Web Design & SEO For Small Businesses

Google Recently started showing authority listing for some sites for search phrases either for their business name or keywords relevant to that category. Recently Nate Whitehill posted that his blog gained an authority listing. There are several factors which determine for Google to list your site as an authority. Till now nothing is clear about it, some evidence that links and relevant content could be the factor to be deemed as an authoritative.

If you are running a sitemap and have a Google webmasters account you can see weather you site has gain authority listing. Under Google Webmaster Tools on the right navigation you can see a link called links under that category you can see Site Links.

Some of my evidence shows the following factors determine a authority listing.

1) You domain name or business name used in link pointing to your website. Also the same term being using inside the content of the web pages.

2) The Domain name is been used as an anchor text while linking.

3) You Domain name or Business name has links from local directories and sites like Better Business Bureau.

4) The term people searches and the destination pages has a strong relevancy.

5) A search Query which has been searched for several times to reach that destination.

6) Link from higher Page rank web pages.

The bottom-line is relevancy and links of your web pages and anchor text of your business.

Most people when they think of website promotion, they think about search engine marketing. But actually there are different ways to promote a website without depending on just search engines to get targeted traffic. All you need to do is thinking in a creative way, try innovative ideas and different way how to promote it. Online Marketing is not just all about SEO it is all about Creative Marketing. If you can do it right, there is more waiting for your website to come out of sandbox, link popularity and dependency on Search Engines.

I have put together 25 different ways on how to promote your website online absolutely free.

1) Web Content optimization – Content is key to any website. If you website is optimized for search engine it will definitely going to be noticed and started getting traffic and links.

2) Link Building – Links are so crucial for online visibility not only to the search engine eyes but link from good relevant sites can bring you targeted traffic and get noticed.

3) Article Distribution – Article syndication is one of the best and cheapest way to promote your website. There are hundreds of article directories out there to promote.

4) Online Press Releases -Online Press Release or press statement is a perfect way to attract media attention or publicity for products and services of your business.

5) Freebies – Giveaways and Freebies can attract a lot of attention as well as links from other websites. If you can create a unique tool or useful free product online it can get noticed and drive traffic to your site.

6) Unique Ad Creation – Pay Per Click Campaign is all about how you create a good ad, the more unique the better, A well written ad gets attention of the search engine visitors and will click on your ad.

7) List Building Email promotion – List building or email list building is a good way to bring visitors to your website, if you provide a newsletter subscription or free advice on your niche you have the right to ask for the visitors email address and name which can be used for future promotions.

Blogging – Blogging is a newest buzz word out there every business are getting into this new web2.0 marketing technique. Blog commonly knows as web logs where visitors can engage in a conversation.

9) Sponsored Reviewing – A review about your website is another way to promote your website or blog. There are several blogs and website that does this.

10) Commenting – Comments on review sites and blogs is a another way to do a promotion. If you comment and engage in a conversation in blogs which is relevant to your industry chances people will visit your website.

11) Social Media – This is the new craze among marketers Place like Facebook, Myspace, digg and stumbleupon can bring in tons of traffic if you promote it properly.

12) Online Contests – Facilitate and run contests on your website can get viral if people willing to participate in contest will spread the word through their website and blogs.

13) Forum Posting – This is the place where like minded people hang around, So to get noticed you need to engage in threads asking question and answers related to your topic.

14) Video Marketing – Videos are an effective way to promote your website. If you can broadcast relevant videos related to your industry visitors will folk to your website.

15) Affiliate Marketing – affiliate, reseller, and associate programs will allow your products and services to be listed on other websites which increases sales.

16) Mobile Media Marketing – can be mobile advertising, mobile search, mobile messaging, ring tones… and this is still in its early stages.

17) E-books Marketing – E-book marketing is a great way to achieve popularity of your website, If you can offer free tips and ideas via e-Books which can be downloaded for free it can create a viral effect.

18) Joint Venture - Same Target Customers and Partner Up With other online marketers who share the same niche you can sell your products to their list as well visa verse. But doing joint ventures you can get targeted traffic.

19) Banner Advertisements – One of the oldest forms of online advertisement to get noticed online still it works if you can create a eye-catching banner ad.

20) Sponsored Links – Search Engines hate this but still you can get a sponsored link weather it is do follow or no follow on high traffic relevant website it is a great way to promote a website.

21) Testimonials – A strong guarantee makes it safe for prospects to give you a try. A customer who is indecisive about your product or service may go ahead and give you a try if there’s no risk. The guarantee will push many customers “over the edge” when there’s doubt about making the purchase.

