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On the Web, attention spans are short. Formatting is critical to getting people to finish reading your article, or watching all of your video.

Folks do not like to come across huge blocks of text which are not broken down into bits that are more manageable.

The same is true as far as the quality of the content. Why provide only a few bits of wisdom, when you can pack valuable information into every sentence?

People would much rather find many pearls of wisdom, than have to sift through page after page, only to find sparsely placed helpful content.

Power Web copy is high impact, hard hitting, engaging, as well as informative. It is full of action verbs and adverbs, not adjectives.

It does not use “hype”, or make impossible sounding claims. It takes what is being said, and slams it “out of the park” with crystal clear points that are highly illustrative.

The copywriting world has noticed this style of writing is most effective in getting visitors to take action.

It very often uses a “story-based” platform because people relate very well to stories.

It makes use of the “active voice” (where the noun performs the action) instead of the passive voice (where the action happens to the noun.)

This style of writing helps keep the reader engaged. The points use vivid, picturesque, wording that incites the reader’s imagination, and makes him want to read the next sentence.

This keeps the reader moving forward in the copy. Video scripts written in the same manner, avoid boring viewers.

There are way too many sales websites online (which are not making sales) that have yet to learn this strategy.

Take a good look at your e-commerce site – does it fall into this category?

You probably have a good product or service to sell, but if your copy suffers from not having this style of writing, then this is the reason, your site is not selling anything.

Look at some of the sites that are having brisk sales – do you notice the difference in the style of writing used?

There is a good reason those sites make use of the “active voice” style copywriting – it works, it is much more persuasive than the “passive voice” style copy.

It is amazing how presenting such a small change can make a huge difference in the response generated.

Get a professional to evaluate your sales page. He will tell you the same thing.

Copy that makes sales follows very specific guidelines, especially Web copy. Any copy that compels readers to take a desired action, or “convert” is copywriting.

Capture or squeeze pages are specifically crafted to compel visitors to enter their email address, or apply for further information such as a “white paper” or a “Case Study”.

Whatever the case may be, power Web copy can do wonders for your bottom line sales.

Sites not written to make sales directly from the page, should still use “power copy” to get the visitor to perform a desired action.

If you remember to incorporate this style of writing into your next sales page, or video script, you will see a huge difference in the response it generates.

Articles written in “active voice” tend to garner more readerships, more republishing, and more “likes.”

This results in getting the author much more exposure. Go ahead and make a “splash” when you enter the water, you just might provoke the perfect response from someone you need to meet.

If you begin an article marketing campaign aim high – try to get at least 20 to 25% (on average) of your submissions to be republished.

Some articles may get as high as 60% – others 12 – 15% but aim for an average of at least 24%.

Doing this will ensure not only a good following, but a good, responsive click through rate that will earn you money.

Besides, having nearly 25% of the articles you submit published may result in getting further exposure on high traffic sites and consequently more publishers running your articles. This could result in having thousands of readers eagerly looking at your content, and clicking your links. Does this sound good to your ears? I thought so.

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Stephen Monday is a Professional Web Copywriter, Creative Writer, and Sales Writer for the Web. Get your free Sales Page evaluation here: http://www.AAAWebcopyservices.com

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Power Web Copywriting: Active Voice and Action Adverbs – A SPN Exclusive Article

Posted in: Webmaster by Scotty /
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Incomplete profile
I cannot understand why many people leave their profiles incomplete. If you want to jump start a good business, you want your future clients to know you. It will not take you years to complete filling up your profile, so if you are serious with your business, completing your profile is one of the first things you should do.

Doing this includes uploading pictures and writing other relevant data. Your profile is your first selling point. Customers want to deal with real people and not with robots. A complete profile builds up your identity to your customers.

Bad Content
Bad content drives away potential customers. If you’re a businessman, you should stuff your social media account with fresh and good content only. Yes, you shouldn’t leave your account idle, but you shouldn’t fill it with a lot of nonsense or a lot of negative content either.

Spamming
You should be careful not to post repetitive messages in your account, for these might annoy your followers. This can also be considered spamming. If you don’t want to have your account suspended or even deleted, you better not use spamming as part of your business strategy.

Not separating business and personal life
I have a friend who lost thousands of business opportunities because she turned her business account into a personal one. When people learned that she was beautiful, they became more concerned of her personal life than her beauty products. Her Twitter account turned out to be a “courtship” area, and people were just replying to her because they knew she was pretty. It was her fault, too, because she got flattered with the comments and she allowed the attention to affect her business.

Image consistency
Inconsistent branding and imaging will confuse your audience. Stick with your image and don’t shift tone every time you tweet or update.

Befriending irrelevant people or idle accounts
To be honest, adding idle accounts is just an extra baggage to your business. Track and organize your friends well. Some accounts are built just to spy on competitors and to steal ideas from them. Be vigilant against these, but don’t be paranoid. Practice wisdom in adding people.

Not standing by your word
Not being able to stand by your word drives away customers and potential customers. On the other hand, being consistent with your ideology and actions attracts people; it makes them see your sincerity and honesty. Trust me, you’ll win a lot of clients just by standing by your word.

Not backing up Social Media with SEO
This is the biggest mistake of all. If you’re doing business in Social Media sites, might as well back it up with an SEO. Social media is great for promotion, but SEO is perfect for your business strategies. Social media alone is not enough to boost your business promotion.

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Warner is interested in everything about discovering and learning new things online. He works with the only for SEO Resellers outsource resource – Endless Rise.

