting. Constant experimentation is required to make use of all the techniques and strategies you come across. The Mike Filsaime Butterfly Marketing Manuscript is a blueprint for both beginners and advanced marketers alike - since it is packed with all the little known simple strategies that make all the difference between a very successful business and an average one.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Membership websites are a great source of recurring income. One reason for this is that people love to belong to a community that is as interested and passionate about the same thing as they are. Look at golfers, for example. The golfing community is crazy about golf and are willing to spend big money on it. People like these are actually looking for an honest environment where they can interact and gain knowledge. The ‘money’ factor becomes negligible when they consider the benefits.

What that translates into is this: the biggest money-puller of your membership site is going to be your content, not your design, product or your name. You need content that sizzles!

Obviously, we are not talking about one-time content here. We are talking about intelligent, trustworthy content that is updated on a regular basis. This will give your visitors a reason to keep coming back for more. So, the foolproof formula for membership income is: provide great content consistently and you should have no problem getting a regular influx of visitors.

However, we all know how difficult it is to keep churning out fresh content every week. More so when your client base is beginning to expand and you’re not well and truly equipped to deal with everything at the same time. Suddenly, there are newsletters to send, blogs to post into, queries to answer and products to evaluate. In the mad rush to get everything done, your content is sidelined and it becomes stale.

How can you prevent that from happening? How can you ensure a steady flow of quality content to your marketing website?

The written word: Use articles, ezines, graphs, charts and reports on your website. Writing your own content is the best option for your website but it is not always the easiest. Hire ghostwriters to write for you. Many paid sites give you a fixed volume of articles every month for a small fee. Subscribe to them. Mix and match them to create unique content. Suppose your niche deals with ‘Making money online’ and you buy 45 articles about your topic. The easiest thing would be to simply post the articles as-is, but do NOT give into that temptation. Rewrite the articles you buy in your own words or string them together to form an e-book, distill them for their gist or use only the headlines. The possibilities are endless. The trick is to make the articles genuinely yours.

Audio content: This is a very nice variation to the staid and boring written word and a real attention grabber. Speak to an established expert, record the interview, and upload it to your website. Monthly interviews will keep visitors glued to your website if the content is good. Or add audio content by podcasting your blog and putting it up on your website.

Video content: This is another attractive alternative. Use QuickTime, Flash, MPEG or AVI to upload video to your site. Just keep one thing in mind: your objective here is to provide content that is more valuable than your competitors and not to show off. Let me give you an example. Suppose your niche deals with the makeup industry. Put up a video highlighting some of the fine tricks of applying makeup. Great way to attract visitors. However, if you were to have a video of yourself detailing the makeup process, people will be miffed. Why did you waste their time to show them what they can very well understand in a reading? Reeks of publicity, doesn’t it? Surest way to drive away traffic!

RSS feeds: RSS feeds will spice up your web content because they provide both audio and video content. RSS allows you to source headlines and summary content from other blogs. So every time these blogs are updated, your content too is updated!

Crosslink: This is another great way of encouraging traffic. Refer to other websites that provide helpful information in the same niche. Comment on their information and link to them. This way, your readers know that you are updating your knowledge. You will also get incoming traffic from the other party who will link back to you if your own content is good enough.

How can you decide if your content is ‘good’ enough? Simple. Good content is information that your visitors will enjoy reading and will benefit from knowing. Ask yourself this: would you pay for this information? That would be the litmus test for good content.

Popularity: 46% [?]

How well your niche website is designed will be an important deciding factor in your success since you need to present a web presence that is both professional and appealing to your visitors. The site should be easy to navigate, with your visitors able to find what they want with ease. This will encourage them to visit again.

Rather than go through the elaborate process of building an effective niche website, we have compiled some web design tips that will make your niche website very successful. Here they are:

• The best way to build a great niche website is one that is simple without irritating flash presentations and animations that take forever to load and drive your visitor away even before they know what you have to offer. The color scheme must also be kept pleasing, making the text clearly visible.
• One of the most annoying things about some web pages is when the visitor must scroll sideways to read the text. Ideally a screen resolution of 800×600 pixels so that the website fits into the viewer’s monitor should be okay.
• A website that loads quickly is the best website. Graphics on the niche website must be at a minimum. Ensure that any images have a succinct description - this means that someone who has graphics turned off will know what the image is about.
• Remember that many people use 56K modems, so don’t exceed 10K in terms of web page size. This will enable quicker loading.
• Another tip for quicker page loads is to link your HTML pages to CSS or cascading style sheets. These minimize the code on your page as well and help in a better looking website.
• Easy navigation is an essential. If a particular link shows up at different places on different pages, it will confuse your visitors and make them waste precious time looking for them.
• Here’s one of my favorites - a site map. Every website must have one. This site map must list every page on your site preferably with a brief description so that it can be linked back to the appropriate page. It makes for easy navigation as well, in addition to allowing search engines find you more easily.
• One of the worst things you could do is have a dark blue background with black text making it an ordeal for your visitors to decipher what is on the site. It is always best to have a light background with dark colored text and a font style that is easy to read. Font sizes must also be legible. Many sites give their visitors the option of choosing from different font sizes, particularly for the visually challenged.
• Make sure your website loads easily on different browsers. Even though a majority of people use Internet Explorer, there are a growing number of people who use Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape and so on. So test before you publish.
• Each page on your niche website must emphasize on a specific topic. Too many different topics can be confusing and dilute your message. Whatever content you post must be targeted to your niche market.