22) Podcasting – Podcasting your website content is another way to promote your website. Your digital media files which are distributed over the web would be downloaded into media players and listeners will follow your website.

23) Classified Ads – Classified ads online through Craigslist.com, usfreeads.com, Squidoo, Hubpages is another way to promote your website.

24) Local Search – If you website is local based then you can submit you Local Search databases like Google, Yahoo and MSN local as well as other local directories.

25) Interviews – Finally if you an expert in your niche you can offer interviews in different websites and blog which will give more exposure to your website.

Hope these techniques if implemented in your online marketing to-do list you can see success in your online venture and also I think this atleast motivates you to start. If you feel that there are other different ways please, feel free to comment.

Testimonials on landing page will increase conversion for your PPC campaign because it indicates that to the visitor that the website is legitimate and also boost the confidence of the visitors either to buy or take some action on the site. Most of the time the testimonials can be fake one, but majority of the visitors take testimonials seriously and doesn’t think that way. Testimonials are also considered as quality assurance indicator since it is already used and tested by other users.

Also adding too many testimonials can hurt your landing page conversion. Because too many testimonials can distract the user in focusing on what you sell. Since each testimonials are different it will give the user different views about the offer.

Tips of adding testimonials on landing pages

1) Reduce your testimonials to not more than three.

2) Place testimonials which are short and convey the message. Long written testimonials.

3) Add success stories testimonials which will convert better.

4) Always try to use genuine testimonials fake ones doesn’t going to help you much.

5) Always add contact or URL of the website who wrote the testimonials.

6) Make the testimonials prominent on your landing page where visitors can read but it doesn’t mean to stand out from the call to action.

7) Another tip to get good testimonials is ask the customer who brought your products or services and are happy, ask them to give a testimonials about the product how they liked it.

People always have a tendency to buy products or services not because of the features and benefits which it is offering but some else has brought the same products and are happy is a good indicator that your product is a good one. Adding testimonials on landing pages is an absolute must. So try to add success stories to your landing pages and increase your conversion.

Promoting affiliate website is quite expensive if you have a brand new one and also when the affiliate marketers are on a shoe string marketing budget. Promoting affiliate offers is expensive and also if not done correctly you can burn your hard earned money very soon. Getting a free advertisement for an affiliate marketing website is like a getting a jump start. This free advertisement doesn’t come for free actually I mean you need to put effort to enjoy success with these free promotion strategy.

First you need to find a good affiliate product to offer where you think you can generate unique content. After creating the website and adding affiliate link here are some of the places you can promote your website on a free.

Hubpages - At Hubpages you can create a page for yourself about what ever niche you want to have and can create a number of pages. As an affiliate marketer you can create a separate page of each offer the best things about Hubpages are you can put your affiliate link on these pages along with the offer as well as can drive traffic to your affiliate marketing site, this also helps in search engine optimization since these links from pages you created in Hubpages is relevant.

Squidoo – Squidoo pages works in similar manner like Hubpages where you can create separate pages, can have affiliate links embedded inside these pages also can sell stuffs and eBooks from click bank which is relevant to your niche. Squidoo pages are ranked very well in search engine results this will help you a lot to start of your affiliate marketing even with no money all you need is time and effort.

Craigslist.org is a high traffic site with different categories placing an ad on these pages won’t cost you. If you can create a well converting ad this will help you to get traffic to your affiliate marketing offer site. But this process is time consume because Craigslist pages update on a regular basis so you need to place ads on the site very often but it is worth the effort because of tons of traffic coming through that site.

US Free ads – works similar like Craigslist but the free advertisement has limitation you need to get a subscription to upgrade where you can have more features to your advertisements.

EzineArticles – Marketing online is all about content; EzineArticles accepts well written articles into their several categories. If you can write well informative articles about your affiliate niche in these articles you will get a very good page view but the only draw back is it won’t allow you to have affiliate link embedded into the article. But you have a resource link about the author where you can place up to three URLs you can utilize this opportunity to link to your web page where you are promoting the affiliate offer. It takes time and effort but you get a very good exposure as well as these pages rank very well in search engine results.

Recently I have started getting some email response after I published my post on top pay per click programs, regarding what are the top CPA networks. In today’s post I am planning to give brief overview of the networks with which I work and I think they are the top CPA networks where you can make money very well.

NeverblueADS – This is my favorite networks because most of their campaigns are pretty easy to market and have more pay per lead kind of programs which most affiliate marketers are looking for. They have a pretty good interface with all things put out clearly; I can tell you NeverblueADS have one of the best web usability compared to the other CPA networks.  They have more than 24 categories each filled with so many wonderful offers which you can promote. NeverblueADS allows the following method of promotion email, web and paid search. Payment is once in a month with a minimum of $25 made through PayPal.