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8 Social Media Mistakes – A SPN Exclusive Article

Posted in: Webmaster by Scotty /
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Pay per click is no doubt a very effective Internet marketing technique, if properly deployed. It is particularly effective if the right Adwords keyword list is generated and utilized.

I have only indicated Google Adwords here but the same principle applies to other pay per click services such as Microsoft advertising and Yahoo search marketing.

Keyword Matching Options

There are basically four keyword matching options under which keywords or keyword phrases are classified.

These basically are:

Broad Match
Phrase Match
Exact Match
Negative Match

Since these four keyword matching options determine which searches can trigger your ads to appear, they help you predetermine or control which search users see your ads. By applying the appropriate matching options to your keywords, you can also best meet your return on investment (ROI) goals.

I will use “green tea” as an example keyword in this post to illustrate the use of the various match options.

Broad Match

This is the default option. It allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations. Under this classification, the keywords are normally shown without any punctuation i.e. green tea. With this option, you’ll enjoy more ad impressions, clicks, and conversions but may end up with a lower return on investment (ROI).

If your ad group contained the keyword/keyword phrase ‘green tea’, your ad would be triggered to appear when a user’s search term contained either or both words (’green’ and ‘tea’) in any order, and possibly along with other terms. Your ads could also show for singular/plural forms, synonyms, and other relevant variations of the keyword ‘green tea’.

Your ads may, for example, show on searches for:

green
tea
buy green tea
decaffeinated green tea
oolong tea
black tea
rooibus tea
free green tea

It can be seen that the targeting is wide and may be off mark and not meet the user’s and indeed the advertiser’s intention.

To mitigate the unnecessary advertising costs that may ordinarily accrue when this match option is adopted, you can use it in conjunction with ‘negative match’ which is explained below.

You have to be careful when setting up your pay per click campaigns because many newbie Internet marketers out of ignorance, start out accumulating a huge pay per click bill by just inserting their keywords without any punctuation which is the default and represents “broad match” even though their intention is for more narrow searches.

Phrase Match

Using this match type, your ad will show for searches that match the exact phrase. In other words, your ad would be eligible to appear when a user searches on the phrase you have specified, with the words in that order. It can also appear for searches that contain other terms as long as it includes the exact phrase you’ve specified. It is more targeted than broad match, but less targeted than exact match.

Under this classification, the keywords are normally shown in quotes i.e. “green tea”. With this option, you’ll generally enjoy more ad impressions, clicks, and conversions than under the “Exact Match” option but generally less than under the “Broad Match” option. You may end up with a lower return on investment (ROI) than under the “Exact Match” option but generally with a higher ROI than using the “Broad Match” option.

Your ads may show on searches for :

decaffeinated green tea
buy green tea
green tea no calories
where to buy green tea
green tea to lose weight

but will not show for searches for :

green decaffeinated tea
tea with green color
decaffeinated tea
oolong tea
rooibus tea

Exact Match

This match type triggers your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively.

Under this classification, the keywords are normally shown in brackets i.e. [green tea]. With this option, you’ll generally enjoy less ad impressions, clicks, and conversions than using both the ‘Broad Match’ and ‘Phrase Match’ types but may end up with a higher return on investment (ROI) than for both ‘Broad Match’ and ‘Phrase Match’ types. If you have carefully constituted a comprehensive keyword list, the traffic you are likely to receive may be more targeted to your product or service.

Your ads will be triggered for the search term :

green tea

But not for keywords such as :

decaffeinated green tea
rooibus green tea
oolong tea
buy green tea

Negative Match

This is usually used in conjunction with ‘Broad Match’ keywords. It is used to specify keywords you do not want the customers search query to be triggered for when they search for your ad. This is usually specified with a negative sign before the keyword you do not want your ad to be triggered for.

For example, if your keyword list contains the following :

green tea
-rooibos
-oolong
-caffeinated
-free

Then your ad can be triggered for

green tea
buy green tea
tea
decaffeinated green tea

but will not be triggered for

oolong tea
rooibus tea
caffeinated green tea
free green tea

In conclusion, irrespective of the matching option you use, it’s important to only use keywords that accurately describe your product or service.

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Dele Ojewumi is an Internet Marketer, Chartered Accountant and Economist. He is the webmaster of http://www.homebiz-supermarket.com. Visit his blog http://www.homebiz-supermarket.com/profitable-business-ideas/ where you can get profitable business ideas to help you generate multiple streams of internet income.

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Adwords Keyword List : Creating An Effective List – A SPN Exclusive Article

Posted in: Webmaster by Scotty /
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We’ve done it through junior high, it expanded longer through high school, then on college it became chapters. No matter how many times a person have done it, writing articles has proven to be a task many has continuously avoided. Now at a time when writing articles could help your job or work, facing the job at hand can be still faced with unfriendly behavior.

While there are a great number of people who do not have the same attitude in article writing as others, there are still those who would rather walk in piping hot coals than do some article writing. What set other people apart from other towards article writing is that they are prepared and has some methods and procedures in writing articles.

One of the methods you can use to prepare yourself when tasked to write in article is creating an outline first. Creating an outline for all your articles makes you prepared. You have an idea of what to do first and make a plan for your succeeding steps. Being prepared makes the job easier and faster. Being organized will allow for disorientation to be shunned away.

