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Username: amh Password: updates The second way to stay informed is through a searchable database of common questions received since the launch of this training in May 2002. A third and best way to stay involved is through a subscription to James Martells Affiliate Buzz.
This lively audio newsletter comes out twice a month and features candid 30-minute conversations between James and other industry experts discussing the expanding affiliate marketing business and the fantastic lifestyle that goes along with publishing revenue generating websites. The buzz is a paid subscription of $10/mo. payable month-to-month, and cancelable anytime. Feedback from listeners over the first three years of production has been extremely positive. Many have said it made the difference because it kept them on track. All book n buzz customers get a free copy of James Audio Report on How to Hire Authors, A must for any serious Internet publisher.
And you can still get it without cost if you didnt take the book n buzz combo originally. After subscribing send us an email and we will reply with download details for the Hiring Authors report. www.affiliate-buzz.com Request Hiring Authors Report here: questions@jamesmartell.com
Please dont copy this manual
James Martell invested over 6 months of his time and many thousands of dollars to organize a first class downloadable training. His company, Net Guides Publishing Inc. is the copyright holder. He would very much appreciate it if you do not make this manual available to others who have not paid for it (other than a partner or spouse). Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation. NOTE: send information about this training to friends and associates and get paid when they purchase by joining James affiliate program.
http://www.work-at-home-net-guides.com/make-money-online.html
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Table of Contents
About The Author ............................................................ 1 Acknowledgements ......................................................6 Why 2006? ...................................................................... 7 A look back ....................................................................7 So, how is 2002 working today? ........................................7 2005 Revisited ..........................................................8 2006 Refreshed THIRD EDITION................................9 Four Types Of Readers in 2006 ....................................... 11 1 - Youre A New Purchaser ............................................ 12 2 - Youre In The Early Stages Of Building Websites ........... 12 3 - Youve Been Around Awhile But Have Gotten Off Track........................................................................... 13 4 - Youre Well Into A Successful Website Publishing Career ......................................................................... 14 An Overview of Affiliate Marketing ................................ 15 Amazons not a jungle anymore ...................................... 15 Go shopping for merchants ............................................. 15 eBay and other corporate giants cash-in on pay-forperformance and you can, too! ..................................... 16 Know-how rules.......................................................... 18 How about credit card companies sending YOU a check for a change? ............................................................... 19 Times they-are-a-changing............................................. 20 Show me the money...................................................... 21 Step forward and count yourself in .................................. 21 Getting The Most From This Manual............................... 23 Theres danger in dem der hill-o-words. ........................... 23 Are you a Newbie or a Guru? .......................................... 24 Do simple things repeatedly............................................ 24
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Get a birds-eye view first ............................................... 25 Celebrate success.......................................................... 25 Set a schedule .............................................................. 26 Set realistic goals .......................................................... 27 Timelines for success ..................................................... 28 Youll be on the Internet a lot.......................................... 28 First things first ............................................................ 29 Using Acrobat features................................................... 30 Using the video tutorials................................................. 32 Using recommended resources........................................ 33 Affiliate Buzz audio newsletter......................................... 34 How the buzz was born .................................................. 34 By most accounts, the buzz has been a great success! ....... 35 Become resourceful ....................................................... 36 On your mark, get set ................................................. 39 Step #1 How to Get (and stay) Organized ..................... 40 Whoops, I forgot! .......................................................... 40 Necessity is the mother of invention ................................ 41 Baby step #1: Shop for Supplies ................................. 42 Baby step #2: Set-up the Affiliate Organizer ................. 42 Baby step #3: Set-up your Internet start page .............. 44 Baby step #4: Set-up browser folders .......................... 46 Baby step #5: Set-up folders to manage your email ....... 47 Baby step #6: Determine your business address............ 50 Baby step #7: Organize your banking .......................... 51 Baby step #8: Choose a username and passcode ........... 51 Baby step #9: Set-up a form-filling service ................... 53 Baby step #10: Upgrade your browser ......................... 54 Baby step #11: Set-up a PayPal account ...................... 54 Baby step #12: Managing your finances ....................... 55 Preparing for the ups and downs ................................ 56 Baby step #13: Develop a realistic mindset................... 57
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Baby step #14: Complete the checklist for Step #1........ 58 Step #2 Finding the Right Topic For You! ...................... 59 In the beginning was a decision .................................... 59 A publishers role is simple ............................................. 61 The 6 most important factors in choosing a topic (in order of priority) ........................................................... 63 Baby step #1 Its time for a treasure hunt .................... 66 Take a peek into your topics ........................................... 70 Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs .................. 71 Baby step #2: Grab your BIG List ................................ 71 Baby step #3: Find some advertisers ........................... 72 Baby step #4: Get familiar with the many topics............ 74 Baby step #5: Compile data on possible topics .............. 76 Baby step #6: Review and drill down ........................... 77 Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs ....... 79 Baby step #7: Grab your 12 files ................................. 80 Baby step #8: Head back to Google ............................. 81 Baby step #9: Familiarize yourself with Google Sponsored Links ..................................................... 81 Baby step #10: Evaluate the bid rates.......................... 83 Baby step #11: Find Yahoos Overture bid tool .............. 84 Baby step #12: Pick your best three ............................ 86 Baby step #13: Think boutique not shopping mall ....... 87 Baby step #14: Complete the checklist for Step #2........ 88 Step #3 Keywords Are the Building Blocks.................... 90 Know thy keywords ....................................................... 90 But, first a search engine primer................................... 91 Spiders at work............................................................. 93 Spiders with a purpose................................................... 94 Please feed the spiders .................................................. 94
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Baby step #1: Visit Wordtracker .................................. 95 Baby step #2: Read more about Wordtracker below ....... 96 Baby step #3: Take the Wordtracker Tour..................... 96 Baby step #4: Take a 1-day subscription ...................... 97 Baby step #5: Click-thru to #1. Keyword Universe ......... 99 Baby step #6: Follow their 4-step process................... 100 How many words? ....................................................... 104 Choose keywords with at least 10 searches..................... 105 Be specific.................................................................. 106 Run that by me one more time...................................... 107 Baby step #7: Check for competing web pages............ 107 You simply CANNOT get this wrong so do not worry! ........ 112 Baby step #8: Complete the checklist for step 3 .......... 112 Step #4 Ladies and Gentlemen Choose Your Template ..................................................................... 114 Mr. Web speaks the language of HTML ........................... 114 Viewing this code on any website is easy ........................ 116 Servers hold the data .................................................. 116 Publishing to the Net with online website publishing software is a cinch....................................................... 117 Templates are good for beginners (and veterans) ............ 119 Sample websites using templates .................................. 120 How easy is it? ........................................................... 121 Two things to make it easier ......................................... 121 But, first a little background....................................... 122 Its a small world ........................................................ 124 A little show-and-tell goes a long way ............................ 125 Its decision time......................................................... 125 Just dont forget ....................................................... 127 Baby step #1: Now its time to decide on a keywordbased domain name................................................. 131 Remember, be kind to spiders ................................. 132 A further illustration .................................................... 133
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Its easy to find the perfect domain name ....................... 134 The dashes vs. no dashes debate .................................. 135 So, whats it gonna be?................................................ 135 Baby step #2: Register your domain name at Domain Maniac ................................................................... 136 Just do it.................................................................... 137 Time flies ................................................................... 140 Baby step #3: Visit ez-WebBuilder.com ...................... 141 Sign-up for the 10-day free trial .................................... 142 Test the waters........................................................... 143 Baby step #4: Lets select a template......................... 144 Interchangeable header graphics are important ............... 145 Design services you may need ...................................... 145 Baby step #5: Okay, I want THAT one........................ 146 Baby step #6: Complete the checklist for Step #4 ....... 146 Step #5 Building Winning Websites ............................ 148 Where the rubber hits the road ..................................... 149 Part 1 Organize your words ...................................... 152 An overview of my approach to site navigation ................ 152 Product pages are designed to make money .................. 152 Article pages are designed to link to your product pages . 153 Article pages all point to a product page ...................... 153 Articles galore ............................................................ 154 The strategic reason for leaving merchants off article pages ........................................................................ 154 Navigation bar buttons with a difference......................... 155 Less is more ............................................................... 156 It PAYS to think like a surfer! ........................................ 156 A good example of a home page ................................... 157 Some definitions are in order ........................................ 159 Just follow my lead...................................................... 163
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First an OVERVIEW of the process of building a product page before you begin ................................................. 164 Baby step #1: Pick your merchants............................ 165 Baby step #2: Categorize your product pages ............. 166 Baby step #3: Get your Google eyes .......................... 168 Google PageRank explained .......................................... 169 Example .................................................................... 171 Backward link anomaly explained............................... 177 Baby step #4: Narrow down your keyword list............. 178 If your first list is vague ............................................. 179 A more focused way to use Wordtracker ......................... 179 Baby step #5: Choose your Primary keywords ............. 181 You can win with 20-40 Backward Links ......................... 182 Who is number one on your list? ................................... 183 Baby step #6: Choose your Tier-1 Secondary keywords ............................................................... 183 Heres an example of avoiding duplication....................... 184 Stay on purpose.......................................................... 186 Baby step #7: Choose your Tier-2 Secondary Keywords ............................................................... 186 Baby step #8: Choose your Navigation Bar Button names ................................................................... 186 Baby step #9: Select a few merchants (advertisers) for each Product Page .............................................. 187 Baby step #10: Evaluate your completed Keyword, Merchant and PageRank Chart .................................. 188 Part 2 Modify your template ..................................... 189 Baby step #11: Modify the look of your template ......... 189 Login to your ez-WebBuilder account ............................. 189 At first it bears no relation to your topic ......................... 190 Baby step #12: Rename your navigation bar buttons ... 191 Changing the buttons .................................................. 192 Baby step #13: Modify the header graphic .................. 196 Now you have a BBQ grill site ....................................... 197
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Baby step #14 Pay for YOUR new site ........................ 198 Baby step #15 Set-up your domain name settings ....... 199 Go visit your site!........................................................ 200 Baby step #16: Complete the checklist for Step #5...... 200 Step #6 Add Keyword Focused Content....................... 203 How do I write content? ............................................... 203 Content is not just text anymore ................................... 205 Magazines, newspapers, radio and television................... 207 Part 1 Content development ..................................... 209 Getting to know your visitor.......................................... 209 Keyword phrases provide clues ..................................... 211 Baby step #1: Its time to research the merchants ....... 212 I didnt know that ..................................................... 215 Baby step #2: Its time to make some observations ..... 217 Baby step #3: Whats it going to be?.......................... 218 I make a few decisions................................................. 220 Organizing the writing process ...................................... 221 Baby step #4: Use a work order to organize your thoughts ................................................................ 223 Keyword density ......................................................... 231 Elance.com solves writers block! ................................... 237 Part 2 Upload your content....................................... 239 Baby step #5: Import your content ............................ 239 Time to fully optimize .................................................. 243 Bolded keyword .......................................................... 244 Add a Friendly URL .................................................... 245 Italicized your Primary keyword .................................... 245 Optimize your headline (H1) ......................................... 246 How-to create your Title tag, Keyword and Meta Description tags .......................................................... 247
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How-to insert your Title tag, Keyword and Meta Description tags .......................................................... 248 Your Home page is ALSO Product Page ........................... 250 Article Pages explained ................................................ 251 Other supporting pages................................................ 252 Adding photos and images............................................ 257 Baby step #6 Identify the images .............................. 259 Baby step #7 Place an order for custom graphics ......... 260 Baby step #8 Upload your images.............................. 260 Baby step #9 Wrap-up your pages ............................. 261 Baby step #10: Complete the checklist for Step #6...... 261 Step #7 Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits.......... 263 Take your time and get acquainted ................................ 263 Part I Join your first affiliate program...................... 265 Baby step #1: Join the affiliate program ..................... 265 First, pre-determine your best affiliate programs ............. 267 You are halfway there .................................................. 268 Why a short list of merchants works best........................ 268 Say NO to flash banners............................................... 270 Why referrals work best ............................................... 270 Join only your best affiliate programs ............................. 272 Baby step #2: Place some links on your site................ 272 What happens if a merchant rejects me? ........................ 273 How to get links from Netshops..................................... 273 TheGrillSuperStore looks like a good bet......................... 274 Ten links to choose from .............................................. 275 Get HTML ................................................................... 276 Time to cut and paste .................................................. 277 How to modify your Font .............................................. 279 Now your advertiser has a link on your site..................... 280 How to modify your text............................................... 281 How to modify TheGrillSuperstore text ........................... 281
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Another way to add a text link ...................................... 282 Tips, tricks and techniques ........................................... 284 Dont forget your Home page ........................................ 285 Preview your site ........................................................ 285 Revenue links on article pages ...................................... 285 Revenue links on Article pages ...................................... 286 Now here is the reason these Google Ads are different from a typical merchant ad ........................................... 287 What about my merchants? .......................................... 288 Part 2 Join the Google AdSense sponsored link program ...................................................................... 289 Revenue streams off every page ................................... 289 Baby step #3 Join the Google Adsense sponsored link program................................................................. 290 Setting up tracking channels......................................... 291 Baby step #4 Set-up a few channels .......................... 292 Google Ad placement strategies .................................... 293 Ad formats ................................................................. 294 Baby step #5 Add some Google ads ........................... 295 Baby step #6: Complete the checklist for Step #7 ....... 302 Step #8 Building Traffic from Multiple Sources .......... 304 Now for the icing on the cake........................................ 304 Baby step #1: Submit your site to all the major search engines ........................................................ 305 Site submission in a nutshell......................................... 306 Yahoo is an exception .................................................. 307 Automatic submission works fine ................................... 307 SelfPromotion.com in a nutshell .................................... 308 Time to get tooter working for you .............................. 308 Baby step #2: Review Google Mastery....................... 309 Understanding link popularity........................................ 312 Lineups say a lot ......................................................... 314 Is there a lineup to your site? ....................................... 315
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A valid lineup to your site works, a phony lineup doesnt ...................................................................... 315 Play by the rules and win ............................................. 315 Baby step #3: Develop an inbound linking plan ........... 316 How many inbound links do I need?............................... 317 Anchor text management ............................................. 320 Baby step #4: Set-up some internal links ................... 322 Baby step #5: Setting up a Site Map .......................... 324 Baby step #6: Set-up an Article Map .......................... 325 Baby step #7: Set-up a Footer menu ......................... 328 A link builders mindset ................................................ 330 Quality links from many sources.................................... 331 Baby step #8: Distribute a number of professionally written articles ........................................................ 332 Baby step #9: Set up a link to us page ..................... 334 Baby step #10: Submit to a few article directories ....... 336 Baby step #11: Attract a few good link partners .......... 337 Baby step #12: Submit your site to a few paid directories .............................................................. 340 Baby step #13: Considering buying a few links ............ 340 Baby step #14: Distribute a press release................... 341 Baby step #15: Pay-per-click search engines are another option ........................................................ 347 Baby step #16: Add your counter .............................. 351 Some of what a counter does ...................................... 352 30-day free trial.......................................................... 352 Adding it to your website.............................................. 352 Baby step #17 Complete the checklist for Step #8 ....... 356 Summing It Up ............................................................ 359 Step-1 How to Get (and Stay) Organized ..................... 359 Step-2 Finding the Right Topic for You......................... 359 Step-3 Keywords are the Building Blocks ..................... 360 Step-4 Ladies and Gentlemen Choose your Template .. 360 Step-5 Building Winning Websites ............................... 360
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Step-6 Add Keyword Focused Content ......................... 360 Step-7 Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits .............. 360 Step-8 Building Traffic from Multiple Sources................ 361 Now its up to you to manage your business for growth .... 361 Recommended Resources............................................ 362 Affiliate networks: ....................................................... 362 Search engines resources:............................................ 363 Appendix of Worksheets.............................................. 364 Big List ...................................................................... 365 Home & Product Page Optimization Chart ....................... 366 Article Page Optimization Chart ..................................... 367 Keyword and Merchant Chart ........................................ 368 Article Keyword Chart .................................................. 369 Index........................................................................... 370
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of capital and human recourses needed to successfully compete with the Telcos. On the heels of dissolving these businesses, he discovered the lucrative world of affiliate marketing from an associate who was doing well offering North American consumers free ISP accounts. Eager for similar success, James built his first website with FrontPage using only the know-how his friend taught him. Soon he was getting a staggering 5000 visitors a day though natural search results at the major search engines. He was so intrigued by this innovative and interesting web-based way to make money that he studied anything and everything related to the Internet. To his surprise, he discovered that numerous other industries also offered revenue-sharing opportunities (affiliate programs) to web site owners. This prompted him to build another site. He chose satellite TV as the topic and developed a site that drove traffic to a company offering consumers a free satellite TV dish in exchange for a yearly commitment. And, as was the case with the free ISP site, the traffic he was getting at the search engines was high, so once again he started earning good money with affiliate programs. Within the first six-months, he branched out with four additional sites, providing him and his family with an excellent monthly income, similar to his former traditional business, but without any of the operational overhead he was used to. Whereas, most webmasters and some industry experts at that time tended to complicate matters, Martell was more inclined to discover the underlying structure of site design and traffic generation so that he could apply a set of basic rules and procedures to any site he built in the future with the goal being to ensure repeatable success.
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After first teaching a few of his friends the basic rules he formulated, and then witnessing their successes James and former business partner, Chuck Anderson, joined forces to launch a series of $1000-$2000 workshops in the Vancouver area to train others. These classes were eventually discontinued because they took valuable time away from his main business: publishing revenue-generating websites. But as any listener to the buzz knows, James gets a lot of personal satisfaction from seeing others succeed with his methods. So to replace his 2001-2002 classes, he released a downloadable training on May 10th, 2002, that would be a home-study version of the live classes. That downloadable training was entitled James Martells Affiliate Marketers Handbook 2002. Organizing the original handbook took him and a full-time editor 6 months to complete. In late 2004, as a service to readers, he released the 2005 revisited version, a compilation of 28 additional points, most of which were released over the first 2 years on his password protected updates page. In late 2005, after witnessing a year of ongoing changes at Google, taking-in feedback from students, and weighing the observations he made from his own business, James decided it was time to provide readers with a thoroughly refreshed handbook. This latest refreshed version took James and a part-time editor a full 3 months to complete. Highlights to this most recent version include the full integration of the original 28 points from the 2005 edition into the manual, 13 additional updates, new screenshots, a series of helpful video tutorials, and much more.
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And, this refreshed version provides students with the truly unique and valuable opportunity to watch James as he builds a website from scratch, page-by-page. Students actually watch James go through the process of finding a topic, determining the keywords to use, designing the site, building each page, writing all of the content, working with Google AdSense, and more! And added screenshots allow students to complete the process with James, hand-in-hand for the very best results online success. And speaking of success, in the years since the handbook came out, numerous people have written to say that they, too, have enjoyed much success, thanks to the training. In fact, numerous individuals got wind of James Internet success and bought the manual too with several eventually earning very comfortable incomes, on par with James excellent income. James works from his home office with his wife Arlene writing the content while he manages websites in dozens of different industries all of which generate revenue through the performance advertising model - the key concept behind affiliate programs. Some observers of his current lifestyle and publishing success on the Net might say that hes lucky and Id agree. He was at the right place, at the right time, with the right know-how. But, Id also say that his passionate desire to provide for his family is the real key to his success. And if you also have a great motivation for success in this business, Id like to encourage you to follow the model that James has laid out in this excellent training. For it not only works for him - Ive seen it work for numerous others who are following in his footsteps. The bottom line is this: You have an excellent mentor in James Martell. And you can have twice-a-month access to recorded conversations of James discussing the ups and downs of
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website publishing to ensure that you stay inspired, informed, and motivated, as you learn how to publish profitable websites of your own. Until then, I wish you all the best,
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the many students who attended my 2001 live trainings in New Westminster, BC (near Vancouver) for their enthusiasm and keen interest in Affiliate Marketing. Their questions were invaluable to me in determining what an entry-level person needs to know to successfully get started. It was their excellent feedback that provided the organizational basis for this home-study training. Thanks also to Chuck Anderson, who partnered with me in launching those classes. Im also grateful for the editorial assistance of Charles Johnston, my long time friend and business associate, who collaborated with me on this project from the very beginning. Thanks and more thanks to Michael Campbell, Phil Wiley, Allan Gardyne, Rob McLean, Ken Chidlow, Geoff Morris and the many, many thousands of readers, students and affiliates. And of course, Im so grateful to my friend Shawn Bouchard, who got me started with affiliate marketing by teaching me the essential keys to publishing high-traffic web sites. It was that original site the one offering free ISP (short for free Internet service provider) that sold me on the revenue potential of affiliate programs. And thanks to my lovely wife, Arlene. Thank-you for the support youve provided over the years, through both the good times and the bad. Through it all you never gave up on our dreams!