Popularity: 32% [?]

One of the main reasons why so many membership sites fall flat on their faces is due to lack of expertise in their selected niche.

For people to visit your website AND pay for information, you have to be the expert. Why would anyone pay you otherwise?

The moment someone mentions your area of expertise, your name must pop up in people’s heads. Easier said than done, you say? Listen up, it is not that difficult.

Before you select your niche, there are certain things you can do to make it easier for you to become the expert.

• Evaluate your expertise. Why should people pay to listen to you?
• Who is your target audience? Students, businesspersons, executives, investors or work-at-home moms? Determine their gender, backgrounds, income level, interests, professional and educational backgrounds. This will tell you what unique angle you should explore in your website.
• How good is the competition? What areas are they exploring? Do they know more or less?

By the time you have answered these questions, you already know where you stand. Listed below are some things you can do to become THE expert in your field.

Read: Read all kinds of material - books, forums, blogs or magazines. Forums are a great place to find enthusiastic questions, diverse answers and innovative ideas. Sometimes, you can even pick up hot information on new products from various forums.

Narrow your focus: Suppose you picked self-improvement as your area of expertise. You know that this niche is simply too vast for one person to do full justice to it. So you narrow your scope and take up one aspect, say ’stop smoking’. Good. You are now targeting a specific group of people. But, how about narrowing it down to ’stop smoking using herbal supplements’? Haven’t you just chopped off more than half the competition and targeted an even more specific group of people? Can you begin to see how narrowing a field down to its sub-topic will make the subject manageable and not overly competitive? It is much easier to dominate a narrow field of interest.

Speak whenever you get the chance: More than 95% of the population develops nervous ticks when they stand up to speak. So, the moment you walk up to that microphone, you are already ahead of 95% of your competition! Speaking about your topic establishes you as the indisputable expert in your niche. The next best thing to do is to give interviews. This neat technique wins you the label of an expert, free advertisement and increased traffic.

Write: There’s a public perception that only an expert can write well. This is more so if you are writing a book. So, get busy and write a book on your niche. If you can’t do it yourself, go for second best: hire a ghostwriter. Write good, read-worthy, thought provoking articles and send it out to ezines and other websites. This is the easiest way to get free publicity. Submit press releases that pique people’s interest. In short, generate EXTRA-ordinary content. Only this can establish your expertise.

Network like your life depends on it: Create a bulletin board, start a blog and visit related forums. Attend networking events where your clients hang out. Remember, it’s not who you know that is important, it is who knows *you* that counts!

So, there you have it!

Formula for expertise = Consistent great content + continuous online presence.

Popularity: 40% [?]

You know that affiliate marketing thrives on links and the more the number of relevant links to and from your website, the better your search engine ranking and focused traffic. What follows is a list of practical, simple, ready-to-use methods that are highly effective. Ready? Here we go.

• As an affiliate marketer, you will definitely browse the web looking at other related websites. When you like a site, write a review about the site highlighting its benefits. Let the website publish this in return for linking to your website.
• Let other websites use your content on their website. Make sure your link appears in every article you publish. Also, the website you link with must be related to your website, with both looking at the same traffic.
• Let other affiliate marketers publish your ezine on their website. Every issue of your ezine must have your ad and your link. This will also serve in building your optin list with people subscribing to your ezine.
• Have you heard the concept of marketing your website in the form of a free web book? In the design element, make a title page, a table of contents and various chapters. Let people freely distribute this through a link to your website
• Be an article directory. Let your visitors get free content by linking to articles on your website. Make sure you have your website or product ad or banner at the top of the article directory at your main website.
• Permit related websites to use your forum or discussion board for their own visitors by linking directly to your discussion board. At the top of the discussion board, add your banner or ad.
• Membership sites are a great way to increase your loyal traffic. Start a membership site. You can highlight the benefits of being a member and offer no cost membership when the member links to your website.
• Invite affiliates to your affiliate program. Your visitors will earn a commission on each sale they make as well as display your affiliate link. It’s mutually beneficial.
• You also buy products. When you particularly like a product, write a detailed testimonial for it and send it to the business. Allow them to publish it on their website in return for linking to your website.
• Ever considered using a consultant? If you did you know how expensive they are. If you are an expert on a topic or subject, why not offer free online consulting? Let your clients link to your website in return for your advice. You’ll get traffic, and they save money.
• Identify complementary relevant websites related to yours and exchange content with them. This could be articles, top 5 or top 10 lists, with all including a resource box at the tail of the content.

Popularity: 21% [?]