An outline can act as the design or blueprint for your article. This will guide you in creating the introduction, body and conclusion of your article. Here in this point, you can write down some of the ideas and sentences that you feel will look good in your article. This could be some of the focal point that could help make your article creative, interesting and appealing to a reader.

A carefully planned and fully prepared project would guarantee and ensure a problem and worry free procedure that can virtually go without any hassles. Creating an outline for all your articles will get you ready and breeze through writing an article in no time at all. Here I will provide you with some tips and guidelines in how to create an outline for all of your articles.

Do a couple of brainstorming and jot down your brilliant ideas first. Think of some ways to attract the interest of your reader. Designate a time frame where you can write down all the ideas that you can use for your articles. By this time you should have done all your research and information searching. Review and reread your ideas and notes, gain mastery and sufficient familiarity with your topic so that writing them down later own would be easy for you.

The next step is to discover your sub topic and sub titles. As you would provide a first sentence for your article, one that would immediately grab the attention of your reader, you would need some as well for your sub topics. To be concise, you would need to get all the facts that will support and go against your point.

These are the frames or skeleton of your article, now its time to add the flesh and the meat of your article. You will need to connect all your paragraphs and sub topics. This will form the body of your Article. While the introduction will usher in the ideas of your paragraph, you will need a conclusion. The conclusion will wrap up your points and drive in what you are saying in your article.

The outline for your article would also require you to write a draft first. This may take more than one attempt but remember that it is called a draft for a reason. Your outline shall be perfected as each draft is written and this draft is meant for your eyes only so there’s no reason to feel ashamed. As you go on, you will clearly see the bigger picture and write an article that will perfectly suit what is demanded of it.

Reread and reread what you have written down. Always refer to your outline so that you wont drift away from what you had first written down. Its not hard to be caught in the moment and get lost in your writing frenzy. Your outline will help you keep in track. All those hours spent in outlining your article will not go to waste. This will serve as your guide in writing articles. Trust and rely on your outline because this will prove to be a very helpful tool in writing all of your articles.

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Shailesh enjoys providing useful information for people.Free Web Directory

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How to Create an Outline For All of Your Article

Posted in: Webmaster by Scotty /
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Now that the dust has settled a little around Google’s latest ‘farmer’ update, I thought it time to post up how article marketers can take advantage of it. Yes, there are lots of folks out there proclaiming it is the end of article marketing, but let’s be honest, people have been saying that for years. In fact, article marketing was dead when I first started but it doesn’t seem to have stopped it working for me.

First off, it’s worth noting that the whole purpose of the Farmer update was to enable searchers to find more high quality sites when searching for something. (You can read the official blog by clicking here.

Yep, Google figured its primary users (searchers, NOT webmasters) deserved a better user experience. And can you blame them? Personally, I hate searching for anything that really matters because I have so little faith in what I know is going to come up. Crappy, spammy websites designed to make money for the owner, not provide me with the information I need.

Therein lies the problem folks. People don’t want to read crap so if Google wants to stay in the game it has to quit serving it up. Can you imagine how long a restaurant would stay in business if the food it served was inedible? If folks are hitting the back button every time they click on one of Google’s results, that’s a powerful message that can’t be ignored. Would you ignore it if it was happening on your site? (hint – the answer to that question should be no)

Having said that, if your articles/sites have always provided good quality information, and if you’ve submitted that information effectively to reach as wide an audience as possible, you should now be seeing the rewards much more strongly than those who’ve tried to take the easy route with their article marketing.

My own sites have jumped up in the rankings, in some cases by several pages. So while a lot of the (so called) article marketers are proclaiming how bad for business this latest algorithm change is, I can only wonder what sort of articles they’ve been writing and what sort of marketing they’ve done with those articles.

I digress. Back to the topic at hand. According to Google, this latest change only affects 11.8% of search queries. I don’t know about you, but that suggests to me it’s more about certain topics than it is about anything else. Apparently, certain search queries are more likely to result in searchers finding rubbish content/websites than other search queries.

Hmm. I wonder what those particular search queries might be.

Now Potpie girl (don’t you just love that name) did a very in depth post, so I won’t bother repeating it here. I highly recommend you go read it however.

In summary, what she found was that the following topics were over saturated in certain websites, and those were the ones that took the biggest hit from the algorithm change.

1. – Penis Enlargement
2. – Get Your Ex Back
3. – Acai Berry
4. – Reverse Cell Phone Lookup
5. – Credit Card Debt Relief
6. – Male Enhancement Pill
7. – TV for PC

If you happen to be in any of those niches, you already know how much garbage is out there. If you’ve been adding to that garbage, you can expect (deservedly so) to be more than a little worried at this point in time.

Enough of the problems. What’s the solution?

I could advise you to go find a new niche, but that would be just a little silly. Besides, while Google is busy clearing out all the crap, that’s going to leave a huge gap in the market for quality information on those subjects. Smart folks will go out and fill that gap. Isn’t that the easiest route to making money anyway?

Define quality San.

Surprisingly enough there are lots of folks who simply don’t get what ‘quality’ is. They seem to believe it’s based on keyword density or article length. Duh! Neither of those have anything at all to do with quality content. In fact, if you’re considering either of those variables in your content, it’s pretty safe to assume you’re missing the quality benchmark by a long shot.