Why 2006?
excitement about earnings theyve achieved - whether it was that steady $30 a day or that very first check or, in many cases, how they had become totally financially free as a result of the training the one with 2002 on the cover. Although minor adjustments were needed in the first 2 years I found I could easily reach students about these things through updates page (a password protected area on work-at-home-net-guides accessible only to students). But over the years, some potential buyers and affiliates would write saying the 2002 date caused them to consider that maybe my stuff was dated. Of course, I knew otherwise.
2005 Revisited
Admittedly, however, I weighed every criticism and concern about the 2002 date and, after much thought, decided to expand on the 2002 handbook, adding 80 new pages at the very front. For, I knew that the information the tips, tools and techniques contained throughout, were still working for me (and the majority of my students), but I felt a strong need to provide additional information that would perhaps clarify much of what was written in the 2002 version. By further expanding and clarifying up-front, I felt confident I could address the needs of the handful of students who had expressed concerns. So I got right to work. And, in the end, I produced the 2005 revisited version of the handbook, which was simply the 2002 version with 80 new pages grafted onto the front. These 80 pages contained the entire password protected UPDATES area, which consisted of twenty-one revisited points, and seven additional points (28 Total). Each point was covered in two ways.
Why 2006?
1. I summarized what I said then (2002), and provided a bookmark after the text to a place in the manual where I covered it originally. 2. Directly below each short summary of what I said then I revisited what was originally said and provided arrows that linked back to the original section so students could toggle back and forth. While this seemed liked the most logical and best course of action to take, because of the way it was constructed with the what I thought then, and my revisited thoughts, it had become cumbersome for some and a few readers reported having trouble flipping back and forth. So, this got me again thinking about how to improve the organization of the handbook.
Why 2006?
from January 2005 to March 2006 have been fully integrated into a logically flowing document. I have also added video tutorials. The videos, which are sprinkled throughout the handbook, really help clarify important information, while allowing me an opportunity to demonstrate the steps.
And I build an actual website in this third edition right before readers eyes! This sample site will be password protected so only readers have access to it and can rely on it as they build their site, or perhaps as a refresher when they build their second and third sites. By having ongoing access to the sample site, students have a reference point for everything from building pages and keyword placement to writing the actual content, even placing ads.
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Why 2006?
And, I have painstakingly added an Index. What an undertaking this was! But the results are worth it, for students can now easily search the manual for anything. Additionally, they can use the Index to cross-reference, to research you name it, this Index will help you do it. Of course, as I made my way through the refreshing process, I took the opportunity to expand on a few areas, providing additional clarity where needed, or interjecting information from the insights my students provided me (since the launch of the 2002 version). Youll still need to login to the updates page periodically, in case things change during 2006 and 2007, but all the former new stuff from January 2005 to March 31, 2006 has been incorporated into this Third Edition.
Login Panel (for Updates page): www.work-at-home-net-guides.com/login-panel.html Username and password for the Updates page are listed on page 2 of this manual.
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Why 2006?
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Why 2006?
www.affiliate-buzz.com
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Why 2006?
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To the affiliates, these commission networks provide a valuable service by collecting the money from merchants and consolidating the affiliates reporting and payments. To the merchants, they solve the technical headaches, as well as eliminating the need to recruit their own associates by providing a virtual army of eager affiliates. One of these networks, Commission Junction (CJ), which is out of Santa Barbara CA, was recently purchased by ValueClick for a whopping $58 million, which just goes to show you the direction in which we are heading. (Ill give you a hint here: its looking very profitable.) Similarly, LinkShare, out of New York, another commission network, was recently purchased by Japan-based Rakuten for a mind-boggling $425 million. Need I say more? Both of these networks, and many others (ShareaSale, Netshops, Link Connector, Affiliate Fuel, ClickBank, ClixGalore, etc.) act as trusted third parties, managing the network, tracking and reporting activity in real-time, and handling monthly commission payments. When a visitor to an affiliates website clicks on one of the merchants links, a cookie is set on the visitors browser that identifies the affiliate, the merchant, and the specific link and payment rates. Upon recording the transaction, these networks handle all of the collection and processing required to ensure fair and timely commission payment for the affiliate, and all of the administrative and verification necessary to ensure qualified sales and leads for the merchant. Every week, dozens of new merchants (also known as advertisers) join because of the vast numbers of affiliated publishers in their networks.
eBay and other corporate giants cash-in on pay-for-performance and you can, too!
eBay, The World's Online Marketplace, has built a community of individuals and businesses from all over the
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world who buy and sell goods and services online. In fact, eBay is one of the most popular shopping sites on the Internet. And perhaps the single largest driving force behind eBays success is performance-based advertising, which has enabled eBay to continually generate new customers and grow its member base to unimaginable numbers. And eBay is not alone. Other corporate giants like American Express, Discovery Channel, Disney, National Geographic, Dell, Wal-Mart, Apple and Yahoo, to name a few (there are hundreds of thousands), have flocked to the Net and are tapping into pay-for-performance models to catapult their business to new heights of success. How does this affect you? These companies and countless others like them will pay you to help them sell their products and services online through your affiliate website. And this all boils down to big bucks. This is exactly what eBay did to position itself as THE online shopping and auction site. In fact, eBays success was so grand (and happened so fast) that other businesses within the Fortune 500 arena and beyond, took note and are following suite, claiming like success. So if you have any doubts about the enormity of the opportunity before you and how much your work-at-home efforts will be appreciated (and compensated) by some very large companies in well-established arenas, I urge you to think again! This is the real deal, folks!
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Know-how rules
In todays Internet age, any web entrepreneur, whether merchant or affiliate, armed with the knowledge taught in this manual, can dominate their marketplace in fairly quick fashion once they become adept with the terminology and procedures. You see, unlike traditional methods of advertising and marketing, merchandisers who embrace affiliate marketing do not have to invest a great deal of money on promotion or training a sales force - because consumers are now flocking to the Internet in droves to buy everything from office supplies to cigars to baby clothes. The trick for most advertisers or merchants is finding the traffic. And, thats where affiliated publishers come in. As a rule these publishers already have traffic. So, by placing banners or text links for relevant merchants on their sites, these publishers drive customers to merchants (also known as advertisers), who would otherwise have not reached those consumers. Or, if they did, would have had an up-front customer acquisition cost, which is usually quite high. Heres a typical merchant/affiliate scenario: Lets say a person has a web site dedicated to exotic travel. And, being successful at building a search engine friendly site, has established fairly high rankings - so that people surfing for exotic travel tend to land on this site. Do you think this Webmaster could be of service to his visitor by offering links to a few good online travel agencies that specialize in exotic destinations? I think so. And, there are many such agencies with affiliate programs.
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What about travel clothing? Or passport services? Or travel insurance? Can you see the opportunity here? As a successful publisher, you can join several relevant programs in the above category and pick and choose the merchants youd like to feature, based on how well they pay or the strength of their conversion rates. And as an entry-level person, you will learn all you need to know in this manual about how-to publish search engine friendly sites in any category you choose, regardless of whether you are new to a given industry, or not. Actually, the research part of the project is no more difficult than writing a grade nine high school paper.
How about credit card companies sending YOU a check for a change?
My best Credit Card offer pays $40US per approved application. And, my best Satellite TV offer pays $50US. As you may guess, each of these advertisers has prime positioning on their respective sites. And, its so simple to add or remove merchants. As the publisher, you are in complete control. Do not be concerned if youve never published anything in your life before. Neither had I. And, I do better than most. You see, Ive learned to keep it simple. And simple works.
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Times they-are-a-changing
If you are willing to follow my lead exactly as its laid out in this manual, then you, too, will succeed. You see, this industry is still in its infancy. So getting started on the ground floor, so to speak, could be quite rewarding if you are diligent. And, there are a number of trends pointing to many years of continued growth: 1. Companies reducing marketing costs as a way to survive in tough economic times 2. Dramatically increasing use of the Internet 3. People cocooning 4. Computer literate people seeking legitimate workat-home options 5. Start-up entrepreneurs and merchandisers seeking low-cost distribution channels 6. Growing consumer confidence in online shopping 7. Fortune 500 companies embracing Affiliate Marketing 8. Technological advances across the board 9. The desire for people to move away from congested cities 10. The use of search engines as the primary way that people find relevant websites on any imaginable subject 11. Emerging affiliate networks that act as gobetweens, making it easier to participate for both affiliates and publishers
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PS Please read, Getting The Most From This Manual first. It offers important guidelines that help ensure get the maximum benefit from this course.
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Gettiing The Most From Thiis Manuall Gett ng The Most From Th s Manua
Desired Outcome
At the completion of this course you will have your own professional looking website, ranked highly at the search engines, offering visitors valuable, well written content, -which also features a select group of merchants who will PAY you whenever one of YOUR visitors completes a transaction with THEM.
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So, I would caution you to remain FOCUSED on this manual while learning. And, complete the 8-steps sequentially, because the logic of each only makes sense AFTER the previous step is completed. If you do this, I can assure you that youll avoid the brainnumbing experiences that I had while trying to figure this thing out by simultaneously studying the works of numerous Internet experts.
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ball over THAT line and prevent THEM from doing the same. Of course, it gets more complicated than that in the NFL, just as it does in affiliate marketing. But, if we focus on learning (and re-learning) the basics, as Lombardi taught, then we increase our chances of winning in any endeavor requiring the application of knowledge. So, if I get overly simplistic (and repetitive), please remember the great Lombardi.
Celebrate success
As you peruse each module, pay special attention to the desired outcome of each section. The achievements of these important outcomes indicate whether or not you are on course. By reaching these milestones, you will not only move yourself closer to your ULTIMATE goal, but you will also build confidence and a winning attitude, which are both crucial to your success. In my live sessions, prior to getting started each week, I would ask the students to recap the previous weeks activities.
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It was always thrilling for me to witness and share in their pride of accomplishment. But more importantly, it allowed them to acknowledge their own progress in public, which fortified their belief in themselves. Even students who initially thought they were in-overtheir-heads, soon arrived at a point where you could almost see the lights go on and hear them say to themselves, YESSSS, I can DO this! So, please take the time to acknowledge yourself at each step of the way. In actual fact, you will be learning insider secrets that very few know about. So, give yourself a pat-on-the-back after the successful completion of each module. Heck, you may even want to buy yourself something special, as a reward, at every step-of-the-way! Do whatever it takes to keep yourself motivated, because there will invariably be times when the frustration level grows which is the case in learning any new skill especially when working with technology in a brand new, ever-changing industry, alone, from a manual.
Set a schedule
When training my classes in Vancouver, we used to hold the sessions over the course of three consecutive Tuesdays and provide a list of things for them to do as homework assignments. I believe that much of the success achieved by many of my Vancouver students can be attributed to the fact that they were on a schedule. You, however, are on your own.
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So I encourage you to set a pace for yourself before you begin. There is no reason why all readers should not have a fully functioning website on the Net within a month (although the income usually takes a few months longer). Decide in advance what time of the day youll get on your computer (without distractions). And also determine which days of the week are best. Then stick to it.
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Into this binder will go as much printed material from these sites as necessary to ensure that you have easy reference points when attempting to gain clarity on a puzzling procedure. As many of you probably already know, one of the Internets most frustrating aspects is the lack of uniform jargon. For instance, some refer to affiliates as publishers; others call us resellers or Webmasters. In some cases, merchants are known as advertisers, vendors, and so on. For a Newbie this can be terribly confusing. So, make it a point to linger a bit on the sites that I send you to and get familiar with their lingo, but only as it relates to the specific task you are completing. The trick is to broaden your knowledge and familiarity with specific procedures and terminology without swamping yourself with confusion. And only you can know where that balance point is.
Its imperative, while learning, that you first use ONLY the resources described in each step, because I cant be there to guide you or answer questions if you attempt to do too much, too fast. Once you have completed the 8-step process, though, you will probably amaze yourself at how proficient you have become, and how easily you will integrate new knowledge. So, once again, I recommend patience. Its incremental learning that will take you to where you want to go, not fast tracking.
2. Another great feature is the read-out-loud function. Now, of course, I cant be sure that your processor can take advantage of this and youll have to contact Adobe about this for any recommendations. But if it works its a great way to review the material with your speakers. Now there are some annoying aspects; for, instance it mispronounces many words and repeats footer or header information for every page. But I highly recommend it. Its actually hilarious to listen to. And you can change the speech properties (Edit Preferences Reading). You can quickly and easily switch from a man to a woman, alter the words-per-minute, or pitch. The screenshot that follows shows you how to find the Read Out Loud function.
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3. And if you want to review something you can easily search the entire PDF document for every instance where I used your query. (Edit Search) Or use the search button on the top taskbar if you have the later versions.
So get familiar with Adobe Reader. By using their help function or by doing Google searches with any question you may have about Adobe Reader youll learn a lot more.
Username and password for the Updates page are listed on page 2 of this manual.
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His sites routinely outrank the parent company. He had become a student of the business. And in several cases, Ive heard from those who teamedup with others splitting the writing and web management functions between them. One such team recently bought their own server rather than use my hosting recommendations. They had become a student of the business. So once you get your feet wet and are getting the revenue flowing, I encourage you to spread your wings a bit. Innovate and get good at what you do. Itll pay off BIG time!
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Since the very beginning, we often talked by phone about the many ups and downs of my business. To coin the title of a Clint Eastwood movie classic, we talked about the good, the bad and the UGLY! And we thought it would be excellent feedback and reinforcement for readers if they could listen-in on these calls because we both felt it would keep them plugged into the industry especially during the critical start up phase (when students are more at risk of giving up). Of course, we dont actually record impromptu calls. Instead on a two-week schedule we review whats been happening in my business and personal life in the prior two weeks, then break it down into three segments: 1) Inspiration, 2) Information and 3) Motivation. Then we talk for 30 minutes while a professional recording is made by a studio out of Austin, Texas. After that, our production engineer, Denis Bernicky out of Montreal, Canada, adds our intro and signoff before sending out an email announcement to subscribers.
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Remarkably, some tell us they burn them to CDs for listening in the car or play them in their iPod or MP3 player. As an incentive to get the buzz now you may request a free copy of my Hiring Authors report after subscribing, as part of my book n buzz combo offer. Buzz Subscription: $10/mo (paid monthly, cancelable anytime) www.affiliate-buzz.com Request FREE Hiring Authors report here: questions@jamesmartell.com
Become resourceful
Although my customer support people are available to handle technical issues concerning the download of this manual, or refunds, they are not qualified to answer questions about affiliate marketing. And, I dont do one-on-one training, so youll need to become resourceful whenever you get stuck. What was invaluable to me as I grew in competence, was knowing when to stop struggling with something, and just get away from the computer. I also developed a network of friends and associates who could answer simple computer, Windows, or Internetrelated questions. I encourage you to do the same. And, as many know, before preparing a downloadable training, I taught in a workshop setting.
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I learned a lot then about the importance of preparing people to succeed after the class was over. Regrettably, some in my live classes had developed an attitude of dependency, which I feared would not serve readers very well in the long run. I knew this would be especially detrimental for readers without access to personal coaching. So in this manual I continually encourage readers to use the training as a self-teaching guide and from there to build on their new found knowledge. Thankfully, most readers took to heart my admonishments to become resourceful. Over the years, very few emailed with questions that could have easily been answered with a review of the manual, a search in our support desk database, or by doing a Google search. But now Id like to encourage you to take your resourcefulness to the next level. You see, although I want you to follow the 8-steps precisely, there is also some wiggle room. My accountant likes to use the term wiggle room, which I find hilarious. And indeed, thankfully, there is plenty of wiggle room in my financial affairs these days. And yours too, I might add, if you get serious about this. Below are some examples of how to take what I teach to the next level. Examples: I show you how to do a search for potential merchants. And I actually walk you through the process of choosing a merchant and inserting their ad copy. But this is training-wheel stuff. With the knowledge of how to do this, you can now go to another commission network and get their ad copy even though they might have different protocols.
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And do a Google search if you want other options for instance youd like to see if you could get a better commission with another merchant. You see some things are not set in stone. Youve got wiggle room. Same with buying templates. As you may know, in 2002 I featured a local designer. Now I feature a server-side publishing tool. And if you are more comfortable with using FrontPage or Dreamweaver as your publishing tool go for it. Or if you prefer Macs then youll need to workaround some of my advice, which is based on my use of PCs. And if you want you could just as easily use a server-side (I.e. ez-WebBuilder, Site Build It) publishing tool if it provides enough flexibility. This is what I mean by becoming resourceful. Now everyones situation is different. Some are totally new to most things dealing with publishing websites and these people should stick closely to the plan. But for anyone who has gained some proficiency either with my training or with someone elses Id encourage you to attempt to discern when its appropriate to experiment a bit. I never intended that my readers should be clones of each other either. I cant tell you how often I see sites that are almost exact copies of my examples. In fact, Lynne Robson, the lady who sells FrontPage templates, eventually removed from her catalogue the example I used for demonstration purposes because it was being over ordered.
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Follow the plan yes but as you develop also become a student of the business. Do things in your OWN way. THAT will serve you best in the long term.
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Step #1 Step #1 How to Get (and stay) Organiized How to Get (and stay) Organ zed
Desired outcome
At the completion of THIS step Your workspace will be equipped with the physical resources needed to run your business and you will have a basic set of software tools and procedures to assist you in better managing important details.
Whoops, I forgot!
In the winter of 2000-2001, after I began a serious effort to make online publishing a success, I quickly learned that if I didnt organize myself I could easily become sidetracked. An important turning point occurred one rainy afternoon in February of that year. I went to the login area of one of my merchant/advertising accounts, which is a password protected area accessible to affiliates only, to obtain some status reports, but could not remember my username and password. I notified them and they replied with the correct info. But the delay was both frustrating and unnecessary. Later that month, I wanted to move my existing domain name from my current website hosting company to
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another, when I again realized I couldnt remember my passcodes. But, this new situation wasnt as easily resolved. Thats because in the month prior, I had changed my email address. And, they would only send new codes to the email address I had on file. So, I had to prove that I owned my domain name by having my birth certificate and photo I.D. notarized and sent by courier to California. What a hassle that was.
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In short, its a one-stop source for any online publisher, keeping all the information needed to run a successful publishing business in one place and available with just the click of a mouse. And, if youve ever lost data before, you know what a lifesaver this can be. Affiliate Organizer gives you the flexibility to create your own folders and sub-folders so you can organize the program in a way that works best for you. Each folder contains input fields appropriate to that topic, with a Notes field as well to record any additional information you may want to keep. All you do is input the information and save it simple as that! Affiliate Organizer also includes a Task/Alerts feature to remind you of important jobs to be done or appointments to be kept, either by email, sound, or both. And the best part about Affiliate Organizer is that it's all at your fingertips no more searching through spreadsheets, documents or text files, or in my case, spiral bound note books, for that password or code it's right there on your desktop. Not only do I recommend this piece of software, I would say that it will help you dramatically in your efforts to win in this exciting and emerging industry. This software is just that good. www.affiliateorganizer.net
*Video tutorials for the Affiliate Organizer are available on the Updates page. (see page 2)
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dream of mine. Today, the cobra is no longer on my start page its parked in my garage! The point is this: customizing your start page is a simple process one that can yield huge results. In fact, when Arlene and I attended the recent Affiliate Summit, we ran into countless students who told us the start page really helped them achieve their dreams. And, I cant say enough about the time and effort it saves you everything you need, links to the sites you frequent and your goals right in front of you every time you open a new browser. Lets take a few minutes now to create a special start page that allows you to have links to all of the sites you visit regularly and allows you to be reminded of your goals (and your achievements) every day! What you see below is my start page.