AzoogleAds – AzoogleAds started in the year 2000, is one of the fastest growing CPA networks. They have more than 300 good quality campaign offers in their network. Each of them is easy to promote. They have pay per lead, pay per sale and pay per download offers which are quite attractive with the publishers. They have several offers which allow targeting international audience. So if you are international publishers AzoogleAds would be a perfect match. The reporting is real-time and their interface looks like a web 2.0, you can generate several kinds of reports. They have a consolidated payment via check for a minimum of $50.

COPEAC – This CPA networks is quite popular among affiliate marketers. COPEAC offers Cost per Acquisition (CPA), Cost per Sale (CPS) and Cost per click (CPC) offers for its publishers; they have a very large base of advertisers to promote in a wide spectrum of markets. COPEAC have a referral program as well for publishers to refer other affiliate markers and get a 2% commission. Payment is made via check or wire on a monthly basis and a minimum threshold is set at $100.

MaxBounty – allows anyone who has a website to be their publisher to make money by promoting their advertisers offers on a pay for performance basis. MaxBounty is very popular among forums; you can see that if you are active in affiliate marketing forums, you can see several threads based on MaxBounty in these forums. MaxBounty is also one of the most reliable CPA networks which give the highest payment.  The minimum payout is just $50 which is paid each month basis. Allows international publishers to join and also have several international programs for them.

Affiliate Future – This CPA networks offers large number of UK merchants offers. This Network is owned by TMN group a leading direct marketing company in London. They have very good publisher friendly staffs working for them who respond to all your email and questions. Even though they are based in UK international publishers are allowed to join the network. They have a very good number of merchants in their 50 categories, one of the drawback is the same offers are listed in other major Affiliate networks which makes it less attractive for a seasoned affiliate marketer. Payment is made on a monthly basis with a minimum threshold of 20 pounds payments will be made by BACS/Wire transfer on the 2nd week of the following month.

Offersquest – A lesser known network, with around 100 campaign offers.  Some of the minimum requirements for joining this network are that you should have a fully functional website with no under construction pages. This Network allows only English written website which has English content on it. Offersquest doesn’t allow website which is offering incentives for any action by the visitors on the site. Most of the offers with this network are Cost per Lead. Payments are made through PayPal or check with a minimum threshold of $20. They have a real time reporting statistics for publishers.

DirectLeads – is an CPA network having offers from pay per lead to pay per click also it allows you to earn commission through referrals. Since most of the offers are not pay per sale you can see a higher conversion rate compared to the other pay per sale networks. DirectLeads offer excellent banners, buttons and text links for all their merchant offers. They have a cool interface category directory for all the offers. They provide real-time reporting on your commission and referrals. One of the drawbacks with this CPA Network is that the payment is made after 60 days after which you have earned $20.00 which is quite a long time to get your payment. Apart from that this network has potential for any publishers who want to make money.

ModernClick – is a leading provider of performance based direct marketing solution on the web. Getting into this network is quite hard, since they are picky in picking up the affiliates into their network. The have a technology which offers affiliate marketers to most latest and advanced tracking tool which provides accurate and real-time data for all the affiliate marketers’ online campaign. They have also a good fraud protection feature for affiliate marketers to protect their affiliate commission. The minimum threshold is $25 and the pay period is once a month via check or PayPal.

Hydra Networks – This is my second favorite CPA network which I promote. Some of the promotional campaign method with this network are email campaign, search, web and co-registration. Their state of art proprietary program allows giving an excellent tracking data and reporting of your online campaign, so that you can monitor it on a real-time basis. The number of campaigns in this network is more than 500 with cost per click, cost per lead and cost per sale offers. They pay you once in 15 days via check, direct deposit and PayPal.

RocketProfit – is my third largest source of income from CPA networks behind NeverblueADS and Hydra Networks. RocketProfit is one of the fastest growing CPA network with unique and exclusive Cost per lead deals. Recently there was an excellent review at Zac Johnson Affiliate Marketing Blog about RocketProfit. They have several Cost per Lead and Cost per sale offers. The payment method is through check wire transfer and PayPal. The threshold of $25 is the minimum earning you need get for a payment for duration of 15 days payment frequency.

Hope this answers my readers email questions. Very soon I am going to review each of these as well as other affiliate networks with more detailed posts. Also you can more other affiliate programs which I make money online also be reviews very soon.

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