Quality, (much like beauty) is in the eyes of the beholder. So first and foremost, you should be preparing your content to appeal to the prospective customer. You know, the person you are hoping is going to read it and (hopefully):

– share it with their mates
– buy whatever it is you’re selling

Remember, these people are trusting you with their time and attention. The least they deserve is to actually get some benefit from doing so. And that benefit should include an answer to the question they were asking. Yes, you can add in a little benefit of your own, like a reason for them to click your link and actually purchase something from you. But if you make your content about what’s in it for you, instead of what’s in it for your reader… well, don’t come crying to me when Google just flat out ignores you.

Article Submission?

Is it worth still submitting to the article directories? Or should they be renamed ‘content farms’? After all, Google sees them as such and has reduced their ranking accordingly. EZA, the biggest player in the article directories has seen a massive hit so what’s the point in submitting your content to them if you’re not going to get the traffic and link love you’ve come to expect?

Well, as my own guide, Article Explosion has always recommended, (long since before Google went into the farming business , article directories will always have a place in your marketing methods. They just shouldn’t be your only focus. And your submitted articles will need to be of good enough quality that they stand out from the rest.

In the past this wasn’t too hard. Most of the articles submitted were just plain garbage, badly spun PLR, keyword stuffed, illegible Crap! Nope. Not hard at all to stand out from that.

Now, you might have to work a bit harder to stand out. With quality guidelines being tightened up your competition won’t be quite as easy to beat. But if you put in the effort, then you will be able to beat it. And it will be worth it!

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San Coils is a recognized expert in the field of article marketing, and is the author of Article Explosion – The Ultimate Guide to Article Marketing. You can pick up a copy from www.articlemarketingexplosion.net if you want to ramp up your own ROI from articles.

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Reaping the Rewards of Google’s Latest Algorithm Update

Posted in: Webmaster by Scotty /
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LOCAL Internet Marketing – Your Website

You should definitely have access to a website that you are able change by yourself! It’s no longer acceptible to use a hard coded website for small business reasons. Webpages which do not change at some point, contain recent material and continue being relevant quickly sink in the search engine ranks. A small business really should take into consideration its internet site application as no more challenging to work with than Microsoft Office. There are excellent content management programs available on the market. A couple of the most well-liked include DotNetNuke which is a Microsoft backed content management system and WordPress, a popular blogging system that can be extremely effective as a small business web site. Regardless of which alternative you select, you must be able to add, modify, delete webpages and be able to add things to the menu on the site without coding.

First – KEYWORD RESEARCH

Presuming you are a traditional local company that would ordinarily use the yellow pages, the yellow page categories are a good start for locating keywords relative to your company. Once you have the overall business categories which you are convinced people might be typing into the the search engines, you can go to Google’s Free keyword tool and find an immense quantity of data for the keywords you’ve got and recommendations for others you may possibly not have thought about. Your initial keyword research is just to get an idea of exactly what the most common phrases are. As an example, you could represent an HVAC business.

Keywords could possibly include “air conditioner repair”, “furnace repair”, “heating system installment”…etc. Google will give you loads of information relative to the terms you’ll want to be making use of.

Next – LOCALIZE YOUR KEYWORDS

Upon having developed a list of keywords strongly related your small business, you’ll want to localize your list. There’s no sense in showing up in a search in Chicago if your business serves the Dayton marketplace. So as an example, in the event the general keyword is “plumber,” your localized keyword is “plumber dayton” or “plumber dayton ohio.”

Manage YOUR SITE – Helping the the major search engines find your website.

Important keywords need to show up first on the home page. Making a “quick links” area on the home page can be quite useful because it links the keywords to internal webpages within your website utilizing the keywords you are attempting to promote. This is particularly crucial.

Generate or change an inner page of your site to discuss the relevant key phrase. A page in your site should be dedicated to a single keyword subject! Too many internet sites try to cram way too many keywords into a single page.

This only confuses the search engines which are trying to figure out what your web page is about. Make it easy. If you have a content management system, adding and editing a web page should be as simple as 123. Use the keywords in context on both the home page and the inner page of your site and be sure that your inner page has a hyperlink from the home page.

Market your new content

Google LOVES content…certainly good content. The moment you have finished the improvements to your site, you should then market your site content by linking to it from other web resources. These inbound links need to use the keywords you’re promoting if possible. If not, the next best thing is a direct link to the home page and the inner page.

Backlinking is often the toughest aspect of website positioning. You will discover a number of ways to build links but our favorite is to write additional articles and publish them. By doing this, you get to have additional web content material that is very relevant to your site information leading to your site.

In addition: MAPS MAPS MAPS

It’s equally essential to be certain that you have modified your local listings in the major search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and also a handful of the maps sites.

Of these, Google Maps is the most important. If you’ve executed a local search lately you’ll see the local listings predominant in the search results. Don’t ignore this. Further, these results also are used widely in mobile phone applications. Try browsing for your business using the Google iPhone app if you have an iPhone and you’ll see what I mean.

Web exposure is an constant activity. The set it and forget it concept used to work but now, your site will get buried by savvy rivals. You don’t get the luxury of an alphabetical listing either. You have to work a little harder than your competition. With a web site that you can manage on your own and perhaps a little instruction, getting your internet site to show up for specified Google searches should be part of your daily or weekly routine.

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Local Web Search Results is an Website Marketing Company located in Dayton Ohio focusing on LOCAL search engine results.. Check out their Results First program. You don’t show, you don’t pay! Local Online Web marketing Dayton Ohio.

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Regional Website Marketing And Advertising Basics- Helping Your Customers Discover Your Company On-Line

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Everything online requires content, and articles are just one form of content. Learning how to write articles and create content should be a focal point for anyone looking to start a business or even a hobby online, after all like the saying goes, content is king.