Notice that I not only have the links that I need, but my goals listed in plain site, as well.
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Sure, we all hear about how having our goals written out and in front of us and how this will help us achieve them; trust me here, its true. Whats more, I am living proof of this! This single tool has helped me attain success at levels I only previously dreamed about, and continues to propel me to even higher levels of success as I work to further grow my online publishing business. So, take a few minutes right now to put your most visited links and your goals on your own Internet start page. NOTE: This service is set for launch May 15th. If you would like to receive notification by email, please visit the site. www.my-start-page.net
Eventually you will add many folders and rename them as you gain clarity. But start with the process described below to gain familiarity and establish a good habit. This is browser tips 101. Affiliate Marketing o Merchants o Sites of Interest o Suppliers
If you have never given much thought to organizing your bookmarks, then this new procedure will definitely make your life easier as your business grows.
Whats more, you never delete emails (no matter when they were sent or received). Instead, emails are neatly arranged and archived in nifty electronic file folders. All emails are accessible by using a Google keyword search and each is grouped with all of its replies and displayed as a conversation. And, there are no pop-ups or untargeted banners. Signing up for Gmail account is a little tricky. The only way you can get one is to be invited by someone who already has one. So, if you kow someone who can refer you, you may want to ask for an invite. Of course, if you want to use your existing email server, thats just fine. Why dont we take a quick tour of Gmail just so you understand more about web-based email? Begin now, by logging onto Gmail and setting up your account. You can also apply the following steps to your existing email account. gmail.google.com Then, you can create three sub-folders as outlined below. Gmail calls them labels. Call one Passcodes and the other two Receipts Not Yet Printed and Receipts Printed & Filed.
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As you begin to sign-up for services that help you to run your business, you will need to have a place to efficiently sort and store the important usernames and passcodes, which you will receive by email. Having a place for receipts is also important. There have been many times that Ive had to show proof of purchase when troubleshooting a problem. As your business grows, and you take on advertisers, please get into the habit of creating a separate folder for each advertiser within your main folder. Then, as you receive email announcements from them, you can use the label and archive them into the appropriate folder. This will quickly allow you to move the message out of your Inbox into the designated folder. By doing this, you will help to avoid clutter in your Inbox, which, if left unchecked, can easily lead to overwhelm. But, please be creative when designing folders to handle the many routine emails you will receive. It is also important to file the login information your advertisers send you so that you have quick access to commission reports, advertising creative, etc. You will also want to bookmark these long URLs for convenience, as you will see outlined below. Once approved as an affiliate, the merchant/advertiser will send you a welcome letter with a link to their login area. By not filing them right away, you are probably setting yourself up for problems. I am in the habit of stopping whatever Im doing whenever receiving this info and filing it appropriately. Here are my simple rules for staying on top of this:
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1. Stop what you are doing when a merchant welcome letter arrives. (Its tempting to say, Ill get to it later.) 2. Open the email message, and apply the Gmail label and move it out of your Inbox to an appropriate folder. (As you learned how-to do above) 3. Open the email and print it. 4. Then, stick it into a file folder labeled with the name of the merchant. Then file it according to whatever system you use for your paper records. 5. Go to their login area by clicking on the link provided in the text of the email, then immediately bookmark the login address which are often very long, for easy access later. 6. If the merchant has automatically assigned you a username and/or passcode, then you will need to change it right away to the one that youve chosen. The importance of this is covered below, in Baby Step #8.
www.mbe.com
So think of an 8-digit username with both letters and numbers. By doing this, you will have the best chance at using the same username and passcodes for all applications. The goal here is to have a SINGLE username that can be used for EVERYTHING from this point forward. Do the same for the passcode. I suggest you use 4 letters and 4 numbers in each. To make it easy to remember, reverse the order when going from username to passcode. But, be careful of using one that others may have. For example, MARK1237 runs the risk of being taken. So, dont choose a name like this. But, by using the SAME numbers and letters, you could use 12MARK37. Then, reverse the letters for your passcode. I.e.: 37MARK12. In many cases a username is not necessary, just a passcode. But, often both ARE needed. So, you need to be prepared. In my mind, I always think of the username FIRST, as in, username and passcodes. This makes it easy to remember which is which. Trust me on this. It WILL make your life easier on the Net, especially, since you are now using it as a business. So, take the time to do this. When decided, place them in your three-ring binder. Important: When assigned a password by someone else, login and change it to your preferred passcodes right away.
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To get you started, once youve chosen your permanent username and passcode, you may want to change as many of your current codes as possible.
Now, before proceeding to the next step, I encourage you set-up the RoboForm software on your computer by simply walking through the download process. This is important and you do not want to continue moving forward without a good understanding of RoboForm and how it can save you immeasurable amounts of time and effort! www.roboform.com
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Not only will it come in handy for possibly receiving money as you pursue your online career, but you will be needing it to purchase your template in Step #4, Ladies and Gentlemen Set-up Your Site. Please take a few minutes to set up your own PayPal account now.
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www.paypal.com
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This business is like all others. Be prepared for the down times by saving during the up times. Ive had these myself and have had to rely on my savings during the slower times. You dont want to do this, so dont go into this business expecting the growth curve to go straight up.
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Once you have Your workspace equipped with the physical resources needed to run your business and you have a basic set of software tools and procedures in place to assist you in better managing important details, then You are ready for the NEXT step.
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Step #2 Step #2 Fiindiing the Riight Topiic For You! F nd ng the R ght Top c For You!
Desired outcome
At the completion of THIS step You will have chosen at least three topics that interest you and offer from 3-6 good affiliate programs.
You will need to follow my steps and complete the short exercises, watch the short video tutorial clips, and, of course, keep an open mind. But, the end result will be worth it so just stick with me here. Now, just let me add this: I think some of this frustration about finding the right industry came from those who saw me succeeding in the Satellite TV, Cell Phone and Credit Card industries. They saw my success in these topics and joined me headfirst in the affiliate pool. This is fine, but since that time, the pool has gotten larger and deeper and has filled with swimmers (some sinking, simply treading water, and some happily floating on top) leaving little or NO ROOM for anyone else. And, if its not going to be lucrative, why jump in? The truth is that these areas are now over saturated. So, the key to your success, and to mine, lies in our ability to uncover profitable topics that havent yet been exploited. And the good news is there is nearly an unlimited supply of them, if you are prepared to do a little research, use a little common sense, and follow my lead. In short, get ready to broaden your horizons, for I am convinced this is key to your success. And, I want to make sure you do this before progressing to Step #4, Ladies and Gentlemen Choose Your Template. I share this next story with you so you will better understand my train of thought here: Arlene and the kids and I used to live near a bunch of chicken farms. I remember Arlene taking her Brownies and Girl Guides to go visit these farms. When they opened the barn doors, it was a sea of little yellow baby chicks. Thousands of them! One day the local newspaper printed a disturbing story about one of the chicken farms. It seems someone on a motorbike got too close to a barn full of baby chicks and,
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scared for their lives, they all scrambled to the corner, piling up on top of each other. Hundreds, thousands maybe, died. Just like that. The little guys on the bottom didnt make it. This is a good analogy of what has happened within many of the larger industries. Affiliates have piled into the same corner and, unfortunately, the ones on the bottom have no chance of survival. Learning about the many options available before beginning will also prepare you to get the most from the next step, Keywords Are The Building Blocks. So please take the time to go through each of the recommended baby steps that follow, even if you are already familiar with affiliate programs and Google AdSense (which we get into more later). The brainstorming you will do could lead you down a whole new path one that is exciting, fulfilling and financially rewarding.
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The truth is that the longer a visitor stays on the site, the more ads they will be exposed to. This increases your revenue-generating opportunities. Need I say more? Its much like the print magazine business. If you open a magazine and read a single story, you are likely to just see one, maybe two, ads. But, if you flip through the entire publication, you will see an array of ads. And, of these, a handful or more will likely pique your interest. And, a few will prompt sales. The same holds true for your website. By providing valuable information, you increase the value of your site and your chances of making money. Of course, we dont sell advertising in the same way print publications do. But, we can select advertisers that are relevant to the valuable information we provide! Really, I cannot stress this enough. Good, informationpacked copy that is supported by like advertisers is what it takes to be an online publishing success. So, write your website copy with your target audience in mind and select your advertisers the same way. Have no fear! If you are not comfortable crafting your own website copy, you can rely on professional freelance copywriters that are accessible online and available for nominal fees. (Ill show you where to go, how to screen affordable copywriters, and even how to work with them successfully a bit later.) All of this goes back to choosing a topic you already know about at least feel comfortable with. You should be excited about learning more about it you will spend a fair amount of time on this subject, so look for one that sparks your curiosity. And, once again, fear not!
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I am going to actually walk you through the process of choosing topics shortly. But, before we do that, I want to provide you with a little more know-how and a heads-up on whats around the turnpike for us all. As we progress and work on choosing a topic for you, I urge you to think unique. Think of the uncommon that is still common enough to draw attention and solicit strong sales. Now, thats the name of the game! So, dont be intimidated if you feel that you couldnt possibly know enough about your chosen topic. I mean, how long will your site be on the net one year, two years, five years, maybe 20 years? The point is that you should take your time when choosing your topic. You will work on it for a long time and it needs to interest you or it wont interest others. In truth, you should plan to become an expert (or hire one which I show you how to do shortly) for the topic you choose so choose well! The good news here is that with a little time and research, you can easily find topics that interest you and others (which translates into revenue, right?). So, if youre already an expert in a certain field or perhaps an avid hobbyist in one area or another, or maybe a sports enthusiast you may want to start here! Fear not! I will show you how to broaden your knowledge on any topic you could think of in Step-5, Add KeywordFocused Content.
Even if you outsource much of the writing, you will need to keep abreast of everything related to your topic. Being interested in it just makes sense dollars and cents, really! 2. Are there any advertisers in the topic Im considering? This should be self-evident. There is no point in having a beautiful site on the topic of Eskimo Art, lets say, if there are no advertisers to help you make it profitable. You will need at least a few different products or services in order to offer your visitor some comparative choices. Soon I will show you where to find thousands of advertisers to choose from. 3. Can I build a decent keyword list about this topic? In the next training module, Step-3, you will learn about the strategic importance of keywords. Keywords are the exact phrases that people type into search engines. Amazingly, you will be able to get an exact count of EVERY SINGLE KEYWORD PHRASE entered into the major search engines for the previous 60 days. You should consider the DEMAND for these keywords (your potential topics) and keywords that may be related to your potential topics before making any decisions. After all, theres no sense in having a great site on mens bow ties, even if there ARE several good affiliate programs available, if only 6 people searched that subject in the previous month. Remember what I stressed earlier: A little time and research will go a long way here and will save you both time and money in the long run. 4. How good is their creative? The word creative is an advertising industry term that refers to a websites ability to properly communicate to, or persuade, its target audience. As a visitor to the merchants site are you impressed? Would YOU buy anything yourself? If not, why not? The thing to remember is: conversion rate, which is simply the percentage of total visitors converted into paying customers. As you may suspect, it makes no sense to feature an advertiser whose site is so confusing
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that people dont buy. As you gain experience at this youll develop a feel for which advertisers will convert well. In other words, which advertisers have good creative? 5. How generous is their program? Depending on the topic, there will be a wide variety of commission options. Some advertisers pay a percentage of the sale and some a flat fee, while other advertisers pay a generous fee for each visitor. Some have a commission for inquiries or registrations, while others cut you a check for only approved transactions. Obviously, you will need to consider this when determining your topic. For now, no worries! Ill offer some guidelines for all of this in Step-7. 6. Is it a subject Im familiar with? Of course, it would be nice to write about topics youre familiar with, as I stressed in Step-1. However, I realize this may not be possible, although it is my first choice. No, its not ABSOLUTELY necessary because your focus will be on researching the Net for information related to your industry and distilling the vast amounts of knowledge found there into well-written words for each page of your site. I like to think of it as gobbling up information, digesting it and regurgitating it for the general public. Anyway, the point is that you can become an expert on a topic if you are not one now. In fact, in Step-5, you will be taught exactly how to research and write your content using the Internet. I will also show you how to use eLance, a freelance website that boasts talented writers that will work for nominal fees, many with experience in this specific area. Well go into more about eLance later. For now, if you do decide to craft your own copy, you will quickly find that it is no more difficult than a grade 9 high school composition assignment. So, forget about your fear of NOT being a writer. I taught dozens of people this process. Like you, they may have initially been absolutely petrified at the thought of publishing an article on the Net. The good news: they all delight in
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writing and publishing their own articles now and you can too. So, relax. You CAN do it.
Now, you do the same and make notes on everything you see. What you are doing here is making a list of potential topics for your websites any one of these could potentially be a topic for your site, as youll see when you explore Step-5. Within your list of topics, you are going to find your ideas for your very own online specialty boutique. No more shopping mall mentality. Were going high-end here a truly unique site that appeals to you and your visitors and will generate revenue. Now, make sure you follow-through right now with this important step. Do not skip ahead without walking through your home, looking in your yard, even your garden shed. After all, if you have spent money on it, others will, too. As you wrap-up in the kitchen, lets take a peek in your family room. In my family room, I see lamps, an entertainment center, a chesterfield, leather arm chairs, silk plants, a throw rug, coffee table, ottoman, television, DVD player, gas fireplace, a silk flower arrangement, candles, window coverings, TV trays and so on. Admittedly, Arlene just performed a real Debbie Travis makeover on our home. It looks great and has given me lots of new ideas for topics. And, when she added the new paint giving everything a fresh new look it occurred to me that this in itself is a trend and one that could easily be tapped into. Do you see where I am going with this? Now, take your hunt into your bedrooms and bathrooms. Keep in mind what made you purchase certain items, and consider each items (aka potential topic) popularity (aka earning potential). This may very well be your target audience!
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Back to our lists In our family game room, I quickly spot our pool table and related items, a dartboard, card table and stereo. In our bedrooms, I see bed frames, mattresses, nightstands, lamps, feather pillows, linens, etc. In the bathrooms, I find shower curtains, bathmats, shower organizers, the usual toiletries, a trashcan and bathroom fixtures toilet tissue holder, towel rack, etc. Now, lets take our treasure hunt outdoors. Once outside in my yard, I see a birdbath, wooden bench, garden shed, patio furniture (table, chairs and umbrella), little garden gnomes, a BBQ, plants, trees and shrubs, concrete driveway, cedar deck and a 6 privacy fence. Include outdoor items on your list now, too. Next, lets head back inside and take a look around your closet(s). In mine, I find a vacuum cleaner, luggage, closet organizers, clothing, shoes, accessories such as ties and belts, etc. Dont forget your garage. In mine, I see jack stands, a hydraulic jack, and a lawn mower, weed eater, rakes and shovel, and of course, my Shelby Cobra! When I look at the outside of the house itself I see doors and windows, cedar shakes, stucco, gutters, and so on. The idea here: become very, very product focused! And stay there. Now, once back in your office or place of work, do the same thing. Look at everything with an eagles eye. For instance, youre sure to find a photocopier, fax machine, desks and chairs. What else do you see? Add these to your BIG List. And, if you work in a particular industry, focus some efforts on this. If you are a carpenter (as I am by trade), your office equipment undoubtedly includes a table saw, a circular saw, drill, hammers and the like. Dont forget to add these to your BIG List.
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Admittedly, I am not a mall-goer. My wife, Arlene, on the other hand, loves to shop. If you can relate to this, head to the mall. Look around for topic ideas and make sure to have your BIG List tucked under your arm or in your pocket because you are going to be adding lots of ideas on this trip. Take notes on what exactly piques your interest and the interest of others shopping in the mall. Another great area to explore when topic treasure hunting is hobbies. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? What do members of your family do and how about your friends? How do they spend their leisure time? Along this line of thought, my son Justin plays the saxophone (or used to) and my daughter Shelby plays the guitar. Why not a site around either one of those topics? Maybe a good topic to explore on your site is drums or even another musical instrument. The truth is that you are only as limited as your imagination. Thinking further about my children, Adam, my oldest son, loves model trains and sailing ships. Now, theres another topic idea. And, I love muscle cars. You see, there are lots and lots of topics that will be just right for you and a defined target audience all it takes is a little treasure hunting! And, to gather all the nuggets you need for financial success, you need a BIG List of possible topics.
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Do NOT move forward until you have completed your BIG List. This is crucial and the information in your BIG List will allow you to progress! So, if you have not completed your BIG List, do so NOW!
CAUTION:
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs
First and foremost, congratulations for putting together your BIG List! Now, looking at your BIG list, youre sure to see a dozen or so topic ideas that seem more intriguing than the rest. Lets highlight these by underlining them now. Next, look at the BIG list once again and find 10-15 more topic ideas that you think are almost as intriguing as those you just underlined. You should now have about 25 topic ideas to work with. Keep your BIG list (with some topics underlined) in hand and lets keep moving forward.
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs
What you see next is a list of sites that sell coffee makers and that have an affiliate program.
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs
Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of this process.
Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs
commission for each sale. On the other hand, if the average sale were $250, that same 10% commission would pay you $25 for each sale referred. Big difference, right? 3. Cookie Duration Each time you send a visitor to your merchant, a cookie is set to track the transaction. This allows you to get credit for the sale providing it is made within a set time frame. The duration of the cookie (also know as Return Days) is set by the merchant (advertiser) and typically varies from zero to ninety days. The longer the duration of the cookie or the Return Days, the better for you, for the commission you receive for referrals applies to this number of days. So, if a referral from you does not make an initial purchase, but revisits the advertisers site in 30 Return Days, you receive commission if the Cookie Duration is 30 days or longer. You can expect Cookie Duration to be 30, 60 or 90 days, with some even stretching further. 4. Creative The word creative is an advertising industry term that refers to a websites ability to properly communicate to or persuade its target audience. As a visitor to the merchants site are you impressed? Would YOU buy anything yourself? If not, why not? Remember: The goal here is to convert visitors into paying customers. The rate at which you do this is called the conversion rate. Which means (the percentage of total visitors converted into customers). So, with this as your goal, it makes no sense to feature an advertiser whose site is so confusing that people dont buy. As you gain experience at this youll develop a feel for which advertisers will convert well or, in other words, which advertisers have good creative. 5. Join Page Is the advertisers affiliate join page user friendly? Or, does it employ a lot of lawyer jargon and demonstrate an attitude of restriction in their policy requirements? Is it well constructed or does it look like it is haphazardly thrown together? Is the contact information for the affiliate manager readily available? Do they seem to appreciate their
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs
affiliates? These are all areas to consider when looking to add an advertiser to your website. What is conveyed on this page of an advertisers site is somewhat indicative of what to expect from them in a working relationship. Now, considering the points above, search as many topics as you can, in order to get familiar with the staggering amount of companies offering affiliate revenue to budding Internet publishers like yourself. Just browse. Get ideas. See whats possible.
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs
3. Scroll down the list. Make a mental note of the total numbers of potential sites offering affiliate programs. 4. Click on each site listed in the search results. 5. Evaluate each site. Is it easy for customers to buy? How about a money back guarantee? Are they a member of the Better Business Bureau? 6. Next, find the sites affiliate program page. Evaluate their program. Notice the commissions. At first glance do they seem lucrative? How many return days do they offer? 7. Print a few pages from the site (I.e. home page, affiliate program page, etc.) if you feel they could have potential as an advertiser for you. (either now, or in the future) 8. Place these pages into a file folder. Label it according to topic, such as desk lamps. 9. Find at least 3-5 potential merchants for each topic. 10. Keep repeating this process until you have opened up file folders for at least a dozen different topics (I.e. bread makers, coffee tables, rocking chairs, gas BBQs, water coolers, ice hockey skates, dog beds, garden sheds, hot tubs, garage doors, bakers racks, paper shredders, baseball gloves, etc.)
Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 1 An overview of affiliate programs
Remember, the goal of THIS training module, Step-2, is to find your three best bets. Heres how to determine your best three: 1. Prioritize your stack of 12 files. You will be doing research on 3-5 advertisers for each topic. So, in case it gets tedious before you cover all 12, you will want to start with the topics that, at first glance, look most promising to you, for whatever reason. Maybe its an industry you work in. Or, it has regional implications. Or, the commissions look great. Or, you read an article that projected tremendous growth for online sales in THAT particular industry. We are essentially brainstorming here. So, just go with your instincts. 2. Open your first file folder and study each of the 3-5 advertisers. Highlight the commission rate and number of return dates offered. 3. Repeat the process for as many of your 12 potential topics as seems necessary. What you will end up with now are 3-5 potential merchants (advertisers) in each of your 12 topic files prioritized so that you can better determine your best three topics!
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
Keep in mind as you look around Google AdSense that you cant join the AdSense program until your site is live. And, Ill walk you through this process in great detail in Step #7 Join Some Good Affiliate Programs. For now, use the quick and easy tour to familiarize yourself with Googles terminology such as auction, bid for placement, etc. Sure, this sound like mumbo-jumbo right now, but Google is setting the pace on the Net right now and it is important that you get comfortable with Google, its programs, terminology, etc. For instance, you are about to learn that advertisers actually bid for placement or for positions here. You are also about to learn how this earns you money! Thats right: You earn a percentage of the advertisers bid price. Nobody knows the exact percentage, other than Google of course, but we do know that it fluctuates based on some criteria set by Google; however many feel the rate is around 20%. So if the bid rate for the link that it clicked on is $1, and we earn approximately 20%, then we would earn $0.20 for each visitor sent. You really need to understand the basics of how this program works before you move on, so STOP where you are now and click (or visit) the link below. Youll be pleasantly surprised at how much clearer this makes this entire process for you! http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
types of sponsored link advertisers are available to you on each of your 12 potential topics. This is the exciting part and youre almost there. Youre about to narrow down your choices and start on the exciting path of publishing. For this, another congratulations is certainly in order!
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
Sponsored Links are listed down the right-hand column (see screen shot below). In some cases, they are also displayed across the top of the search results, as well.
The object of this exercise is to determine how many advertisers are bidding for your potential topic. The more advertisers bidding, the higher the bid rate; which we earn a percentage of. All of this translates into more revenue for you! As you look around here, keep in mind that these are the very same ads that you can place on your sites, and that they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Take a minute or two to study this page. I recommend that you print it out. (Note: Dont click on the ads, because it will unnecessarily cost the advertisers money.) What you see here is natural search results to the left; paid results to the right.
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of this process.
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
However, before we do that, lets expand on the Yahoo! Overture bid tool a bit more. This tool has been around for many years and has been offered by Overture, which was recently purchased by Yahoo! The tool is easy to use and can provide you with real eyeopening information about your chosen topics.
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
As you see in the screen shot below, you are now looking at each of the advertisers for the topic you entered. Pretty cool, huh?
Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
As a general rule, I like to see a minimum bid of at least $0.50. (I.e. Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.50) Take a minute to print this page and put it in the appropriate file. Repeat this for the remaining 11 potential topics.
Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of this process.
Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
Is their affiliate join page user friendly? Or, does it employ a lot of lawyer jargon and demonstrate an attitude of restriction in their policy requirements? Do they seem to appreciate their affiliates?
THATS the key as far as Im concerned. Use your intuition and simply circle the interesting ones. Although you wont need to decide on your single best topic until Step-4, Ladies and Gentlemen Choose Your Template, you will want to have chosen at least three primary topics to make your choice from at that point.
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Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
And YOU can set up a simple storefront in this mall and sell the specific products that are wanted. If you want to sell a wider selection of products, then by all means, do so. But, instead of cluttering a single website with many products, build several with a few. This online boutique concept serves the consumer very well, because remember, you will be building your sites around topics with a proven interest, based on your keyword research, which I show you how to do in Step-3, Keywords Are The Building Blocks. In reflecting on your OWN surfing experiences, dont you derive greater satisfaction when landing on a site that nails it as far as your search was concerned? And, conversely, isnt it a pain to open a site that is completely off-topic or confusing? In the next step, you will learn about the amazing role of keywords and how they spell out for you EXACTLY what consumers want, so that you, the clever Internet marketer that you are, can build a site around their interest and find advertisers who will deliver relevant products and services TO them.
Step #2 - Finding the Right Topic For You! - Part 2 An overview of sponsored link programs
Baby step #6 Review and drill down Baby step #7 Grab your 12 files Baby step #8 Head back to Google Baby step #9 Familiarize yourself with Google Sponsored Links Baby step #10 Evaluate the bid rates Baby step #11 Find Yahoos Overture bid tool Baby step #12 Pick your best three Baby step #13 Think boutique not shopping mall Baby step #14 Complete this checklist
Once you have chosen at least three possible topics that offer from 3-5 advertisers that have good affiliate programs You are ready for the NEXT step.
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Step #3 Step #3 Keywords Are the Buiilldiing Bllocks Keywords Are the Bu d ng B ocks
Desired outcome
At the completion of THIS step you will have a keyword list of approximately 50300 words (or more) for each of the three topics you have selected in the previous step.
ranking technique. (We cover link popularity in Step-8, How To Boost Your Rankings With Link Popularity) It wasnt by accident that my domain name for my initial satellite TV site included the keyword: free-satellite-TV. By using a low-cost service on the Internet, called Wordtracker, I had determined in advance that free satellite TV was a very popular keyword. Well be doing some things with Wordtracker in just a few minutes.
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search of its own database occurs, yielding a top-10 page that surfers view first. Along the top will be the total number of web pages (not websites) that contained the phrase free satellite TV somewhere within it, in the title, description or text. The goal of the search engine is to provide the visitor with a compilation of sites bearing some relevancy to the keyword or phrase typed in by the surfer. The first page (top 10 listings) offers the most popular sites, ranked in order of relevancy and popularity from top to bottom.
All other pages will also contain lists of 10 sites, each with decreasing relevancy according to that particular search engines criteria. And you dont want to be buried on page 20 if getting traffic is important to you. Im sure its obvious to you that youll get more traffic if you get ranked in the top one or two pages. You want your site ranked as highly as possible for the most appropriate keywords in your industry.
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Thankfully, much of your competition will fail to get noticed at the search engines because no prior thought went into determining which phrases were important as far as search engine rankings were concerned. And because of this oversight, their pages get indexed poorly. You, however, wont make that costly mistake.
Spiders at work
When I first started surfing the Net I was perplexed by how these search engines could scan the entire Internet and locate so many sites in seconds. My confusion was cleared up when I learned about the role of spiders. Spiders are software programs that scurry across the World Wide Web of interconnected computers hence the name spiders at regular intervals looking for page addresses to retrieve, index and store in their databases. They feed on this data, which is why we call keywords spider food. Of course, as a Webmaster, you will first need to submit your site address, URL, which we cover in Step-7, Affiliate programs + AdSense = Profits. Once submitted, the spiders will index your site and rank it for relevancy so that the search engines visitors get the best possible selection. And, the spiders return at regular intervals. So, any changes youve made between visits, such as adding more pages or rewriting content, can affect your rankings, either positively or negatively. For this reason alone, I rarely touch a page that has scored highly.
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Use not enough and youre ALSO penalized. Have too many DIFFERENT words and the spider gets confused and thats a BAD thing, too. In Step-5, Add Keyword-Focused Content, Ill offer some delightful recipes for spider food that are guaranteed to please the palate of even the most discriminating spider! Are you ready for some baby steps?
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We compile a database of terms that people search for. You enter some keywords, and we tell you how often people search for them, and also tell you how many competing sites use those keywords.
Wordtracker helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service - many of which you might never have considered. You'll find out how popular these keywords really are. Then for each major search engine, we'll show you the chances of making the top 10.
At this point you can disregard Wordtrackers other services. Your MAIN focus is the keyword phrases related to the three industries youve chosen.
The Wordtracker Tour steps include: Step 1 - What can Wordtracker do for my website? Step 2 - Use Wordtracker to brainstorm Step 3 - Discover what people are actually searching for Step 4 - Cherry pick keywords Step 5 - Manage your keywords Step 6 - Take the free trial http://www.wordtracker.com/tour.html
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The best six bucks youll ever spend. In order to complete your keyword lists you will need a 1day subscription for only $6.12 US (this is a U.K. company converting pounds into dollars, hence the unusual price) Simply choose the 1-Day option as shown below.
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http://www.wordtracker.com/order.html
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This will provide hundreds of possible phrases although many of them will have no bearing on your industry. Not to worry, though. From this long list in the LEFT window you will select the words and phrases that DO make sense, by clicking on the chosen word or phrase. This action will automatically generate ANOTHER list in the RIGHT window (as shown in the screenshot that follows). Those words that appear in the RIGHT window are more specific and become the basis of your eventual keyword list. Now, lets take a step back for just a minute. Before proceeding further with your search, go ahead and select Compressed database that is shown in the bottom left hand column of the image above. In the wine racks example that follows, you will see the process more clearly.
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Heres the procedure: 1. In the left window click any words or phrases one at a time that make sense for your industry, as I have done above for the phrase wine racks. 2. This opens a window on the right. 3. In the right window you will see the precise phrases as well as their exact count compiled from a search, by Wordtracker, of many of the largest search engines in the prior month. These are the keywords that make the difference to your rankings when strategically placed throughout your site even if they are misspelled. a. Note the Keyword b. Note the Count and Predicted counts 4. Whenever you click on any phrase in this right window, THAT word gets added to your shopping cart, while a counter tallies them up.
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Simply review this list, selecting words and phrases as you go, that, at first glance, seem relevant to the theme of your potential website. Each selection will be added to your shopping cart and increase your total cost accordingly. There is no cost per word, so take as many as you want. You can review and delete irrelevant choices later. NOTE: In fact, you may HAVE to avoid using some of your very best keywords due to their massive popularity. So its better to take too many at this point, than not enough. In Step-5, Add Keyword-Focused Content, you will be shown how-to do a backwards link check at Google before deciding whether to build a keyword-Focused page around any particular keyword. The procedure you will learn, which is largely unknown, will allow you to predict with great accuracy exactly what it will take, in terms of linkpopularity, to get your page ranked ahead of those who currently occupy the 1st page at Google for any keyword on your list. But, for now, just build your list, which becomes the raw material from which you will ultimately organize your content. Keep going back and forth between left and right windows selecting one word or phrase at a time from the left window, then choosing from the right column, which adds them to your cart in preparation for Step-3 (below) of the Wordtracker process.
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In Wordtracker, Step-3 above, your chosen keyword list has now been organized numerically from top to bottom according to each keywords popularity at the search engines. Note the count of 1252 for the keyword: wine racks. This means that this particular word has appeared 1252 times in the Wordtracker database over a 100 day period. The keyword wine rack (not plural, as it was in the first keyword) just below it, appeared 858 times. This is GREAT information.
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So if you build a list of 50 keywords, and use each one as a primary keyword for a single page on your site, then you will have a 50 page website. If you use 300 words, then you will have a 300 page website. I will go into more detail on how to use these keywords to your best advantage in Step-5, Add Keyword-Focused Content. For now, just become familiar with the Wordtracker service, by building separate lists of keywords for each of the three industries youve researched. As you complete each list, simply email them to yourself from Wordtracker. Then print them for your paper files. Important Note: Before starting your second list in Wordtracker, hit clear all button to start a fresh list. If you dont clear the previous list, the new list will combine with your previous list creating one big mess.
competition may be ignoring, because although the visitors will be few in number, they are HIGHLY targeted, which means they are more likely to click-thru to a merchant.
Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of this process.
Be specific
Remember, your site is a specialty boutique, not a mall or a department store, so try to be as specific as possible in your choices of keywords. Internet surfers do not look for malls. They look for information, specific information. You want these surfers to land on pages within your site, so that, hopefully, they will click on one of your featured merchants which offer products and services related to their search. The more specific you get, the more useful you become to the visitor, plus, you will have less competition from other websites because most try to be all-things-to-allpeople, like a typical mall. For example, you may have initially thought that a site about baby items was a good idea, only to find that baby cribs seems to offer a better niche (i.e. wooden baby cribs, new baby cribs, baby crib safety, and so on).
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2.
4.
around a single keyword) competes with other pages on the Net for the top spot. In fact, its a common misunderstanding that search engines rank websites; when, in actual fact, they rank each page on a site individually. This said, lets get in the right frame of mind here. Its time to start thinking pages, NOT sites. Now, as you follow through Wordtrackers step #4, you will check for the number of pages on the Net that will be competing with your page for a particular keyword on your keyword list. Rest assured, these few steps are going to put you ahead of the game! You see, most website owners never go to this extreme (mainly because they dont know how). They fail (and you will not) to check the competition and never realize that this small amount of work would give them the strong competitive advantage they need to achieve top placement. You are not going to make this same mistake. Instead, lets keep moving forward on the path to achieving YOUR online success. Heres the procedure: 1. Select the Google check box 2. Set the KEI Analysis to Yes 3. Set the Quotes to No 4. Click Proceed to generate the list
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I know this may look a bit confusing. Again, worry not. For now, lets just spend some time collecting the keywords and I will provide you with a brief overview of what to look for here so that it all becomes crystal clear! What you are looking for in this report follows (with short, easy-to-understand definitions). If you feel you need additional definitions or further clarification as you review the report, simply click on the (?) link on the Wordtracker page. As you progress, keep these important words and definitions in mind: 1. KEI (Key Effectiveness Index) Analysis The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition they have. Which means you have a better chance of getting to the top. A little background on this: Sumantra Roy, a respected Search Engine Positioning specialist from http://www.1stSearchRanking.com allowed Wordtracker to incorporate his KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) into the program.
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The KEI compares the Count result (number of times a keyword has appeared in our data) with the number of competing web pages to pinpoint exactly which keywords are most effective for your campaign. In a nutshell: Look for the keywords near the top. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition they have. Which means you have a better chance of getting to the top. 2. Count Number of times search phrase appeared in the Wordtracker database in the past 100 days. 3. 24 Hours This is the predicted daily traffic for each keyword in this search engine only. So, if you see the number 33 in the 24Hr column, this tells you that we estimate this particular keyword to be queried 33 times today in this engine. 4. Competing Number of pages listed in Google with the exact keyword phrase. The lower the number in the competing column shown below, the easier you will find it to reach the top using this keyword. Note: The graphic below will undoubtedly provide the clarity you need here to feel comfortable with this new information.
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Youre getting the hang of it now! Once you have run your report, scroll to the bottom of the list and either Export, Email or View the results. Next, print the list and add to the appropriate file folder. Ill give you instructions and guidelines for evaluating your keyword report in Step-5, Add Keyword-Focused Content.
While on this site, lets go ahead and work through these same easy steps for your other two topics. I know that this is all new to you and provide you with a video tutorial now so you can walk through these steps with great ease. IMPORTANT FINAL STEP: Before creating another list for a separate topic, remember, you need 3 lists, you
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must hit the Clear all link in the shopping cart window, otherwise these new words get mixed in with the others.
Baby step #3 Take the Wordtracker Tour Baby step #4 Take a 1-day subscription Baby step #5 Click through to #1 keyword universe Baby step #6 Follow their 4-step process Baby step #7 Check for competing web pages Baby step #8 Complete the checklist for Step #3
Once you have a printed keyword list of approximately 50-300 words for each of the three industries youve selected you are ready for the NEXT step.
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Step #4 Step #4 Ladiies and Gentllemen Choose Your Lad es and Gent emen Choose Your Templlate Temp ate
Desired outcome
At the completion of THIS step you will have your website under construction!
asked to describe the elephant they could only imagine from their individual grasp of different parts of this enormous beast. Not surprisingly, they all had conflicting opinions. And, likewise with the Internet, because here too, no one can really see the big picture, especially since its still evolving. But, all YOU really need to know is how it relates to your purpose of publishing information on the Net and profiting with affiliate and sponsored link programs. These days, publishing to the Net is easy because advanced website publishing software will automatically convert your document into HTML, a programming code that allows information to be shared on the Net. This is a fairly recent development. Formerly, programmers were needed to convert every document into HTML code. This was both expensive and time consuming. The screen shot below depicts an example of the HTML that is embedded into every page you view on the net. The purpose of your browser is to translate this code.
Below is the same page as above, after it has been instantly translated into words and graphics.
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computer offering accessibility to anyone with a Net connection. The hosting companies charge a small monthly fee to host your data (website) on their server, so that anyone who knows your Web address (URL), or finds your link in a search engine, can access your site. Although the surfer only knows your Web address, (i.e. www.mysite.com), your site actually resides at the hosting companies IP address, which is a long number, such as 122.8.62.44, which includes a few digits that are unique only to your particular site, much like an apartment building with a series of door numbers. The next site that you view, although in London, England, may actually reside on a server located in Miami, Florida.
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And, using online website publishing software, I can have full access to my sites, all from anywhere, and at any time, even if I dont have my laptop with me. Its not a new idea either. Back in the 2002, when I launched the original version of this manual, online site builders were available; however they lacked many of the features necessary to gain high rankings in the search engines. Since then, great advances in online site publishing technology have been made (along with almost everything else for that matter), so much so I am now recommending that you use an online website publishing service to develop and manage your new site. And itll make the whole process much easier for you! In fact, an online site publisher will dramatically reduce your learning curve because it automates many of the manual processes of FrontPage and offers a variety of integrated features not offered by FrontPage. Another plus: like me, you will be able to manage your sites from anywhere in the world, accessing your own Control Panel, just like I do.
Now, dont let this confuse you, for we walk through this in more detail later. What you need to know now is that you can run your online business from anywhere in the world and given the amount of traveling that Arlene and I now can enjoy, this is a must for me! Its true. I have managed my sites from many exotic places across the globe.
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Because my sites are accessible online I have managed them from a cruise ship in the Eastern Caribbean. I have checked my traffic stats and worked on my sites from an Internet caf in Maui. I must say that this makes work much more enjoyable! And, it just makes better sense. I access my email online using Gmail. I access my commission reports online for my various merchants and Google AdSense. And, using an online site publisher, I can also have full access to my sites all from anywhere and at any time. Bon voyage.
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They save time and they save effort and that translates into money. Templates also reduce the steep learning curve plus completely eliminate the need for having a designers flair for graphics and colors. If you are really serious about gaining financial independence with affiliate programs then you should not limit your thinking to a single site but think in terms of constructing a series of sites. And templates provide a low-cost, relatively easy way to do this while offering a professional look and spicing things up with a little variety. It is my belief that we should let the designers do what they do best. This frees you up to hone in on whats important to you, which is high rankings because spiders couldnt give-a-hoot about the design aspects of your site. Although a professional, well-organized appearance is essential to building credibility with your visitor. And, credibility is needed to prompt action (click-through, purchases, etc.) and return visits. Again, these translate into more revenue for you.
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After much thought, I have concluded that these are: 1. Find a user-friendly, integrated template and online website publishing service. 2. Demonstrate the ordering and template set-up process by subscribing to the service myself.
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For my first site, I choose to do the latter - mainly because I didnt have $2000-$3000 to hire a designer. So, I dug in, and with a little help from Shawn Bouchard who looked over my shoulder from time to time, and a basic understanding of Microsoft Word, which works very similar to FrontPage, I developed my first site. And many more sites followed from there. In 2001, I sat down with Chuck Anderson, who was my business partner at the time, to discuss coming up with a more efficient way to add content to our sites. This prompted Chuck, who boasted a programming background (which evolved from our telecom company days), to develop a simple software program that merged our content into our websites. It worked amazingly well and saved us many hours of time formatting pages. This was also my first experience with automation. And it sparked additional ideas on how to become more efficient, including the development of our own Internetbased web publishing software that we still use internally, and that I offered to students of my live trainings of 2001. In late 2001, when I came up with the idea for an affiliate marketing training manual, I wanted to offer readers an Internet-based software program to publish their sites. However, there wasnt anything suitable. But, I did have a lot of experience with FrontPage and it was very suitable for the task of building sites, and this software was developed and backed by Microsoft. Not to mention that I had already developed many successful sites with the software, as well, so we decided to go with FrontPage in the manual. It was a good decision at that time. And since that time, Lynne Robson (www.apixelpixie.com) and Andrea Thompson (www.goldenpinecone.com) have
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developed and a selection of low-cost FrontPage-based website templates designed for affiliate marketers. And Kevin Brown developed a software product (www.ezarticlepublisher.com) that merges articles in much the same way our initial software did. And for those who are familiar with FrontPage, and enjoy working with it, its still a good choice. However, there is now another option.
