Internet Marketing For Free

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Regardless of what internet marketing technique you choose to market your business, and starting out I think you should only choose one or two, I really think it’s important to gain as much mastery as possible over each technique.

It’s really not as hard as you think either. I once read that if you read three books on a topic, you should glean enough information to make you an expert. I don’t really know how true that is, but once you’ve decided what marketing techniques you want to use, find several books/ebooks on the topic and read them. Study them. Make notes and write down any questions you may have. Go to the search engine of your choice and type in that question. You may be really surprised at how much information you find. You can then get the answers you need to master the topic.

One of the biggest reasons I’m a fan of search engine optimization is that I took the certification course through Web CEO. This program is so good I believe you can learn search engine optimization just from reading the documentation. It’s really that well written, and it explains everything step by step. This is how I learned search engine optimization. I also took their course, but I bought the small business version of the software, and it has over 70 lessons in it. By the time I finished, I felt pretty comfortable optimizing my sites for the search engines.

This software also gives you all of the tools you need to optimize your site, as well as submit it to the search engines when you are finished.

Now, I want to give you some easy tips for search engine optimization. This is a crash course of sorts.

The first thing you need to understand is on page and off page SEO factors. On page factors are the things you control: bolding your words, internal linking, structure of your site. Keywords, and metatags and metatag descriptions are important because this is what will be displayed in your listing in the search engines. You can create your header information by going to Evrsoft and using the free tool there. Just copy and paste the code into the header of your webpage. You want to make all of the on page factors as search engine friendly as possible. Take care of these first, and then worry about off page factors.

Off page factors are things that may or may not be in your control, like who is linking to you, how many links you have and search engine algorithms. A search engine algorithm is simply the factors a search engine uses in order to rank your site.

To raise your rankings in the search engines, here is what I recommend:

1. Make sure you target the correct keywords for your site. You may end up using keyword phrases that don’t get as much traffic, but these phrases will be more targeted, the traffic will be more targeted, and you’ll get better conversions.

2. Don’t optimize your site for one keyword phrase. Optimize different pages for different keywords related to your topic. What happens when you do this is that your site will be found in the search engines for lots of different keywords. I know this strategy works because I did it with my sites, and now my sites are often found on the first page of major search engines for lots of different keywords. In fact, it’s annoying sometimes when I do research to find that I’m the number one listing. Where do I go to find more information on my topic?

3. Build an effective linking program for your site. There are quite a few different ways to do this that is really quite easy.

If you own a blog, get out and post comments on blogs that are relevant for your topic. Some blogs have the no follow tag embedded in their sites, which means you won’t get credit for that link. That’s OK because you want to get your blog noticed. If your comments are relevant, and they build into the conversation, others will visit your blog from that site. Your traffic will build.

Submit to directory sites. If you spend just 30 minutes a day posting your link to directory sites, and you can easily add your site to at least 5 directory sites a day, at the end of a year, you’ll have over 1500 links pointing back to your site. This can not only give you incredible page rank with Google, but it will raise your overall search engine rankings.

The way to do this is to write a good keyword rich description, as well as title. Keep everything you need to post to these directories in a text file and then just copy and paste the information. A faster way to do it is to use a tool like Directory Submitter. You can set up your profile one time and then it will take you to each of the directories. You can build links twice as fast. The free version of this software allows you to submit to 350 directories. You could easily do that in a month.

Vary your titles and descriptions. You don’t want the same title and description on every directory, and this will allow you target different keywords for your topic.

4. Participate in communities, like MySpace and Facebook, forums, and other social networking sites. You can build links, as well as an active presence, on the internet just about anywhere. Go where your market is and talk to them. Write a good signature file, and post about it.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that anyone can write. We all have opinions, and we all have something to say. I think where most people get hung up is on fear of criticism. That’s where you need to develop Rhett Butler syndrome: “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.”  Let’s face it: there are those on the internet who think their sole purpose in life is to criticize others. Quite frankly, that’s a pretty pathetic existence.

If you have something valuable to contribute in the way of your products and services, and I know many of you do, then get out there and talk about it. Spread the word about your products or services. Sure, you’ll get criticism, but as I have learned, even my critics read me, and even a little bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.

The real secret to getting traffic and sales online, is to get the word out about your business. The internet marketing gurus don’t make a lot of money because they have the best products. They make a lot of money because they are the best at getting the word out about their products and services. You can do the same thing. You may have to start small, but the more you market, the more you will build on your internet presence, and the more traffic and sales you will get. It all adds up.

Finally, for those that feel pressed for time, Web CEO does have a one hour quickstart guide. You can use this to get a crash course in SEO and get your SEO campaigns moving fast.