Here are some tips to help you write better articles:

1. Write with an end goal in mind. Different types of articles work for different reasons. If you are looking for syndication and publication on authority websites, you’re not going to want short, full of fluff 300 word articles. Instead, you’ll want to go with long informative 800-1000 word articles that actually deliver quality information on your topic, in a format that works well for ezine and authority publishers.

2. Do your research beforehand. The better you know the topic, the easier it will be to write for it. Simply by knowing your topic, you can drastically cut down on the time it takes to create informative articles your readers will enjoy. Attempt to comprehend your topic, before you sit down to write.

3. Just write. The more you write, the better you will get at it. And not just on your topic. Challenge yourself. Write on anything and everything, and your overall writing skills will improve, not to mention your typing speed. Both things will help you reduce writing time in the long end.

4. Write with the reader in mind. Instead of writing for your own purpose, think about it from the readers perspective. What is the reason they are reading your article? Are you addressing their needs and concerns? If you can get into the mind of your reader and what they are seeking from you and your writing, you’ll be better equipped to write an article they will appreciate.

5. If you are writing for back links, keywords matter. If you are writing for readers, forget about them. Keywords only help you get found in the search engines. If you are preparing high quality articles for syndication, you’ll get the readers from the sites you are published to. That’s not to say you want to go completely off topic, simply that keywords aren’t vital, and if you are writing on topic anyways, the search engines will figure out where you belong in their search results. As Google recommends, create your content for your reader, to improve your chances of ranking well in Google. In my articles, I have found that to be true.

6. Learn to craft captivating titles. Titles are one of the most important parts of the article marketing and writing battle. It doesn’t matter how informative or well written your article is, if the title doesn’t make readers open the article. Spend some time on your title. Actually focus on making it reader friendly and interesting. Your bottom line will thank you for this.

7. Write with passion. If you are bored to tears by your topic, chances are your writing is going to reflect your boredom, be dry and present less than glamorous prose. If you are in love with your topic, it will shine through your words and come across to the reader. This is one reason many suggest when you are just getting started to go with a passion. It is much simpler to write about something that you get emotional about, than to write about something you have no emotional investment in.

8. Don’t proof read and spell check as your write. Stopping and changing your mind frame from creation to editing can interrupt your flow of thought. Instead focus on getting the thoughts and ideas down, and then go back and do the spelling and grammar checks. You’ll find your mind thinks and writes that much quicker by using this method.

9. Focus on quality. There will forever be the debate over quality and quantity. Few take into consideration that quality will naturally breed quantity, through syndication and other methods. If you are consistently providing high quality articles, publishers will love utilizing your content and do so on a regular basis. And the more publishers that take notice of your work, the more targeted traffic you will be getting. Much more targeted traffic then that coming from article directories and other such places.

10. Turn off your word count tool. Stop checking the word count and simply write until the idea has been fully explained to the reader. If that takes 300 words so be it. If it takes 1000, then let it. Stopping the flow of ideas simply to stay in line with a word count is a sure fire way to leave your articles lacking that finished feel.

11. Read. Yes, read. The more you read and the more you expand your horizons, the better your writing will be. Simply taking in the written word, exploring and understanding other writing methods and formations will help you in your own writing. It can also help you increase your vocabulary and find styles that really reach out and grab readers by the eyeballs.

12. Check out what the competition is doing, and do it better. If your competition is providing lackluster articles, that barely wet your taste for the subject, go above and beyond, and your readers will notice. By knowing what kind of content you are trying to compete with, you can improve your own skills and marketing mindset.

13. Use the language of your target audience. If you are writing for highly educated people, your writing should reflect that. If you are writing for mass appeal, stick to relatively lower level writing, think grade 8 levels. If a grade 8 student could read and interpret what you are saying, you have succeeded. If they cannot, you may want to revise your writing style and language.

14. Understand that writing is a skill. And as such, needs to be constantly worked upon. Malcolm Gladwell stated in “Outliers” it takes 10,000 hours to master something. Master writing by continually working on it and the improvement of your skills. And by the time you reach 10,000 hours of work, you’ll have mastered the skill and no longer need others tips and technique to make your writing vibrant and a success.

Hopefully these tips will help you master article writing and marketing. In the end, all that matters is that you actually do it. No amount of tips or tricks are going to help you if you don’t just get started and get that writing underway. Begin writing and over time your skills and abilities will improve, and your writing will reflect your growing knowledge and skills. Writing starts the same way for everyone, with a blank page waiting to be filled. Get started filling yours today.

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To make your article marketing more profitable, get your copy of, “Article Marketing Secrets: Turning Words Into Dollars”: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-seo.html. If you are looking to increase your writing speed consider, “How To Write Articles Fast In 20 Minutes or Less Without Sacrificing Quality”: http://thephantomwriters.com/article-writing-guide/. For general marketing tips, subscribe to our twice-weekly: http://thephantomwriters.com/karmaonline

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14 Tips to Improve Your Article Writing and Article Marketing

Posted in: Webmaster by Scotty /
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If you operate a SaaS (Software as a Service) website that provides streaming content, or if you’re a consumer who is concerned about price levels and availability of streamed content, then you should be tuned in to the debate over net neutrality. The outcome may substantially affect your business and your pocket book.

Are you a little confused about what net neutrality is all about? Welcome to the club. Issues in the net neutrality debate are complex and somewhat obscure.