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And best of all, you can get answer to your questions within one business day, and you have access to online tutorials and helpful documentations if you get stuck. And, you can test drive the system for 10-days for free. Plus, you have a full 100% money back guarantee for 30 days after you activate your website. I like that. But, before I give you a tour of the service, we need to discuss how to choose a domain name.
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Sure, you may already have in mind your favorite, but keep all three folders handy for now. And take a deep breath. You are about to select the topic for your very first site! Of course, if you have followed my lead here and worked from your original BIG list, you are on track and it will be hard to make a mistake, so no worries! Why? Because, as I have explained before, you are PRODUCT FOCUSED and nothing can stop you now. In front of you, you have the information compiled on potential merchants in previous steps information on the potential topics and a detailed keyword list, which clearly indicates that people are searching for your topic. For now, simply ignore the information you have on competition research. I will show you Step-6 how you can use that information to pinpoint which keywords you will want to target first. Your excitement should really be mounting here. You are about to really sink your teeth into this topic and, if its one youre interested in (and you already know how important I think that is), then you are sure to have a great time (and make money, too). Armed with the information and the arsenal of tools provided in this handbook, you have everything and I do mean EVERYTHING you need to become a successful, money-making online publisher. Get Ready! Get Set! Lets Go For It!
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6. Now, one more time (because I cannot stress this enough), MAKE SURE YOUR TOPIC is one YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH (or, as I said above in #1, BE VERY INTERESTED IN IT)! Now, as we move forward here, I want to reiterate a few important points. After all, this is for the long-term, so what you need to understand about achieving online success is this: The truth is that I understand the challenges and fears you face as you venture into your new online business. It just wasnt that long ago that I did the same. And, my students, the great communicators that they are, let me know where they find the occasional stumbling block. This said, it appears that the three areas most people find the most challenging include: 1. Writing content 2. Doing backward link checks (more on this in Step-5) 3. Choosing a topic FEAR NOT! Admittedly, I DO understand the confusion of dealing with Googles mysterious backward link checks; however, I am a bit perplexed about the uncertainty associated with choosing a topic and writing content. As mentioned in the 2002 version of the manual, I think people get caught up with the notion that if they pick the wrong topic theyll be a failure and conversely, if they choose the right topic its the road to RICHES! Understandably they want to get it right. But Ill be frank with you. THAT type of thinking will hold you back in the long term.
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Heres the truth: More topics industries offering revenue sharing are piling into performance based advertising than me or ALL of my students combined could ever keep up with! Theres no right or wrong industry topic or category to build in. You just have to pick one and get going. And there are NO guarantees, either! In fact, my VERY first topic Free ISP (short for free internet service provider) went out of business OVERNIGHT! Meaning I got up in the morning got a Tim Hortons coffee before sitting down at my computer attempted to login to my merchants site (to see how much money I was making) and they were GONE! Gone. Their site had vanished overnight along with all the commissions they owed me. In fact, almost every merchant in the free ISP industry had gone out of business because of the infamous dot com crash of early 2000. And the kicker was that my previous check was for US $5000! So ask yourself. Did I make a mistake? Did I get into the wrong industry? Of course not. Just trust yourself here. And realize that now more than ever youll need to take the long view. You need to think: Im a publisher. I publish topical websites. Every page I put up is a potential revenue-generating page.
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Some pages will rank highly. Some pages wont. Some industries will be highly profitable. Others wont. Some sites mature fast. Some sites mature slowly. Some sites are duds. Some sites are winners. Some industries are seasonal. Others are not. Do I care? Well, not really. Because Ill keep publishing as long as I can find fresh search terms being used at the search engines. (keyword lists) And thats a long way off because the masses are coming online in droves and theyre looking for products to buy. And merchants are looking for them. And lucky me and lucky you were right in the middle as website publishers. Choose a topic. And get going. Youll figure out other topics as your new career unfolds. Its almost a given. The bottom line: Take the plunge and get wet. Once in, you will find that navigating these waters is a breeze with a little help from this manual and your desire to succeed youll be a floating success before long!
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Baby step #1: Now its time to decide on a keyword-based domain name
Before you start looking at template designs, you should settle on which of the three industries have the most appeal to you at this point, then register your domain name based on a top keyword from the list you created at Wordtracker. Grab this list and a pen. You are about to doodle (and brainstorm) a bit. As I mentioned earlier, the ideal domain name will contain what is known as a primary keyword (or keyword phrase), which is usually a word that is highly searched and near the top of your keyword list. (As long as it isnt a proprietary trade name) IMPORTANT NOTE: Most companies are very protective of their trade name (I.e. Capital One Visa) and restrict the use of them in a domain name. I learned this the hard way a few years ago when I received a cease and desist letter for a domain name I had registered (www.capitalone-visa.net), and had to take the site down resulting in a loss of revenue. For some of you, the idea of using keyword phrases, instead of words with snazzy marketing appeal, may require a major shift in philosophy. This is because in the Dot Com world you are surrounded by classic examples of the blind-leading-the-blind. There are many myths on this subject, such as: 1. Your domain name needs to be short 2. Conversely, avoid long names 3. If it has to be multiple words, then condense them into one long word 4. Catchy or cute domain names work best
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5. Avoid hyphenating (dashes between words) 6. The good domain names are all taken 7. And the latest one, get a domain brand The truth is the keyword list before you contains the VERY BEST words to use in your domain name, mainly because of the strategic advantage of link-popularity, which we thoroughly cover in Step-8, Building Traffic from Multiple Sources. But, it wont hurt, as far as spiders and surfers are concerned, either. For example, if the first phrase the spider sees when arriving at your site is golf-equipment.com, then it concludes, aha, this site is probably about golf equipment. Then it looks for supporting evidence in the title tag, followed by the headlines and body, and in some cases checks the META tags embedded in the HTML. If, instead, it reads, karens-online-store.com, youve inadvertently confused it. Is it about Karen? What kind of online store? And, what if Karen ran all the words together, as so many do, forming Karensonlinestore.com, as she sees all the BIG guys doing? NOW the spider is really confused! Doesthismakesensetoyou?
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Have you ever landed on a search engine top 10-page and eyeballed the list before clicking on a site? Are you not doing this in an attempt to guess whether a particular site based solely on its name has greater relevancy to the search youve just made? If, for instance, you were looking for a low-interest credit card, would you not give more credence to a site named low-interest-credit-cards.com, over a site named financialproducts.com? I rest my case.
A further illustration
As you now know, the best keywords are those exact words that surfers type into search engines with the most frequency. So if, for example, the phrase low interest credit cards was at (or near) the top of a keyword list associated with the credit card industry, then I would know that it gets searched more often than the others. So then, my preferred choice as a domain name would be low-interest-credit-cards.com in order to establish without a doubt to the GREATEST NUMBER of potential visitors that MY SITE can fulfill their needs best. IMPORTANT NOTE: although the spiders ignore spaces, the hyphens (or dashes) are necessary to satisfy the domain registrars requirements that spaces or commas be avoided. And, please, do not worry if your best keyword phrase appears to be to long, because the vast majority of people who land on your site will have an easy hyperlink from the search engine listings.
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That way, you get the keyword youre after, rocking horses even though someone else has registered another version. This information will allow you to acquire excellent domain names in some very competitive industries.
As you can see in the above screenshot, Domain Maniac also offers hosting, but, disregard hosting for now. You will also notice that they offer the option of .org, .net, .biz, .tv, etc. But, as you now know, getting your preferred name at .com should NOT be a problem. All of my sites are either .com or .net. And I only go to .net, if my preferred name is not available at .com. but is still available at .net.
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By resorting to .net, I get the best keyword into my domain name without adding the above-mentioned letters or numbers. But, either way, youre fine.
Just do it
So have your credit (or check) card handy. Then search your name.
You will instantly be informed whether you domain name is available after doing your search. And, if it is, put it into your shopping cart and pay for it. Now, heres some insider information for you. It is important that you register your new domain name for a minimum of two or three years. Why? Because the search engines have access to this data, and the search engine spammers typically register their domain names for only one year. And you cant afford to be associated with spammers! In fact, these short-life sites are referred to as throw away domains, so dont fall into this trap. Note: Its not at all uncommon for spammers to register hundreds and even thousands of domain names. And once they lose their rankings, they simply throw away the domain name.
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By registering a domain name for more than one year, this will help to differentiate your site from the spammers. I recommend that you register your domain name for at least a two-year period as shown below.
Thankfully, the Net has evolved. Trust and credibility have become important issues. This was even discussed at a search engine conference I attended in Las Vegas. What I learned and want to pass on to you about this is: Search engines now want to know who owns the website and by providing the information on the website. Therefore, by NOT hiding your WHOIS information your site WILL be looked upon more favorably both now and in the future. As a result, I am no longer selecting the Enable Privacy option shown below.
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During the domain name registration process, you will need to enter the following primary and secondary name server information. Primary nameserver: Secondary nameserver: ns1.domaincityservers.com ns2.domaincityservers.com
You can easily do this by simply clicking on the DNS Info tab (shown below) and entering the information into the appropriate fields. Next, just press the Submit Hosting Option button.
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Once you press the Submit Hosting Option, you will be directed to the Billing Information page. You will complete your purchase here. Once payment is accepted, you will receive order confirmation by email. Also included in this email will be your Username and Password. Both will be needed to log in to your Domain Maniac control panel when it comes time to renew your domain name. When this email arrives, please print it and create a paper file in a folder with the name of your newly purchased domain name AND registration date on the outside of the folder for easy reference. If you have downloaded a copy of the Affiliate Organizer as recommended in Step 1 How To Get And Stay Organized, you should take the time now and enter the information there, as well. Also, copy or save it to your email based password folder.
Time flies
It is vitally important that you keep track of the registration dates for every domain name and website that you register. This is because, although the registrar normally notifies you prior to your expiration date, it is STILL your responsibility to re-register your domain name in a timely fashion. Otherwise, you run the risk of having your site go down, and possibly having all of your hard-won traffic go to someone else who registered the domain name after you. And that would be a bad thing.
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As you can see, the first 30 designs are instantly accessible, and as they say if you dont like any of these templates, you can easily change it as soon as you get on your site by clicking on the Design button.
Bottom line: Dont worry about picking the perfect template right now.
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And, if you do not see what you believe to be the perfect template here, not to worry, Ill show you how to modify any template by adding a low cost header graphic. You can simply skip the Choose Pages page and can modify this information later.
Now, go ahead and click on the Next Step button to complete the sign-up process for the 10-day free trial.
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Once you have completed the form, press the Build Site button to access the system. Take a minute or two to stretch and to grab a snack. We are going to settle in for some fun, and get-to-know the tools time together.
excellent getting started tutorial, knowledge base, FAQ, and documentation which can serve as an excellent primer. So please take the time needed to get comfortable with the ez-WebBuilder and try to learn your way around and some of the basic terminology in the process.
When you click on the Design icon you will be presented with over 1000 beautiful designs contained within 37 categories. A good way to go about this is to have a quick look through the categories and jot down any interesting designs, those that you feel could be a match for the topic youve chosen. Then scroll back and open the interesting ones, by clicking on the thumbnail, for an enlargement. Printing them for comparison may also be a good idea.
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Dont panic if you cannot immediately see a design thats even remotely associated with your industry because all of the templates can be customized. As you will see later, I had to choose a site designed originally for a horse site, but with the replacement of a single graphic was able to transform it quite nicely for my purposes.
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Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of the ez-WebBuilder.
Once you have a website under construction, then you are ready for the NEXT step.
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And, as you move forward, keep in mind that this Step is all about understanding your site visitor what they want to find at your site. Simple, yes; in fact, the truth is that the technical and seemingly complex information provided in this Step really all boils down to understanding what your site visitor wants and how to give it to them. In fact, keyword searches reflect the questions visitors are asking. Your job as an online publisher is to answer these questions with solutions. Because the arc of this chapter is so long, I have carefully divided it into two parts: 1. Organize your words Here you will learn the tried-and-true techniques and sure-fired success strategies I use every day when I organize my own words. Its imperative you understand this more technical aspect of organizing your words before proceeding to Step 6, where we dive headfirst into the nitty-gritty of crafting compelling, valuable articles/copy for your site. 2. Modify your template Here we go back to ezWebBuilder and go through, step-by-step, the process of building a website together. In doing this, I will show you exactly how to construct a site that sells! Remember, I introduced you to ez-WebBuilder in the previous Step, Step 4. Get ready to have some fun with it here in Step 5 (which you deserve after making your way through the proceeding technical aspects of organizing your copy.) An Important Note: In this Step, I actually build a website right before your eyes. Now, I strongly discourage you from copying this site exactly, for many reasons. First, remember the example of the little chicken story I provided in Step 1. Well, if everyone builds the same site, we are all crammed into the same corner, and many will not survive. Second, copying this site defeats your best efforts here, for the search engines rely on very precise
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duplication filters and when they sniff out duplication, one or more of the same sites will be thrown out, wasting all of your time and hard work. I have to tell you that when I released the first edition of this Handbook, many readers simply copied my site example; thus, I am speaking to YOU from experience! The truth is, as I have said before, you want to be unique enough to side-step market saturation, while being popular enough that you are supported by merchants (and buyers). This is not achieved by copying (which I go into more in Step-6). Now, enough said about that. Lets keep going But, before getting into the precise steps you need to take to complete this rather lengthy module, I would like to tee things up a bit with an overview of my approach to building winning sites. What follows in the next several pages may seem a little advanced for my entry level readers because Ill be using terms that may be new to you. But everything will be explained in great detail as you actually implement the steps. And, as I said earlier, just read for now. Things will begin to make sense as you go.
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Articles galore
Once your 5-6 product pages have been written, added to your site, fully optimized, merchants added, submitted to the search engines and inbound links gathered, you will begin the task of picking off the remaining keywords. Most of you will have keyword lists totaling in the hundreds, while others will have less than a hundred. Your task is to research and write at least one article a day, fully optimized for a single primary keyword, and partially optimized for tier-1 and tier-2 secondary keywords (more on that later) until you have drilled down your keyword list to where the count no longer exceeds 10. If you have 120 keywords on your list, you should have 120 articles. Many of my sites have hundreds of article pages, thereby increasing the exposure to my all important navigation bar and product page link. By having a content-rich (article-rich) website you ALSO improve your relevancy score at most search engines, especially when following my latest techniques for organizing your internal links.
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the ever important spider sees all of your internal links and ranks it accordingly. So you get brownie points with the spiders without distracting your visitor with too many options or creating a massive workload when managing your links. The schematic below is a simple illustration of how my sites are structured, and hopefully yours will be too. Schematic of how my sites are organized:
Merchant #1
Merchant #2
Merchant #3
role of your merchants site, is ABSOLUTELY essential to your success with my methods.
Less is more
I saw some of my Vancouver students struggle with this. They were attempting to do too much with their sites. Less-is-more is an expression that aptly describes my approach to publishing eloquent, concise information on the Net, while at the same time succeeding in a BIG way referring quality merchants to my many visitors. So, while keeping these important tactical differences in mind, you will completely alter the navigation bar to suit your purposes, even deleting a few buttons because as you will see, 5-6 works better than 10. For you, the navigation bar has a single purpose: Inform your interested visitor about the precise topic of every one of your product pages. And, they HAVE to be interested, or they wouldnt have found your site by doing a keyword search in the first place am I right?
might result in an internal click, rather than a departure (usually forever). You however, have stacked the deck in your favor by choosing the very best (most searched words or phrases) for your navigation bar menu. No one searches for products, about us or press releases at search engines. People want specifics. So for goodness sakes, give them specifics. You see, the espionage you did at Wordtracker has alerted you to some of your industries most searched words and phrases, so why not USE this information to clearly signal to your visitor that they are on the right site.
buttons, embedding your keywords into the HTML code, renaming your files appropriately, and finally organizing your internal links for high link-popularity scores. Everything described in the above paragraph (which was quite a mouthful, I know) went into the simple, but powerful example that follows. And all you need to do for a similar result is to take it one step-at-a-time. Take a close look at hip-replacement-care.com.
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your site by including them with the Primary keyword wherever possible. 5. Tier-2 secondary keyword A group of 15-20 additional keywords, which are kept in mind as you write your content. No attempt is made to fully or partially optimize them for the particular page you are writing. They are used editorially and included in the text, as they would naturally appear, instead of forcing their repeated occurrence, as you do when fully or partially optimizing the Primary and Tier-1 secondary keywords. If spiders detect them, then all the better. 6. Product pages Fully optimized for a Primary keyword and partially optimized for one or two Tier1 Secondary keywords. You will generally select these words from the top positions of your keyword list because you want the greatest possible exposure for these pages, which are limited to only 5-6 per site and contain links to your merchants. 7. Navigation bar button Named after a Primary keyword, they perform the task of alerting your visitor to the main topic of your 5-6 product pages. 8. Merchant Sometimes called an advertiser, these vendors are the main purpose for developing websites if you are intending to succeed with affiliates programs. Links to them appear only on product pages. 9. Publisher Sometimes referred to as a Webmaster or affiliate, these are the people being sought by the ever-increasing number of companys embracing a pay-for-performance model of advertising. Its what you DO as an affiliate marketer, publish wellresearched information to the Net, while displaying a graphic or descriptive text in order to advocate that your visitor click-thru to one or more featured merchants bearing some relation to your content. 10. Affiliate program Sometimes called associate, reseller or referral programs, these are one or twotiered commission structures that enable vendors to
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compensate affiliated publishers by setting cookies (a tracking program) on each visitors browser that identifies the referring publisher so a commission can be tracked and paid. 11. Sponsored link program Ad serving technology that serves ads relevant to a pages content and compensates publishers for each click generated. 12. Article pages 250 to 300 words of text, fully optimized for a Primary keyword and partially optimized for one or two Tier-1 Secondary keywords. By default, any keyword that did not rank as one of the Primary keywords for a Product page can be used as the Primary keyword for an Article page. Every Article page links back to one of your Product pages. You can write as many as your list of keywords allows. No sense in writing for keywords that got searched less than 10 times, though. 13. Page optimization Your attempts to alert the search engine spiders as to the main topic of each page of your site by strategic placement of predetermined words and phrases (keywords) into both the hidden HTML view and the text view seen by visitors. In addition to embedding your keywords into the HTML, as described later, you will more fully optimize each page by doing the following also: a. Bolding and hyperlinking each pages Primary keyword once to a related product page or merchant, preferably near the top. b. Italicizing each pages Primary keyword once somewhere near the top of the page, preferably in your headline or sub-headline. c. Optimizing each page for keyword density by including your Primary and Tier-1 Secondary keywords: 1. Primary Keyword: Once in your headline. Once in the first paragraph. Used nowhere else on the page.
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2. Tier-1 Secondary Keywords: Once in the first or second paragraph. Used nowhere else on the page. 3. Use Keyword Variations: These are individual words that are based on your Primary & Secondary keywords. (Further explanation and examples to follow) They should be used repeatedly in the following density. 1) 300 word article: no less than 24 times no more than 36 times 2) Extrapolate the above ratio on longer articles d. Randomly included your Tier-2 Secondary keywords throughout the text in no particular density, but added only as they would naturally appear editorially. e. Following the new internal linking guidelines fully described in Step-8, Boost Your Rankings With Link-Popularity. 14. Title tag Every web page has a title, which is clearly visible in the browsers colored bar at the top of the page. Usually limited to 64 characters, this Title Tag is written with Primary and Tier-1 Secondary keywords in mind. 15. Meta Description tag Also embedded into the HTML, this is a one or two sentence description written with keywords, but also bearing in mind that most search engines copy this description into the view seen by surfers. Best to limit it to 20-30 words. 16. Meta tags Although not as important as they used to be, these are your Primary, Tier-1 and Tier2 Secondary keywords embedded into the meta-tag area of the HTML. 17. Alt tags These refer to pictures or graphics on your page. Usually hidden from view, unless the
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cursor is held above them. Its to your advantage to name each graphic or picture after that pages Primary keyword. 18. Heading 1 (H1) By adding the H1 tag to the headline in the Basic HTML Editor view in the ezWebBuilder. 19. Heading 2 (H2) Follow the same procedure for the sub-headline or second headline.