The best way to begin an understanding of the net neutrality debate is to focus on two fundamental drivers of the debate.

First, The Background

Content is king on the Web.

For example, one only has to look to the explosion of mobile device apps. Recent predictions project revenues for mobile device app sales to surpass revenues for mobile phone calls in the next two or three years. Mobile apps stream data and content.

And consider the data and content streamed by Google and YouTube to your computer.

Issues regarding access to, and delivery of, all this content and data give rise to the commercial issues in net neutrality Driver No. 1.

Driver No. 1 – The Commercial Case For Net Neutrality

Traditional phone and cable companies control access to the Web. They provide the “on-ramps” or the “pipes” for access to the Internet.

One of the key concerns of net neutrality advocates is the fear that phone and cable companies might interfere with access to websites and discriminate in pricing, resulting in a decrease in competition and higher prices for consumers. Although to date there is little evidence that this is a problem on the Web, net neutrality advocates nevertheless are concerned that the perceived problem may become real.

This concern has led to the recent adoption of net neutrality principles by the Federal Communications Commission which has the effect of ushering in government regulation of the Web for the first time.

A good example of the commercial case for net neutrality is a hypothetical situation involving Netflix. Netflix sells its movie streaming service to consumers for approximately $10 per month. Netflix’s service competes with cable companies that offer movies on demand for $5-7 each. So, there’s a clear pricing advantage in favor of Netflix (even though the nature of the services differs). Hypothetically, if the cable companies were to ever discriminate in pricing to Netflix, the pricing could be passed on to consumers resulting in on-demand cable movies being less expensive than Netflix’s streamed movies. Netflix could go out of business if this hypothetical situation were to actually occur.

The net neutrality principles would address this hypothetical situation. In addition, the net neutrality principles would prevent phone and cable companies from blocking Internet content and online services from rival companies or providing preferential treatment to paying clients.

Driver No. 2 – The Political Angle

There is a political angle with net neutrality, and this is the basis for most of the passion from both advocates and opponents of net neutrality.

To understand the political angle, it’s important to gain insight into the movement known as “media reform”. The media reform movement is essentially a liberal, progressive movement that opposes media outlets that are controlled by corporate interests which are not aligned with progressive objectives.

One of the key figures in the media reform movement is Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who, in 2002, founded the liberal lobby Free Press that was funded primarily by a network of liberal-leaning foundations. Robert McChesney has stated that his goals include getting rid of “media capitalists” in the phone and cable companies and debunking the myth of a “liberal” bias in the mainstream media.

Understandably, conservatives fear that one of the primary targets of the media reform movement is the elimination of conservative talk radio and cable TV based on a theory similar in some respects to the long-defunct “Fairness Doctrine”. Conservatives fear that government control over the Internet in the form of the net neutrality principles is merely the first step toward government control over conservative talk radio and cable TV outlets.

It’s easy to see how these political differences stir up considerable passion from advocates and opponents of net neutrality.

Conclusion

The two drivers discussed above do not include all of the relatively complex issues involved in the net neutrality debate; however, they are helpful in understanding the commercial and political factors that drive much of the debate.

It’s too early to tell where net neutrality will take us. Because the stakes are high, it’s important for SaaS websites and consumers of online content alike to stay tuned as the debate continues.

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Leading SaaS Attorney Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting Website Legal Forms. Use his online drafting service to draft your SaaS Agreement, Website SaaS-Account-Membership Agreement (Click-Wrapped), and your SaaS Reseller Agreement. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your website legal forms at http://www.digicontracts.com/saas.aspx

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What Every SaaS Website Should Know About Net Neutrality

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Mobile Web usage is growing stronger every day. The popularity of this service is one of the main reasons behind the smartphone’s dominance of the mobile communications market. On-the-go Web access is also proving to be one of the most sought-after conveniences of Web users today.

The mobile-friendly versions of popular social media sites and search engines have long enjoyed high visitor traffic. Blogs and business websites are starting to cash in on the trend, acknowledging how the population of mobile Web users can significantly change site traffic and possibly contribute to revenue. Many SEO experts recognize the quickly-rising percentage of users who access the Web through their mobile phones.

Basic Mobile SEO

There is a notion that mobile SEO is a separate branch of SEO. While there are slight differences between both concepts, the two processes have a similar goal: to help websites rank in search engine results and dominate their respective niches.

The first thing you should keep in mind when doing mobile SEO is that the process is still based on traditional SEO principles. The proper usage of keywords, tags, and anchor links is as important for mobile websites as it is for regular websites. However, you should remember that mobile search engines often consider a site’s speed and its ability to be rendered well on a particular phone.

Creating a mobile version of your site and venturing into mobile SEO can help you capitalize on the growing mobile Web user population. Businesses and companies are at risk of losing revenue when they take mobile SEO for granted. With smartphones and tablets selling like hotcakes these days, there’s no reason for you not to take advantage of the trend and enjoy success for your business.

Of course, it’s understandable if you’re a little skeptical about mobile SEO’s abilities in making your business more successful. The Web provides a lot of articles on how mobile SEO can benefit small business, especially those that cater to localized markets. You can use these articles as resources for the basics of mobile SEO. You can also contact a professional SEO provider, in case you’re interested in the method.

Mobile SEO Keywords

Web designers usually overlook keywords even if they are aware that they are designing a mobile website. If you can’t design your own mobile website, make sure to hire a designer who is knowledgeable about SEO. Your working relationship with your web designer is a critical part of your mobile SEO strategies.

If you’re thinking of optimizing your mobile website using the keywords for your regular website, think again. Smartphones and tablets are structurally different from laptops and desktop computers. Typing on a mobile phone or dealing with an onscreen keyboard is said to be a big factor for users to choose shorter keywords. These users may search for keywords that are more concise. Experts call it the “rush search.”

Before consulting your Google Mobile Keyword tool, keyword analysis must be completed. First, you have to revisit and restudy your target market and niche. You have to think from a different perspective and put yourself in a mobile Web user’s shoes. List down all the possible keywords, regardless of competition, length, and strength, then get some recommendations from your customers, friends, and colleagues.

Then, jump into AdWords and use they Mobile Keyword tool. Look for keywords Web users are actually searching for. Just like typical keyword research, you have to know the strength of every keyword you are going to use.

What’s the point of researching keywords without consulting Adwords and the Mobile Keyword tool first? This helps you re-associate yourself with your business and market. Some SEO experts forget the essence of knowing their market because of the vast availability of keyword tools. They always end up choosing high-ranking keywords without even considering major factors that may affect their business. For example, if you’re selling secondhand or used Chanel and Hermes items, you would not want to mistakenly choose the keyword ‘brand new designer bags’, just because you were distracted by the long green bar that indicates its rank.

Basically, you should have a mobile version of your website if you want to jump into the mobile SEO bandwagon. However, if you’ve already established a strong domain authority, creating a new domain may affect your site negatively. Instead, use a sub-domain to retain your current domain authority and link juice. The mobile version of your website should always be in XHTML or Basic XHTML format. This is where you can use your new mobile keywords.

Have a mobile search self-test and analysis If you’re not familiar with mobile searching, you can do a self-test of how it works. Knowing the search engine is like studying your battlefield. You have to recognize the competition, the competitors, the rankings, and the current situation. Accessing some mobile websites can give you ideas on what you can do for your own website.

Investing in Mobile SEO

Some think that mobile SEO is only for businesses that have secure markets. There are business owners who opt to do mobile SEO to show success, because the process often requires more financial resources. On the other hand, some business owners choose to venture into mobile SEO to strengthen their promotion strategies, because they know the importance of having a mobile presence today.

The Future of Mobile SEO

The future of mobile SEO greatly relies on manufacturers of mobile phones and computers. As long as these companies design and produce smartphones and tablets, mobile SEO’s future is secure. 2011 starts the decade of the mobile Web, and this fad is yet to fully boom. As long as technology and Web giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! exist, there’s no end in sight for mobile SEO.

Additional mobile SEO reminders:

• Submit your site to major mobile search engines for quicker crawling and indexing.
• Put relevant keywords in the title tag, headers, body text, and anchor text, and make sure you integrate these keywords into your website’s content.
• Promote your mobile website in social media sites.
• Check how your site looks on different smartphones and tablets, and be open to revisions and improvements for your mobile site.

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Warner is interested in everything about discovering and learning new things online. He works with the only for SEO Resellers outsource resource Endless Rise

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SEO for Mobile Websites – A SPN Exclusive Article

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What is a Backlink?

What’s all this hoopla over backlinks? Every SEO forum and blog you stop by is constantly touting the power and necessity of backlinks so they must be a pretty big deal! So what exactly is a backlink? Simply put, a backlink is a link on another website (external) that leads to a page on your website. For instance, a link on this page to a page on another website would be a backlink for THAT webpage.

How do Backlinks Help us Rank?

Think of it like this: backlinks are human citation. In a sense, we decide what pages we, as internet users, want to show up in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) by linking to the content we like. A page with more links of a higher quality than others will rank higher. The part about quality is really important. It’s not just about who has the most backlinks, it’s about where those links are from.

If you were trying to lose weight, would you be more inclined to trust the opinion of some Joe Shmo or of a professional health expert? This principle is applied to backlinks and the way they affect our rankings. Links from sites that are established as authorities (like the health expert) carry much more weight than a link from someone commenting in a fitness forum somewhere. Google weighs out these links and their value using their complex algorithm and uses this data to decide how to rank your website/webpage. Your site does not have to be a monster authority site to rank highly. Rather, you can rank highly by getting high quality backlinks from other authority sites.

Let’s pretend that the health expert from earlier told us that Joe Shmo actually made some good points and his opinions are quite valid. Wouldn’t we start to trust Joe Shmo more and see more value in his opinion? Similarly, if an authority health site linked to Joe Shmo’s small niche site, Google would realize that maybe Joe’s site is more authoritative then they realized, and they would rank it higher. The web is not controlled by computers. It is run by people, and this is reflected in the way we act and link online. Search Engines know this and respond accordingly to try to give us the results that we demand and construct ourselves.

How do we get Backlinks?

Now that we know the importance of backlinks and why they affect our rankings the way they do, we need to figure out how we can get some. A full answer to this question might take some hundreds of pages, so we’re going to take a broad view of some backlinking strategies to get a good idea of how to get quality backlinks.

Sadly, backlinking isn’t as simple or straight forward as our health expert example above. You’re not so likely to be granted a link from some powerful authority such as CNN or Apple just for creating great content. Our techniques are going to have to be a little more guerilla-esque. This isn’t to say that the quality of your content doesn’t matter, it’s quite the opposite. At the core of your promotion and backlinking strategy should be great, quality content. We’ll assume you already know how to make great content and get on with the backlinking.