But, I also want you to remain consistent with the underlying structure that I propose in order to get the traffic, that gets the click-thrus to a merchant, that gets the checks-in-the-mail, that gives you the lifestyle you most prefer.
First an OVERVIEW of the process of building a product page before you begin
1. Organize your keywords, merchants and Google PageRank with the chart provided a little later. a. Decide on an industry b. Decide on a few potential merchants c. Determine the number of product pages, preferably 5-6, but with a minimum of 3 d. From your keyword list choose a popular Primary keyword to represent each of your 5-6 product pages e. Do a PageRank and Backwards Link check at Google before committing to your first choice of a Primary keyword f. Decide on the name for each navigation bar button (usually the Primary keyword exactly, unless too long) g. From your keyword list pick one or 2 next best keywords to become Tier-1 Secondary keywords for each product page h. From your keyword list and more importantly your research, pick another 15-20 words to become Tier-2 Secondary keywords for each product page (NOTE: during the research process, as you gather the information necessary for the topic, your notes will naturally include related Tier-2 keywords)
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2. Research and write 250-300 words (or more if necessary to cover the topic) of content, while keeping in mind the visitor and the rules for keyword density, into a word processor. (NOTE: I recommend that you write your content in a text editor (I.e. Microsoft Notepad), and NOT in Microsoft Word which has a tendency to include unwanted code that will corrupt the HTML of your page.) 3. In the ez-WebBuilder name your navigation bar menu. 4. Import into ez-WebBuilder each of your 5-6 pages of content and fully and partially optimize the HTML. 5. Name each product page file as the corresponding products pages primary keyword. NOTE: Please open the Keyword, Merchant and PageRank Chart and print it. You will need to fill this out as you organize your merchants and keywords for your 5-6 product pages. This chart becomes a handy blueprint for reference while writing your content and optimizing each page. It is an indispensable tool. Please dont take shortcuts here. And, I suggest that you work in pencil with an eraser handy. Trust me, youll go through a lot of paper if you dont. Get both charts by going to the Worksheets Appendix at the back of this manual.
I suggest you use pencil, since various ideas will suggest themselves to you as you go. In Step-2, Finding The Right Topic For You, you developed files on the various merchants for each topic you were considering. Now it is time for a careful review of those files. Assuming that you already know which topic you plan to represent, you need to pull those files and select the merchants that, at first glance, would be a good fit. The list for my BBQ site is as follows: 1. TheGrillSuperStore.com 10-12% 2. Barbecues.com 6% 3. Wal-Mart.com 6% 4. Instawares.com 6% 5. Amazon.com 8% 6. OmahaSteaks.com 8% The percentages shown above are respective of the commission rates.
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Readers do too. NOTE: As you may remember, we are only working with merchants we found by doing a Google search for affiliate programs for the sake of simplicity. But the fact is that in addition to the numerous independent affiliate programs available, there are several good affiliate networks to choose from. You will find a list of other affiliate networks in the Recommended Resource Appendix at the back of this manual. So, now that I have an idea of whom I plan to represent, I need to take it one step further. To do that, I group my merchants into their product pages, because this will be VERY helpful in suggesting the best choices, for many, or all, of my primary keywords, as you shall see. Here are the merchants I have selected for the site organized by product pages: 1. BBQs a. TheGrillSuperStore.com b. Barbecues.com c. OmahaSteaks.com 2. Grills a. TheGrillSuperStore.com b. Barbecues.com c. OmahaSteaks.com 3. Smokers a. TheGrillSuperStore.com b. Barbecues.com c. OmahaSteaks.com 4. Portable a. TheGrillSuperStore.com b. OmahaSteaks.com
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5. Accessories a. TheGrillSuperStore.com b. Instawares.com 6. Plans a. Amazon.com Can you see how the above list (1-6) suggests the Primary keywords for my 6 product pages? 1. BBQs 2. Grills 3. Smokers 4. Portable 5. Accessories 6. Plans And I thought that since my keyword research shows that many are also looking to build their own BBQ, I decided to add a page of BBQ plans. Now, I probably wont create a Primary keyword or navigation bar button for the last merchant on my list, steaks (OmahaSteaks.com 8%), but I will toss them into the mix of merchants on a few of my product pages to see how well they do with my visitors. And if they under-perform, I yank them.
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Not only are they more widely used than others, but also they feed the databases of several other search engines. And so, if you want to be successful with affiliate programs, then you will need to know about some recent changes to the algorithms at Google, in order to rank as highly as possible with them.
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For instance, when I did a Backward Links check for barbecues, a Primary keyword Im considering optimizing one of my product pages for, I discovered that sites occupying the top 5 positions for that keyword all had a PageRank of between 5 and 7, (high) with Backward Link totals ranging anywhere from 173 to 2510. Meaning, forget about it! Ill find another keyword. And although it may be less searched than barbecues, I will at least have a shot at high rankings. But, normally if you stay very product focused, YOU wont have this kind of competition. Later you will be shown how to specifically organize all of your internal links for MAXIMUM PageRank. My strategy for doing this is the most-up-to-date insider knowledge available, so powerful in fact that I considered writing an entire manual on the subject. So please pay special attention to the Google PageRank procedures that follow, as well as Step-8, Building Traffic from Multiple Sources. There is a right way to do it. And there is a wrong way to do it. So, I hope Ive convinced you that by doing Backward Link checks at Google for all of your keywords prior to building pages around them; you will gain one heck of a competitive advantage over Webmasters with no knowledge of how PageRank works. I will now walk you through the process of downloading Googles control menu onto your browser, so its right in front of you whenever you need to do the all important Backward Links check. Time to get your Google eyes.
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Go to Google at http://toolbar.google.com/ and follow the steps needed to install the Google toolbar.
With your Google Toolbar installed into your browser, you can now quickly and easily do the following strategic maneuvers: 1. Search the web for any keyword youre considering. 2. Make note of the PageRank for each of the top sites found. 3. Do a Backward Links check for each of the top sites found.
Example
So, as you know, Ive already checked the PageRank and Backward Link totals for barbecues and decided to take-apass. But, lets say I check on barbeque grills. The sites that appear in the following screenshot are the result of that search.
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These websites occupy the top positions, not only because they are properly optimized for the keyword, barbeque grills, but also because of their respective PageRank and Backward Link totals. As Google says, PageRank is Googles measure of the importance of this page. So, before I attempt to compete for these positions, I would be wise to determine their PageRank AND total number of Backward Links, in order to see what MY PageRank at Google would need to be in order to match (or exceed) theirs. And, as mentioned earlier, by scoring a high PageRank at Google, I also establish similarly high link-popularity scores at other major search engines.
Above are the results of a keyword search for barbeque grills. So, while ignoring the paid sponsored link at the VERY top of the list (highlighted in blue), as you always do when assessing top-10 search engine rankings, I open the top
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guy in the free listings area, http://www.consumersearch.com/www/sports_and_leisure /gas-grill-reviews/ (see screenshot that follows). Being in the #1 spot, they have the position I would like to get, if at all possible, although any listing on a top-10 page is great. But lets say I wanted THAT spot.
With their page open in my browser, I simply hold my cursor over the PageRank bar, to determine its PageRank. As you can see in the screenshot above, this page has a PageRank of 6, which is good. http://www.consumersearch.com/www/sports_and _leisure/gas-grill-reviews/ Then I click on the Page Info button, next to the PageRank bar, which opens a drop-down menu from which I can choose to do a Backward Links check (shown below).
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Note: If you already have the Google Toolbar installed on your computer, but do not see the Page Info icon (shown above), you can turn it on by clicking on Options in the drop-down menu (shown below), and the locating the More tab and then checking the box next to the Page Info icon.
At this point our only interest is the number of Backward Links to this page. I click on the Backward Links button, which opens the screenshot that follows (several paragraphs below). As you can see below, in the blue bar that shows the results search, similar to a keyword result search, there are 7 Backward Links to the barbeque grills page above. This essentially means that this page beat out EVERY OTHER page for the top position at Google when a surfer typed the word barbeque grills into their search engine. Ill cover this in more detail in Step 8, however at this point its important to know that anyone competing for this top spot at Google would have to consider, getting the same number of backward links or backward links from pages with higher PageRank.
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Now, the origin of these Backward Links is of little interest to you, although they can be checked.
What you ARE interested in is the total. Because normally that total is the number Backward Links YOU will need to leapfrog ahead of any position you seek. In the above case, I would probably need 8 Backward Links, to beat out this spot. Thats assuming that my Backward Links were of the same quality (more on that later) and my page optimization and their page optimization were equal. The good news is that Google also counts Backward Links from other pages on your own site, granted at a lesser rate than a Backward Link that originates from another site, but they still count. So if, lets say I was a prolific writer and had 100 Article pages on my BBQ site, I could link 5-6 of them to my barbeque grills product page.
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And if, I could entice 5-6 other webmasters to each point a link to my barbecue grills product page from a quality page on their site, I could probably become the new occupant of that top spot at Google for the keyword barbeque grills. But a further look reveals even better news. Because when doing Backward Link checks on the #2 and #3 spots, I found Backward Link totals of 4 and 6 respectively, which is easy to compete with. So I may elect to try and pick off the #2 and #3 spot, instead of the #1 spot, because fewer Article pages would need to be dedicated to the task, I.e. 21 and 6 respectively (all other things being equal). And remember, the full significance of this may not become apparent to you until youve completed this manual, or at least completed this chapter. So if it seems a little overwhelming, just be patient. Thankfully, the Keyword, Merchant and PageRank Chart you have been provided with will greatly assist you to properly weigh your options. But before we go to that chart and begin working with your keyword list Ill give you three more definitions: 1. PageRank The Google search engines measure of the importance of any given page in its database. 2. Backward Links An incoming link to a page that originates from another page on the Internet. 3. Outgoing Link The page from which a Backward Link originates. As you will see later, its important to keep in mind, the difference between an incoming and outgoing link, because by having an over abundance of outgoing links from one of your own pages, you may inadvertently dilute your PageRank.
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NOTE: The entire subject of arranging inbound links is covered in my Google Mastery report, and in Step #8, which is provided FREE to all book buyers. I strongly recommend that you take some time to carefully review every aspect of this report, once you get to Step #8. For now, and for simplicitys sake, you need to understand that the fact that you solicit links from other webmasters or offer your own professionally written content (PAD or Professional Article Distribution) embedded with links back to any pages you want high rankings for. And arranging these links is as important as ever.
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Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of the process I follow for doing a Google backward link check.
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2. Poker Chip Sets 3. Clay Poker Chips 4. Custom Poker Chips 5. Poker Chip Cases Can you see how the above Poker Chip merchant categories would serve you well if those exact phrases showed up near the top of your keyword list? Each could then be the Primary keyword for a product page about that subject, as well as the perfect choice for a navigation bar button. So play with these ideas a bit, then
So, for instance, if I were planning to represent Poker Chip merchants, instead of searching the Poker category as a whole, I would create individual lists for each product page, such as, poker chips, poker chip sets, clay poker chips, poker chip cases, etc. Now when the Right Window appears, with all words bearing a relationship to that word, then go back and forth, selecting more words from the Left window, as you did earlier, until you have built up a single list around a planned product category, instead of the industry as a whole. Then go to step #3 of the Wordtracker process to review. Now email yourself that more narrowly defined list. Then do the same for each product page youre planning. What you end up with is 5-6 sets of beautifully organized keyword lists for each product page. This saves you a lot of time and simplifies the task of sorting your keywords into different groups. Here is the individual keyword list I created for the clay poker chips product page.
Hi James Martell, Here are the results of your Wordtracker query selected from a database of 401 million search engine results. Please see http://www.wordtracker.com/help/databasesearchhelp.html for an explanation of each of the headings. Nos Count Predicted Keyword ---------------------------------------------------------------------1, 642, 746, clay poker chips 2, 142, 165, discount clay poker chips 3, 97, 112, tightpoker real clay poker chips 4, 89, 103, custom clay poker chips 5, 83, 96, tightpoker clay poker chips 6, 77, 89, professional clay poker chips 7, 75, 87, buy clay poker chips 8, 62, 72, real clay poker chips tightpoker 9, 53, 61, texas hold clay poker chips
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10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
42, 22, 19, 18, 17, 14, 14, 14, 14, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11, 10, 10,
48, 25, 22, 20, 19, 16, 16, 16, 16, 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 11, 11,
clay poker chips tightpoker cheap clay poker chips real clay poker chips all clay poker chips clay poker tightpoker.com chips personalized clay poker chips real clay tightpoker poker chips clay tightpoker poker chips tri color clay poker chips las vegas pro clay poker chips clay poker tightpoker chips dragon poker chips clay vintage real tightpoker clay poker chips real clay poker tightpoker.com chips real clay poker tightpoker chips poker chips clay
Because with your 5-6 lists in front of you, you can easily see at a quick glance, which words will serve as the best choices for Primary and Tier-1 Secondary keywords.
you dont mind being buried very deep on page 400 at Google. Experience has taught me that you are FAR better off choosing a Primary Keyword that was searched only 200 times last month, if by choosing it you had a decent shot at a top-10 placement at Google (and the other search engines), rather than feverishly optimizing for that very special word that gets searched 2,000 times a month, only to have no traffic at all because everybody and his brother is also optimizing for that very same keyword. And remember, you have 5-6 unique Product Pages to optimize for. So if you could get a top-10 ranking for each of your lesser-searched keywords, lets say 800 each month, then THAT would be 4800 people (6 x 800) possibly finding pages of your site. Not bad. The Google PageRank and Backward Link checks are the benchmark you use to decide whether or not to pass on any given word as your PRIMARY keyword. Obviously, you want keywords with the most traffic, but you will have to balance out your decision with a Backward Links check.
food for any page you add to your site by including them with the Primary keyword wherever possible. Later you will see the rules for inserting Tier-1 Secondary keywords to both your text and your HTML. But there are also important guidelines to follow when selecting these. They are: 1. One is enough. 2. It should be similar to your Primary Keyword, but if its a phrase, then try to avoid duplication of your Primary keyword. 3. As with your Primary keyword you will need to do a PageRank and Backward Links check.
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Others say it needs to appear as much as once in every five words, or 20%. I have had great success by including my Primary keyword and Tier-1 Secondary keywords as follows: 1. Primary Keyword: Once in your headline. Once in the first paragraph. Used nowhere else on the page 2. Tier-1 Secondary Keywords: Once in the first or second paragraph. Used nowhere else on the page a. Use Keyword Variations: These are individual words that are based on your Primary & Secondary keywords. 3. Tier-2 Secondary Keywords: Randomly included your Tier-2 Secondary keywords throughout the text in no particular density, but added only as they would naturally appear editorially. Further explanation and examples to follow. But rather than focusing on only one or two optimization strategies, (as many do) I think that these days, it is a combination of things, when done properly, helps you to achieve your goal of getting Top-10 listings. So, back to my long distance example. Given that my rules for keyword density are correct, then you run the risk of overdoing it, as far as spiders are concerned, by selecting Tier-1 Secondary keywords with duplicate words. So be careful. NOTE: to those entry-level people who are wondering why the need for such precision, I should point out that Search Engines are forever on the alert for keyword spam. A few years ago, as the Internet began cooking as a viable form of marketing, the Search Engines got caught off guard, as unscrupulous marketers, who learned of their criteria, would simply inundate the Internet with irrelevant sites filled with keywords in order to market things of illegal or questionable value.
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Stay on purpose
All we are attempting to do with our websites is offer relevant information and related products and services. The Search Engines love relevancy because THATS what visitors hope for. Dont you? So all we are doing is playing by the rules in order to help visitors find what they want. If we do our research wisely and optimize accordingly, then its a win for the Search Engine, a win for the surfer, a win for the merchant and a win for us.
For now, while working with paper, simply go with the most likely keyword for your Navigation Bar Buttons.
And, understand the words themselves ARE important, meaning they need to be keyword-based, because in addition to the navigation bar menu, you will include a longer text-based version for your Bottom Menu.
Baby step #9: Select a few merchants (advertisers) for each Product Page
Another easy one I used to FILL UP my Product Pages with merchants, thinking, the more the merrier. But, over time I have determined that less merchants is definitely more in this regard for two reasons: 1. A confused mind says no. a. A friend of mine who sells for a living often touts the above saying. He concluded that whenever he had an interested buyer, the LAST thing he wanted to do was offer too many choices. The fact is, that most of my revenue from any site is derived from a single
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merchant who usually appears above the others. 2. Each outbound link dilutes Google PageRank to some degree; by conferring a portion of whatever PageRank score it previously had on the receiving page. And so, if I had a page with very good PageRank, but, then loaded it with numerous outbound merchant links, Im sinking my ship, so to speak. Many do this without knowing. I did it too. But, now I know better. And so do you. a. Once I learned of this, I had even more motivation to strip many of my Product Pages of merchants who were not performing in any case. You, however, will avoid this mistake entirely, by limiting merchants to no more than a few per page.
Baby step #10: Evaluate your completed Keyword, Merchant and PageRank Chart
With your completed chart before you, now take a huge sigh of relief! You have hit an important milestone. What you have now is an actual blueprint for each Product Page of your site. Youve completed research that, when implemented, optimizes each page effectively and puts you miles ahead of the competition. But before you begin researching your topic and writing both text and HTML you should pause a bit to double check that youre happy with your choices. When you are convinced that everything seems to line up nicely, then you are almost ready to begin writing. But first,
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I would also recommend that you watch the video tutorial of the same information by locating the start button shown below on the same Help & Support link page.
NOTE: Once again, I should point out that it is not within the scope of this manual to offer extensive training in the ez-WebBuilder, although I CAN offer some initial guidelines to get you going. And although, the ez-WebBuilder is relatively easy-to-use, you will need to reference the documentation, frequently asked questions, knowledgebase, and searchable database as questions arise. This information and the submission form to send a support request can be found on the Help & Support link shown below.
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PLEASE NOTE: My support staff is NOT qualified to answer ez-WebBuilder questions, please direct any such requests using the submission form mentioned above. Those with very limited knowledge of computers in general, may need to get some expert assistance from a local source. To begin you must first login to your ez-WebBuilder account.
At this point, we are only concerned with the Manage Pages and Design icons so we can begin the set-up process.
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To begin, I will first show you how easy it is to set-up and name the navigation bar buttons, and also come up with a spider-friendly file name for each product page. I will also replace the horse themed header graphic, with a barbecue themed photo for the top of the page.
Think through a logical menu choice. Below are the button names I have chosen, based on my extensive keyword searches, plus PageRank and Backward Link checks: 1. BBQs 2. Grills 3. Smokers 4. Portable
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5. Accessories 6. Plans NOTE: Three things: 1. Spiders pay no attention to whether or not a word is capitalized in a graphic, because graphics are ignored, but for aesthetic reasons you should capitalize your navigation bar buttons. 2. However, even though the templates come with graphical navigation bar buttons, and may be ignored by spiders, you still need to name them properly. In this case you may have to shorten it a bit for aesthetic reasons. (more on this in Step 8) 3. In addition to my 6 Product Page buttons, which I will place in the vertical field, I will also dedicate the page footer (more on this in Step 8) to a longer text-based version, which have been carefully chosen to generate traffic, must not be altered along the bottom of each page.
Follow along, as I walk you through the process of changing the names of your navigation buttons and deleting unnecessary buttons. Even if you are very new, you should be able to accomplish this without much problem. As you can see in the Manages Pages view below, there are currently three pages in your index: Home, Contact Us and Links.
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Please note, that the Home button should remain the same, unless you are up to reorganizing the internal links.
To rename these button icons, click on the Rename link and type the new name as you wish it to appear, and press Save.
I repeated the same procedure, for the Links page by renaming it Grills, and now the Manage Pages view looks as follows.
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Next, I need to create four additional product pages to finish up the Navigation Bar Menu. I begin by clicking on the Add Page tab, and selecting the Web Page button as shown below.
I then select a name for this page, in my case this would be the name Smokers. I then press the Add Page button.