There are many different ways to get backlinks and each of the methods takes time to learn and master. Rather than getting super-in-depth with any single backlinking strategy, I’m going to provide you with a list of ways to get backlinks. We are going to continue this SEO course by covering the governing principles of backlinks and how to measure their quality – knowledge you can apply to every single backlinking method successfully. Here’s a comprehensive list of ways to get backlinks:

* Free blogs (blogger, wordpress, squidoo)
* Profile backlinks
* Blog commenting
* Article Marketing
* Press releases
* Social Bookmarks
* Website directories
* Blog Carnivals
* Video marketing
* Forum Commenting
* Document Distributors
* Podcast Directories
* Software Distributors

Each of these methods can be deeply explored to achieve the best results. For this SEO Course, we are instead going to cover the factors that make a great backlink.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyper-link. For example, if you look at the links in the resource box for this article, one of them has the anchor text “SEO Course” while the other simply has my website’s URL as the anchor text.

Anchor text is very powerful and has a big impact on how effective a backlink is. Anchor text gives search engines a quick glimpse of what the page on the other side is going to be about, so you want to use your keyword and other keyword variations as often as you can. Google and other SEs look at the text closest to a link to decide what it’s about, and in essence, your anchor text is technically the closest text to the link (it IS the link!). You won’t always have the option to use anchor text, but don’t give up an opportunity when one presents itself.

Relevance

Relevance is another factor that decides how effective a backlink is. Relevance really is the name of the game when it comes to ranking in the search engines. Google says over and over again, their goal is to provide the most relevant search results. This means having relevant content and having relevant backlinks pointing to your content. A relevant backlink appears to be very relatable to your keyword. The same factors that make any page relevant to a keyword are the factors that would make a backlink relevant to your keyword. For instance, an article with a good keyword density for your keyword and your keyword in your anchor text would be pretty relevant. To increase the relevance of any backlink you can use proper anchor text, surround the link with relevant text, and use a relevant title if possible.

PageRank

The effect of PageRank on your rankings is often completely overrated. The honest truth is that PR is NOT that important in how well you rank for your keyword. It is but one of over 200 factors that affect your ranking and its value is often exaggerated. It’s always better to get backlinks from high PR pages when you can, but don’t place too much importance on it.

One really obvious misconception is that if the home page of a site has a high PR, then any page you get a link from on that domain is going to pass a lot of PageRank. For example, people who sell link packets sometimes tout how they have high PR forums you can get links from. This doesn’t make any sense at all because your link is not going to be on the home page. It is called PAGE Rank, not SiteRank – it’s right in the name! If you create a profile link on any forum, it’s going to be on your new profile page with a PR 0. Getting links from high PageRank pages (pages – not sites) is great and definitely helpful, but it’s not the holy grail to ranking.

Nofollow Vs. “Dofollow”

Another factor that affects links is whether or not they have the nofollow link element applied to them. The nofollow link attribute was created to tell Google to ignore certain links. In essence these would be links to sites that you aren’t completely comfortable linking out to. Google states that the nofollow tag should be used for links that are paid or lead to untrusted content. Also, they are a little vague about how they crawl nofollow links. They say that they generally do not, but they do sometimes :/ (I know right?) So what does this mean for our backlinking?

Google states very clearly that nofollow links do NOT pass anchor text or PR. Matt Cutts, Google’s outspoken web spam engineer, has also said plainly that there is no SEO benefit in a nofollow link. He might have said that in an effort to slow down people spamming sites/pages with nofollow links, or he might have been completely truthful. We can’t really tell, so I’ll let you be the judge.

So do we care or not if a backlink is nofollow? Here’s a logical way to decide which links will be worth your time:

When blog commenting, if you come across a blog, and all the comments are “nofollowed” ask yourself this: Will I get traffic from this link? If the answer is yes then post a comment, if not, you might want to just move on. Don’t forget – the whole point of doing SEO is to get targeted traffic, so why would you ever turn down targeted traffic just because a link is nofollow? I will still leave comments on blogs that use nofollow on comment links, but only if there are signs of decent traffic on the blog.

Indexing Our Links

The last thing you need to know about backlinks is that they need to get indexed. Search engines won’t give you credit for a link they don’t know exists. You need to get one of their spiders/bots to the page with your backlink on it so that they crawl your link and find that it leads to your site. There are two easy (and FREE) ways to go about getting your links indexed.

1) Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites get crawled constantly by the search engines. When you post a bookmark on one, your link will likely be crawled in a matter of hours. It really is that easy. Of course, you can never guarantee anything that Google or other search engines will do, but you’re link/page is more than likely to be indexed in a relatively short period of time with just a bookmark or two.

2) Pinging

The actual technical process of pinging isn’t important to us. Put simply, pinging notifies the search engines that you have new content, and in response, they crawl that new content. This is another fast and effective way to get your backlinks indexed. There are a number of good, free pinging services, but the one I use most is pingomatic.com

SEO Course Conclusion

Backlinks are essential to getting the top rankings that you desire. They give your site authority and relevance in the eyes of the search engines. Backlinking doesn’t have to be a dry, tedious process, nor does it need to be confusing and complicated.

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If you follow all of the above guidelines in this free SEO Course, you should have no problem getting the high quality backlinks from any backlinking strategy or source that will get your site to spot number 1. Ben Jackson is a Search Engine Optimization expert and founder of www.seodiscovery.org.

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SEO Course: Backlinking Your Way to the Top

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