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I repeat the process for each of the last three product pages until the Manage Pages view includes my Home page and all six Product Pages as shown here.
Now, when you click on the View Page icon in the toolbar, you will see the new Navigation Menu.
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Ill show you how to add additional pages later in the training. For now, please stay with me.
Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of the process.
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2. Do it yourself Really, both options are easy because Colin does a great job of walking you through the process step-by-step for changing the header and all other options, too. Continue to think about what your visitors want and do not skimp here. You need to portray a clean, crisp and highly professional image to your new audience. So, if you think Colin will do a better job than you, I urge you to rely on his expertise. Keep in mind that your site will be online for years. All of our templates have header graphics that can be customized with another image and your company name or website address. Colin Wiebe of Fast Creative explains. I can do it for you for a small fee, or you can do it yourself by following a video tutorial that I put together to walk-you-through the process. 1. How to order a custom header graphic, or 2. How to modify an existing header graphic Once youre done, youll have a header graphic for your new site that perfectly matches your chosen topic. Like I did for the BBQ site. I went with the option of hiring Colin to modify the stock header graphic by adding two photos and the address of the barbecue site; Gas-BBQ-Grills.net.
2. My new header graphic 3. My navigation bar buttons What you see below is a very appealing look for my purposes.
In a few moments, I will begin to organize and develop the content for the barbecue site, then upload and optimize it for you, as a demonstration of what you will need to do with your own Home and Product Pages. But first, its time to modify your header graphic. Go to the link below to learn how. www.ez-webbuilder.com/host/page/1386.htm
Enter your billing info, choose your charge period, and with youre your credit card pay for your site.
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Then, clicking on the Domain Name icon that appears in the menu.
And lastly, scroll down the page and the domain name for YOUR website in the field provided, and then press Save.
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NOTE: Now that you have update the settings for your domain name, it will take a day or two for your new site to appear on the Net. And when it does
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Baby step #1 Pick your merchants Baby step #2 Categorize your product pages Baby step #3 Get your Google eyes Baby step #4 Narrow down your keyword list Baby step #5 Choose your Primary keywords Baby step #6 Choose your Tier-1 secondary keywords Baby step #7 Choose your Tier-2 secondary keywords Baby step #8 Choose your Navigation Bar Button names Baby step #9 Select a few merchants (advertisers) for each Product page Baby step #10 Evaluate your completed Keyword, Merchant and PageRank chart Baby step #11 Modify the look of your template Baby step #12 Rename your navigation bar buttons Baby step #13 Modify the header graphic Baby step #14 Pay for YOUR new site Baby step #15 Set-up your domain name settings Baby step #16 Complete this checklist
Once you have a keyword-based navigation bar, - where each of your 5-6 buttons will link to a SINGLE Product page containing a compelling headline and 300+ words of text, - plus a strategy for adding NUMEROUS Article pages that each link back to the most appropriate Product page that have include your Primary and
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Secondary keywords strategically placed into each of your pages: Title tag Page description meta tags Keyword meta tags Alt tags Headline #1 (H1) Headline #2 (H2) PLUS, have completed the page optimization process by: Having strategically placed your Primary Keyword and your Tier-1 Secondary keywords throughout the text. Bolded and hyperlinked each pages primary keyword, - preferably to a related Product page, Article or merchant. Italicized each pages Primary keyword once somewhere near the top of the page, preferably in your headline or sub-headline. Randomly included your Tier-2 secondary keywords throughout the text. then you are ready for the NEXT step.
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Step #6 Step #6 Add Keyword Focused Content Add Keyword Focused Content
Desired outcome
At the completion of THIS step you will understand how to develop your own content or hire a professional writer (on the cheap) to help - you will have content for Home and Product pages, one or two articles, contact us page information, links and know how to add a few photos (and where to find them), - plus you will learn my rules for keywords and keyword variations, how to upload all of this to your own pages, and how to optimize your pages for search engines.
My standard advice was to do a Google search for the term. And from there, thoroughly research the topic, taking notes into a text editor for editing. Simply develop your own information and ideas in your own style dont plagiarize. And be sure to check out your advertisers. They usually have tons of information. Yet, people still reported getting stuck. As a result, I am going to walk you through the process I followed to organize the content for the Gas-BBQGrills.net site, a process that I recommend that you follow, as well, with your site. And not too worry if this is starting to sound like another intense Step. In all actuality, it will be very rewarding, and one that you will grasp with surprising ease (yes even those of you who are convinced that you cannot write a complete sentence). Sure, complete sentences are important, but more than this, I have found that many of my students get hung-up on the fact that they believe that what they write will not be valuable to their visitors. On the contrary. And, I am going to prove it to you now, so just stick with me here. For, if you can write an email, you can write content for your website. As you progress through this Step, you will see that I have divided it into two parts, in an effort to make this as easy as possible. These two parts include: 1. Content development 2. Uploading content to your site And for those who may be looking for a shortcut or a little assistance in this area, I am also going to walk you through an online service that was brought to my attention by a dedicated student. Using this site, you can now have
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paid professional writers bid for the chance to write content for your pages. And youll be surprised at the relatively low cost involved to write content for your site. You simply provide your writer with the parameters, (keyword density rules, length, topic, etc. as I outline in the audio report below) and THEY research and write your content for you. But before we get into the nitty-gritty of creating your content, it is worth pointing out that Web content comes in many forms. Sit back, because this is about to get fun!
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And for those new to the Net, who may not be sure about adding text and photos to their sites yet, not to mention audio and video, not to worry. Well get through the text and photo portions first which is simpler than you may think and then well look into the possibility of adding audio and/or video to your sites., so sit tight, this is about to get really fun! But right now, while were on this subject, I have to tell you about a recent experience I had that really piqued my interest in this area, and further cemented the awesome advantages of delivering content to site visitors in different ways. I was attending Commission Junction University (CJU), a popular industry event, when the keynote speaker decided to have a little fun with the audience. He played a very short 2-minute video that demonstrated the power of a short video. Truly, he amazed me and everyone else in the crowd with a video demonstrating a Chinese shirt-folding technique. I encourage you to click on the link below to witness this for yourself. And I am sure youll be amazed at what you see. Whats more, you will be able to fully understand whats going on and being presented (even though its in a different language). Click the link below (or paste it into a browser) to witness firsthand the tremendous impact a simple video can have on visitors to a website. http://web.mit.edu/wuster/www/media/fold.wmv (Link goes directly to a Windows Media Video File) Pretty neat, isnt it? I would like to challenge you to start thinking ahead about adding this type of content to your site, even if at this point you have absolutely no idea how to do this. If nothing comes to mind at first, not to worry!
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Just let your mind ponder the idea over the next weeks, and keep your eyes open for sites using audio and video, an idea may present itself to you. And, my point in all of this is to simply demonstrate the exciting possibilities and to get you thinking about content and the many forms in which it can be delivered. Remember: Content is no longer just text. It is also audio, video and photos. The bottom-line Its time to realize content is more than just text on a page, and by adding of a few photos, a short audio and maybe even a little video you maybe able to better communicate your ideas with your visitors. And communicating ideas is what publishers do.
Its hilarious, and a great example of content developed for television, that stemmed from someones idea for a show, they of course earn their revenue from the sale of commercials and sponsorships to companies who sell related products. And the better the content (or programming as its referred to in radio and TV), the larger the audience; and the larger the audience, the more valuable the ad space. In the case of TV, its about viewers. In the case of newspapers or magazines, its about circulation and its readership. And, in the case of our websites, its ALL about visitors, and the better job we do creating content, that stem from our ideas, the more revenue we can earn from advertisers.
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I had to concede that he was right! And, to draw a parallel, when it comes to our websites, Its all about serving the visitor! So, unlike days past, todays websites are about serving the visitor, first; search engines, second. Every page created needs to focus on serving the needs of the visitor. Take just a minute now to think about the websites you have visited that did not read or flow well. Perhaps the information wasnt arranged logically or you couldnt locate a phone number when you needed to call Customer Service. Or, worse yet, the information you were looking for was poorly written, buried somewhere in the site or perhaps not even there at all. Frustrating, wasnt it? And, chances are you left the site unsatisfied and went to another site to find what you were looking for. In the beginning, I was guilty of building sites like this and have taken the last year or so to really hone-in on my visitor. I have worked hard to put myself in the shoes of my visitor and to see things from their perspective. And, when I started doing this, my work became easier and more profitable! I encourage you to put yourself in the place of your visitor help them find what they are looking for and you too, will enjoy online publishing success!
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Think about what each person may have wanted to know when they typed in the keyword phrases. Get into your visitors head. Picture what you think may be going on here. For instance, take the keywords gas barbecue grill. The person typing this into his search box is probably sitting at his computer picturing himself and his family in his backyard with his shiny, new, gas barbecue, steaks sizzling.
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The table has been set and he and his wife are enjoying a bottle of wine with the neighbors, as the kids play together in the warm sun. The dog is running around and everyone is anxious to dig into the scrumptious meal that, by this time, smells oh so good! Or, consider the keywords backyard bbq plans. This guy is probably a bit of a handyman and wants to build his own custom backyard barbecue so he can entertain guests, family, etc. Obviously, he enjoys building things and probably takes great pride in his work. It is likely that he already has an idea in his mind about what he wants to build, but needs a bit of help here and is looking some plans he can compare and use to design and build his dream backyard barbecue. Once you begin to think like this, it is easy to see how the keywords typed in by people actually provide clues and how your job (and mine) is to provide answers and solutions. Now, its time to do a little research.
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I spend a good deal of time on the site getting my head around the products, the way the merchant organized the site, and what information they are providing to the visitors. I can quickly see that they have categorized the products by the different types of Grills (I.e. Gas Grills, Charcoal Grills, Barbecue Smokers, Sauces, Tools, and Accessories). I can also see in the screen shot above the visitors can search for BBQs, grills and smokers by Price Range. By scrolling down the page, I can also see a list of Helpful Information that the merchant is providing to the visitor. A little further down the page I come across a list of Our House Favorites and the Top Selling Grilling Items, which gives me good insight to whats selling on the site.
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This information is invaluable, and begins to give me some ideas for how to begin to tailor my content so that it appeals to my visitors, which remains my top goal. I can also see that this merchant has done to great job at building site credibility with the visitors, by pointing out to the visitor that they are a member of the Better Business Bureau Online (BBB Online), and displaying their privacy and secure site guarantees.
In addition, they provide helpful information on order tracking, shipping, delivery, no-hassle return guarantee and other important information that I can refer to in my content. But dont stop here! I would also suggest giving the affiliate manager for the merchant a call to get their feedback and input. They are
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usually a wealth of information and can some times even provide you with free content for your site. This is an important step and I encourage you not to skip it pick up the phone and make the call. Even if you feel a little phone shy, JUST DO IT! Most affiliate managers spend their time trying to get the attention of their affiliates. Most only receive a few calls a week at best. Give them a call, let them know youre considering developing a site around their topic and that you have a few questions. As you will see below, the information they can provide to you is invaluable when it comes to identifying, organizing and arranging the content for your site.
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measures 14W x 17.5D inches. This adaptable accessory is a great way to cook with indirect heat to smoke your favorite meats. It also adds more versatility to your grill by allowing wood and charcoal to be place in the side box for easy refueling and clean-up. The Smokin' Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill includes durable cast iron grates that are designed to retain heat for more even cooking on this large 830 square inch grilling surface that measures 29.5W x 19.75D inches. The cooking temperature can be easily regulated throughout the cooking surface with an adjustable grate. This grate is designed with two wire hangers that attaches directly to the ash pan which holds the charcoal briquettes. By simply moving the ashtray upward it will allow more direct heat. Moving the ash try downwards will restrict the amount of heat to the grilling surface for a slow cooked meal. A thermometer is built in to the grill hood to display the exact cooking temperature. Actual product may vary slightly to photo. Click Here For Hints on Smoking Meats & Poultry
Q. What is the best selling season for the products? A. The peak season for grill sales begins in March, peaks in mid-May and then runs through July. It then tapers off again and spikes up just before Christmas. Turkey fryers do real well around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Q. Can you share the site of one of your top affiliates with me? A. Sure, the site is for the television show Barbecue America (www.barbecueamerica.com). Nice site. Q. Do the sauces, tools and accessories sell well? A. I am not sure. Ill get back to you on that. Q. Can I land visitors on specific pages on your site? A. Yes, you bet. Q. What percentage of people order by phone? A. 10-15% of our sales are phone orders. At this time we have no way of tracking affiliate IDs over the phone. Q. Anything else I should know? A. I recommended that you attempt to synchronize the specific products to specific information on your site.
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As you can see the call was very worthwhile, I learned a bunch, and I can see that Nate is there to help me with anything I may need.
6. The site does a beautiful job of displaying each of the products, and offers suggestions during the shopping process. 7. I love the "Is This a Gift?" feature: Don't worry about your gift arriving late or showing-up empty-handed. Print or email a Virtual Gift with a personalized message, picture and description of the gift you purchase today! 8. I have also noticed that the site is an absolute treasure trove of keywords that should be added to my keyword list. 9. I can also see that the Grill Superstore does an amazing job of portraying confidence (BBB Online, Secure Site, 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, etc.) to online shoppers who maybe a little nervous about using their credit cards. In all, I am very impressed with this site (and topic).
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As for me, I usually do this with pen and paper in hand you may want to grab these, too. Now, there is no exact science for this step, no perfect formulation in fact, I usually make adjustments and little tweaks here and there, as I get further into each topic and the information. I plan to hire a writer (as outlined in the Hiring Authors report, which I discuss in detail later on); however, I am still going to organize the information so that you can see exactly how to do this yourself. What I have found to work best for me, is to grab my Home & Product Page Optimization Charts (see screenshot below) one for each of the product pages, and a blank one for the home page.
Grab yours now, so you can refer to them as we move forward here.
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Next, I open up a text editor (i.e. Microsoft Notepad) and start to organize all of my notes I really just write an overview for each of the pages. Keep in mind that this works for me. You may find a way that works better for you, but until you do, you can use my method, as there is no correct way of doing this no proven method to the madness, if you will. Perhaps the only rule of thumb here: KEEP YOUR VISITOR FIRST AND FOREMOST IN YOUR MIND and ON YOUR SITE.
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secure shopping, and the 100% satisfaction guarantee, no-hassle return guarantee.
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In fact, the quality of your content will be in direct proportion to the time you put into your research. As you sip your coffee and organize your thoughts, you may want to have a look back to Step #3 Keywords Are the Building Blocks. The information in the Step will help you research whats important to your visitor. And, dont forget to refer to your Home & Product Page Optimization Charts, so you know which Primary, tier-1, tier-2, and which keyword variations you have assigned to home and product pages. As I go through my notes, evaluate my keyword list, study the merchant site, and generally begin to get my head around the topic, I note down any ideas for content as they come to mind. In just a few minutes, I have come up with a rough list: 1. A comparison between a charcoal and gas grills 2. A look at the differences between using propane and natural gas? 3. Tips on selecting a grill for your lifestyle 4. A review of the top selling grills by fuel type 5. Barbecue safety 6. How to winterize barbecue 7. Planning a backyard barbecue 8. Camping with a portable grill 9. How to shop online for a charcoal or gas barbecue grill 10. Cleaning your stainless steel barbecue 11. Barbecue checklist 12. What is a barbecue smoker? 13. Building a backyard barbecue 14. Cleaning your barbecue for summer fun 15. Learning to barbecue 16. Cleaning the grill 17. Outdoor cooking lessons 18. Barbecue tools and accessories 19. Buying a BBQ smoker
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far surpasses the number of units available at any local store. And, how they can compare the latest and greatest models all at once, and from the comfort of their home. In other words, I would like you to sell the concept of purchasing a grill or smoker on the Internet vs. buying one in the store. Id also like you to address those would-be shoppers who maybe a little nervous about using their credit card online, so Ill make sure they know about the sites safe and secure shopping, and the 100% satisfaction guarantee, no-hassle return guarantee. I would like you to probe the reader to see if they are you looking for a Charcoal or Gas grill. Ask them if they have any features (cooking surface size, grates, burners, rotisserie, back or side burners, etc.) that are important to them? Ask them where are they planning to place the grill (deck, patio, or camping, beach - portable)? Ask them if they have a budget in mind with the following price ranges (Under $50, $50-$200, $200-$500, $500-$1000, $1000 and up)? IMPORTANT NOTE: Keep in mind as well, that not all of the information provided above, does NOT need to be fully covered on the home page, but rather it can be included and addressed on the home and product pages as would be appropriate during the normal course of writing. Also, during the normal course of writing the article, please get into the habit of referencing a few other pages on the site, by its Primary keyword where appropriate. This will help the visitor navigate to other pages, and will provide me with an opportunity to link to the pages using the appropriate keywords. For example, if you mention the keyword; barbecue accessories on the home page, I can hyperlink those keywords (I.e. barbecue accessories) directly to the accessories page.
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Primary Keyword: gas BBQ grills Tier-1 Keyword: charcoal barbecue grill Keyword Variations: gas, charcoal, barbecue, barbecues, BBQ, BBQs, grill, grills, grilling Tier-2 Keywords: barbecue accessories, barbecue grills, best gas grills, compare, designs, equipment, gifts, great, grill ware, heavy duty, high quality grills, manufacturer, natural gas, order online, outdoor cooking, outdoors, portable barbecues, propane, reviews, rotisserie, sale, sets, barbecue smokers, stainless steel barbecues, supplies I would Like The Following Concepts Developed Into A Powerful Headline: Shopping online, charcoal or gas barbecue grill, save, better selection, to your door delivery, family, food and fun. Additional Research: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/ Product Page #1 (BBQ) Primary Keyword: gas barbecue grills Tier-1 Keyword: barbecue grill Variations: gas, propane, natural gas, barbecues, barbecue, grill, grills, grilled Tier-2 Keywords: accessories, barbecue, barbecues, BBQ, best gas grills, camp grills, charbroil gas grills, charcoal, compare, cover, covers, designs, equipment, gas, gifts, great, grillware, heavy duty, high quality grills, kits, manufacturer, natural gas, online, order, outdoor cooking, outdoors, portable barbecues, propane grills, reviews, rotisserie, sale, sets, smoker, smokers, stainless steel, supplies, supply, tools, utensils Notes to Writer: In 300+ words, and in the spirit of the backyard barbecue theme, I would like you to expand the information on
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the most popular features and join in on the gas vs. charcoal debate. Please be creative. Keep it light Research: I would like you to recommend TheGrillSuperStore.com who offers a large selection of gas and charcoal barbecues. Please refer to a couple of them on the link below, so that I can link directly to them from this article. At the bottom of the article, I would like a good call to action for the visitor to visit TheGrillSuperStore.com. Charcoal Barbecue Grills: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/gasgrills/shop.cfm?N=122+124 Product Page #2 (Grills) Primary Keyword: barbeque grills Tier-1 Keyword: outdoor grills Variations: barbeque, barbeques, BBQ, BBQs, grills, grill, grilling Tier-2 Keywords: outdoor grill, heavy duty grills, camping, beach, hiking Notes to Writer: In 300+ words, and in the spirit of the backyard barbecue theme, I would like you to discuss the two fuel choices (propane vs. natural gas), and will elaborate on the important features. At the bottom of the article, I would like a good call to action for the visitor to visit TheGrillSuperStore.com. Research: I would like you to recommend TheGrillSuperStore.com who offers a large selection of gas and charcoal barbecues. Please refer to a couple of them on the link below, so that I can link directly to them from this article. At the bottom of the article, I would like a good call to action for the visitor to visit TheGrillSuperStore.com.
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Gas Barbecue Grills: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/gasgrills/shop.cfm?N=122+124 Charcoal Barbecue Grills: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/charcoalgrills/shop.cfm?N=122+125 Product Page #3 (Smokers) Primary Keyword: barbecue smokers Tier-1 Keyword: BBQ smoker grills Variations: barbecue, BBQ, smokers, smoker, grills, grill Tier-2 Keywords: bbq smoker, BBQ smokers, outdoor barbecue smokers, buying, charcoal, designs, new, cooking outdoors, pit, site Notes to Writer: In 300+ words, and in the spirit of the backyard barbecue theme, I would like to elaborate on the differences between a grill and a smoke. Research: I would like you to recommend TheGrillSuperStore.com who offers a large selection of barbecue smokers. Please refer to a couple of them on the link below, so that I can link directly to them from this article. At the bottom of the article, I would like a good call to action for the visitor to visit TheGrillSuperStore.com. Barbecue Smokers: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/barbecuesmokers/shop.cfm?N=122+126 Product Page #4 (Portable) Primary Keyword: portable gas barbecues Tier-1 Keyword: portable gas grills Variations: portable, transportable, easily carried, cartable, gas, propane, barbecues, barbecue, grills, grill Tier-2 Keywords: portable gas grill, portable gas barbecue, portable charcoal grills,
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compact, convenient, easily carried, handy, light, lightweight Notes to Writer: In 300+ words, I will talk about the various options for those looking for a portable BBQ and point out why they are so popular for tailgating parties, camping, picnics, etc.). At the bottom of the article, I would like a good call to action for the visitor to visit TheGrillSuperStore.com. Research: I would like you to recommend TheGrillSuperStore.com who offers a large selection of portable units. Please refer to a few of the portable barbecues available on the link below, so that I can link directly to them from this article. Portable Barbecues: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/portablegrills/shop.cfm?N=122+691 Product Page #5 (Accessories) Primary Keyword: barbecue accessories Tier-1 Keyword: bbq grill tools Variations: barbecues, barbecue, BBQs, BBQ, accessories, accessory, grills, grill, tools, kits, sets Tier-2 Keywords: covers, sauces, cookware, thermometer, grate, warming rack, cookbooks, kebab sets, outdoor fan, grill set, kit, BBQ tool set, supplies, utensils Notes to Writer: In 300+ words, I would like you to discuss the various types of BBQ tools, sauces and accessories that can make barbecuing even more enjoyable. Have fun with this page. Again, in doing so, please paint the picture of backyard fun. At the bottom of the article, I would like a good call to action for the visitor to visit TheGrillSuperStore.com. Research: I would like you to recommend TheGrillSuperStore.com who offers a large selection of accessories. Please refer to a
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few of the various accessories available on the links below, so that I can link directly to them from this article. Barbecue Accessories: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/grillaccessories/shop.cfm?N=122+128 Barbecue Tools: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/grilltools/shop.cfm?N=122+690 Barbecue Sauces & Cookware: http://www.thegrillsuperstore.com/sauces-&cookware/shop.cfm?N=122+689 Product Page #6 (Plans) Headline Ideas: How to build a barbecue, backyard, plans Primary Keyword: barbecue plans Tier-1 Keyword: barbecue grill plans Variations: barbecue, barbecues, BBQ, BBQs, plans, plan, grills, grill Tier-2 Keywords: plans to build a brick barbecue, barbecue pit plans, stone brick barbecue plans, plans build brick barbecue, build barbecue, bbq smoker plans, bbq plans, bbq grill plans, building, free, how, outdoor, pits Notes to Writer: I would like this page to be written for the visitor, in approximately 300+ words, who maybe looking for plans, drawings, and blueprints so they can build a barbecue in their backyard. I would like you to talk directly to this guy (and gal) who is probably a bit of a handyman and wants to build his own custom backyard barbecue so he can entertain guests, family, etc. Obviously, he enjoys building things and probably takes great pride in his work. It is likely that he already has an idea in his mind about what he wants to build, but needs a bit of help here and is looking some plans he can compare and
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use to design and build his dream backyard barbecue. Research: I would like you to research the various types of backyard barbecues (I.e. brick, island, pits), discuss the level of skill needed and anything else would be barbecue builders may wan to consider prior to beginning the project. You may also want to reference this site and provide a link to this page: http://doityourself.com/brick/buildbrickbarbe cue.htm Important Clarification: If you recall, tier-2 secondary keywords are simply a group of 15-20 additional keywords, which are kept in mind as you write your content. No attempt is made to fully or partially optimize them for the particular page you are writing. They are used editorially and included in the text, as they would naturally appear, instead of forcing their repeated occurrence, as you do when fully or partially optimizing the Primary and Tier-1 secondary keywords. If spiders detect them, then all the better. In Step #5, I discussed that in addition to carefully selecting tier-2 secondary keywords for each of the pages above from my keyword list, I also include any other keywords that I located during my research period. I want to point this out to encourage you to search out additional keywords that you can add to each page that you create. These additional tier-2 secondary keywords may include, but are not limited to, product model numbers, sizes, colors, shapes, textures, geographical locations, special features (I.e. lightweight, portable) etc.
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Keyword density
I am going to share with you the keyword density rules that I have been using since the end of 2004 with much success. As you will see, they are worth learning. These rules now are very conducive to a natural writing style which is what you are striving for. At first glance, these density rules may look complicated; however, once understood they are very easy-to-follow. Below are the rules followed by clarifications and advice: a. Optimize each page for keyword density by including your Primary and Tier-1 Secondary keywords: Primary Keyword: Once in your headline. Once in the first paragraph. Used nowhere else on the page. Tier-1 Secondary Keywords: Once in the first or second paragraph. Used nowhere else on the page. Use Keyword Variations: These are individual words that are based on your Primary & Secondary keywords. (further explanation and examples to follow) They should be used repeatedly in the following density. i. 300 word article: no less than 24 times no more than 36 times ii. Extrapolate the above ratio on longer articles
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b. Randomly included your Tier-2 Secondary keywords throughout the text in no particular density, but added only as they would naturally appear editorially. Clarifications & Advice: 1) Keyword Variations Explained: Varying up your keywords is important because Google now uses stemming technology, as they explain at: http://www.google.com/help/basics.html (excerpt below)
Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for "pet lemur dietary needs", Google will also search for "pet lemur diet needs", and other related variations of your terms.
Ill admit choosing variations can be a challenge at times because in certain instances its not always obvious what variations to use. Ill help you a bit here by revealing some rules I use to develop a short list of variations for my Primary & Tier-1 Secondary keywords. But, essentially you are on your own with this, for very often, two people will come up with TWO different but perfectly applicable sets of variations. Its all a matter of proficiency with English, as well as a subjective feel for your industry. So PLEASE dont email with questions about HOW to choose variations for your own keywords. But, I think I can point you in the right direction by first providing a definition of stem: noun language, the base of a word, to which affixes are added. (Also called a theme). Or, Intransitive Verb: to derive from. Of course dictionary definitions only go so far.
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So please consider using the three main ways I come up with variations that stem from both my Primary Keyword and Tier-1 Secondary Keyword: 1. Use the single words of Keyword phrases as variations of the longer phrase. Examples Below. 2. Think of words that are similar. 3. Use singular versions of plurals and vice versa. Example: Lets say youre building a page for a barbeque grill site. Youve identified your keywords as follows: 1. Primary Keyword: gas barbecue grills 2. Tier-1 Secondary Keyword: gas barbecue grill (no s) Can you see how the single words that make up the phrase gas barbecue grills provide three variations? gas barbecues grills
Can you also see how to take the same phrase and come up with similar words, such as? propane (a type of gas) bbq grill (and grilled, grilling)
Now, can you see how I can add other words to my list of variations by using the singular of barbecues? barbecue
Recap: So now before writing the content you build a keyword list for each page divided into four types of keywords just like I did in the Sample Work Order a few pages back. 1. Primary Keyword 2. Tier-1 Secondary Keywords 3. Tier-2 Secondary Keywords 4. Keyword Variations And, as the manual says, you STILL use your Tier-2 Secondary Keywords editorially, with no attempt to optimize them. They are simply on your list ready to be used as you or your writer would naturally use them in writing about any particular topic. What follows is an example of an article. Its a graphical example of how to use your chosen keywords in a typical article. Youll first see my keyword list. Ive color coded them so you can easily find them in my article below. Notice I had a list of 9 variations, but didnt use all of them. And if you count them youll see how they fall into my suggested densities. In addition to the 5 Tier-2 Secondary Keywords I selected from my keyword report, I have also identified 7 additional Tier-2 keywords on the merchant site; the Grill Superstore that I would also like included. Primary Keyword: gas barbecue grills Tier-1 Secondary Keyword: gas barbecue grill Keyword Variations: gas, propane, barbecue, barbecues, BBQ, BBQs, grill, grills, grilling, smoker Tier-2 Secondary Keywords: gas grills, BBQ smokers, portable gas grills, accessories, BBQ plans, outdoor cooking,
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A Gas Barbecue Grill Quickly Becomes the Backyard Centerpiece for Good Times and Great Meals with Family and Friends
Nothing heats up a summer like gas barbecue grills. Its the true centerpiece of outdoor fun and just beckons for family and friends to gather around for shared times and fire-cooked foods that create warm memories that are sure to last a lifetime. And, over the last few years, as outdoor cooking shows have taken off and the gas barbecue grill has evolved to a truly specialty outdoor appliance, more families and friends are relying on their grills to set the tone for outdoor fun, making the right BBQ one you will use for years to come with great pride (and great meals), a very important find. Lucky for you, everything you need to find the perfect grill for your family is here, in one convenient place. For once upon a time, we spent days driving around looking at Weber grills, Coleman grills all of the top-notch BBQs. And, like you, we were overwhelmed and confused. Worry not! We now do all the work for you. All you have to do is decide what BBQs best suits your needs and, given that we offer the best selling grills at really great prices, sit back, do a bit of clicking and youre done. Before you know it, youll have your own steaks sizzling on the grill, neighbors dropping by to join in the fun as you and your family enjoys the great outdoors together.
With Just A Few Clicks, You Will Be Ready To Fire-up The Good Times!
So, whether youre in the market for a gas barbecue for the back deck or patio, or perhaps you are looking for BBQ smoker, portable gas grill, BBQ plans for the do-it-yourselfer or just some nifty accessories, the Internet is a great place to find what you're looking for! And, whether you want to buy a grill for yourself or as a gift for a loved one (they make great wedding gifts for friends and wonderful birthday/holiday gifts for loved ones), you are sure to find everything you need right here, including gift certificates so your impressed recipient can choose their very own BBQ. You should know that the Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill is a real favorite. Its a bestseller that everyone seems to like, especially those looking for years of use without worry. This popular barbecue is made with heavy steel and includes a side fire
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box that allows for cooking with indirect heat, producing meat so juicy and tender it just falls off the bone. Not to mention, the authentic smoked taste. Yes, this one is a real crown-pleaser! The Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill comes complete with a built-in thermometer so you can cook like a real pro! It is unbelievably versatile boasting the ability to grill by allowing wood or charcoal, which is simply placed in the grills side box. Its cast iron grates retain more heat and allow for more even cooking. The bottom-line: Anything you cook on this BBQ is sure to come out mouth-watering good and is going to make you look like you deserve your own outdoor cooking show! But, only you will know the truth that the Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill did all hard the work for you, eliminating the frustrating guessing that often comes with cooking outdoors and providing you, your family and friends (and everyones taste buds) with a meal that wont soon be forgotten!
Click Here For More on Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill!
The first thing to notice about the above article is the natural writing style. This is absolutely key! The second thing to notice is that I didnt precisely follow the rules. Overall, the keyword density is a little low, and I opted to use a singular version of the Primary keyword in the headline for better readability. This is perfectly fine. As you see, there is no reason to force the use of the keywords (like we did in the past). Instead, with a touch of creativity and a smidgen of time (the article above took less than 30 minutes to write) you can craft a short and interesting article, one that continuously helps to sell your products simply peppering in the keywords as you go! Its true. Just a dash here and a dash there and before you know it, your keywords are sprinkled naturally throughout. Remember: You are writing for your visitor. And, when in doubt in those rare cases when it seems difficult to work keywords into a page I always opt for natural writing, keeping my focus on the visitor and answering their questions.
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And, if youre still not convinced you can do this (but I KNOW you can), I have a great resource for you so just read on
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This report is free but its only available to buzz subscribers my twice-a-month audio newsletter who also own this manual. If youre a Book n Buzz subscriber already you can request this report here: questions@jamesmartell.com
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A Gas Barbecue Grill Quickly Becomes the Backyard Centerpiece for Good Times and Great Meals with Family and Friends
Nothing heats up a summer like gas barbecue grills. Its the true centerpiece of outdoor fun and just beckons for family and friends to gather around for shared times and fire-cooked foods that create warm memories that are sure to last a lifetime. And, over the last few years, as outdoor cooking shows have taken off and the gas barbecue grill has evolved to a truly specialty outdoor appliance, more families and friends are relying on their grills to set the tone for outdoor fun, making the right BBQ one you will use for years to come with great pride (and great meals), a very important find. Lucky for you, everything you need to find the perfect grill for your family is here, in one convenient place. For once upon a time, we spent days driving around looking at Weber grills, Coleman grills all of the top-notch BBQs. And, like you, we were overwhelmed and confused. Worry not! We now do all the work for you. All you have to do is decide what BBQs best suits your needs and, given that we offer the best selling grills at really great prices, sit back, do a bit of clicking and youre done. Before you know it, youll have your own steaks sizzling on the grill, neighbors dropping by to join in the fun as you and your family enjoys the great outdoors together.
With Just a Few Clicks, You Will Be Ready To Fire-Up the Good Times!
So, whether youre in the market for a best-selling gas barbecue or perhaps a real patio classic, or perhaps you are looking for BBQ smokers, portable gas grills, BBQ plans or just some nifty accessories, youre sure to find it all right here! And, whether you want to buy a grill for yourself or as a gift for a loved one (they make great wedding gifts for friends and wonderful birthday/holiday gifts for loved ones), you are sure to find everything you need right here, including gift certificates so your impressed recipient can choose their very own BBQ. You should know that the Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill is a real favorite. Its a bestseller that everyone seems to like, especially those looking for years of use without worry. The Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill is made with heavy steel and includes a Side Fire Box that allows for cooking with indirect heat, producing meat so juicy and tender it just falls off the bone. Not to mention, the authentic smoked taste. Yes, this one is a real crown-pleaser!
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The Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill comes complete with a built-in thermometer so you can cook like a real pro! It is unbelievably versatile boasting the ability to grill by allowing wood or charcoal, which is simply placed in the gills side box. Its cast iron grates retain more heat and allow for more even cooking. The bottom-line: Anything you cook on this BBQ is sure to come out mouthwatering good and is going to make you look like you deserve your own outdoor cooking show! But, only you will know the truth that the Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill did all hard the work for you, eliminating the frustrating guessing that often comes with cooking outdoors and providing you, your family and friends (and everyones taste buds) with a meal that wont soon be forgotten! Click Here For More on the Smokin Pro Charcoal Smoker Grill!
Again, the above example showcases natural writing almost conversational. And, because it took more than 300 words to cover everything and pique my visitors interest, I stretched it to just over 500 words. Once you try this, youll see that when you start writing, you often find it such fun that you go over the 300 words. Now, have a look at this for yourself:
In the above screenshot, you will see now see how my BBQ Product Page appears, once I have uploaded my text
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into my template and then displayed in the View Page view. Again, as a reminder to readers, , in the ezWebBuilder, I first imported the text for my BBQ page by clicking on the Manage Pages in the toolbar across the top of the page:
Then, I clicked on the Edit link for my BBQ product page as shown in the screenshot below.
At this point, I copied the text for my BBQ product page that I had created in Microsoft Notepad and paste it into the form provided.
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Next, I highlight the entire headline, so that I can change the font size to 14 and bold the text.
I then bold the sub-headline, and change the font size to 12.
There are two remaining parts to the optimization process. 1. Optimize your text 2. Optimize your HTML First, Ill give you an overview of each process, with detailed explanations instructions to follow. In the first part, you will go into the page itself, in Edit view, and do the following: 1. Bold the upper left primary keyword in 10pt text 2. Italicize the primary keyword in the headline. 3. Optimize your headline (H1) 4. Optimize your sub-headline (H2) Secondly, you will open the HTML view and do the following: 5. Insert your Title tag 6. Insert your Page description tag 7. Insert your Keyword meta tags 8. Insert your Alt tags
Bolded keyword
Any page that you write should have the Primary Keyword bolded in the top left hand corner of the page. So, every page that I write has a simple rule, whereby I bold that pages Primary keyword discretely in the far upper left (or right depending on the template). I reduce its size to 8pt or 10pt because its really not for readers. Its strictly spider food.
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Once youve changed Editors, simply return to the page youre working on to see the Basic HTML Editor view of the page. In my case, I have returned to the BBQ Product page, where I now see that I no longer see the nicely formatted text as shown above, but rather, the HTML version of the page.
You may feel a bit nervous about touching the html, but just follow these instructions and you will be fine. At this point we simply need to add the <H1> and </H1> tags, which is short for your headline tag, in the locations shown below.
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Next, I am going to update my sub-headline by scrolling down the page a little so that I can add the <H2> opening and </H2> closing tags as shown here.
Once youre done, and you have pressed save, you should switch back from the Basic HTML Editor to the Activedit Editor and return to the page. If the font size is larger than normal, simply change it back to your 14pt for the headline and 12pt for the subheadline, once the procedure is completed.
How-to create your Title tag, Keyword and Meta Description tags
In the HTML area of each page, it is necessary to insert a title (Title Tag), description (Meta Description Tag) and keywords (Keyword Tag) for the page.
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This is and easy, but extremely important item that is critical to obtaining top rankings at the search engines. In a moment Ill show you how to insert these tags into the page, but first Ill take a minute and show you how they should best be formatted. In days gone by, I would simply list my Primary and Tier-1 Secondary keywords for the page title. Old Style: (I.e. gas barbecue grills, barbecue smokers, portable gas grills) Today, because the search engines are far more advanced, I can now create a title for the page that reads more naturally (theres that word again). So now, I can develop an accurate title for the page, that reads well and entices the reader to action. New Style: (I.e. Gas Barbecue Grills, Smokers & Portable Gas Grills to YOUR Door!) If you have a close look at the new style title tag, you will notice that I only used the word barbecue once, because it reads better, and that what the search engines want. As for the Meta Description tag, it is simply an accurate 20-30 description of you page that includes your Primary and Tier-1 Secondar keywords. The Keyword tag is simply a listing on your Primary, Tier-1 and Tier-2 Secondary keywords. Next, Ill give you a further example of what these tags could look like, and how to insert them.
How-to insert your Title tag, Keyword and Meta Description tags
Before you begin, be sure to have your written page title (title tag), page description (meta-description) and have your Primary and tier-1 keywords (meta-keywords) handy.
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NOTE: This was prepared using your Product Page Optimization chart. This is very simple to do. Find and select the Edit tab for the BBQ product page:
And paste your information into the fields provided, click Save and youre done. See sample below.
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Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of this process.
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When the time comes to write your content, (articles) simply follow the same steps for organizing Product Page, as I have done, by using the two Article page charts provided. As far as your Article page keywords are concerned, you simply work down your keyword list and research and write as much content as possible, choosing each pages Primary Keyword, one or two Tier-1 Secondary Keywords, and a handful of carefully selected Tier-2 Secondary Keywords, just like you did for your Product pages. But the actual writing of these can wait until you have completed this manual, for there is a bit more work to do.
Note: By adding quotation marks in the term contact us as shown above when doing a Google search, the term becomes an exact search and will only return searches with that exact phrase. Based on my experiences, I suggest you strongly consider adding the following pages to each of your sites: Contact Us This page typically includes your contact information (i.e. company name, name of editor, mailing address, phone number and email). I sometimes include the contact information for my merchants (i.e. Grill Superstore) as well, so my visitors can direct any appropriate questions to them. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/contact_us.html (Password = freedom) Message From The Editor This page is a message from the editor, and is typically the editors biography. It should also include a logical tie-in to why the site was created. If you decide to add a similar page, I would encourage you to do a Google search for about the editor (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing and to design a page that is unique to you. It is also a good opportunity to include a few logical links to other pages on the site. I would also include a photo. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/editor.html
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About Us This page is usually about the company behind the site. It might include links to the Contact Us and Message From The Editor pages. Do a Google search for about us (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing, then design a page that is unique to you. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/about_us.html
Privacy Policy This page outlines your policy for dealing with the privacy of your visitors. Do a Google search for privacy policy (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing, then design a page that is unique to you. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/privacy_policy.html
Terms Of Use Agreement This page outlines to your visitors your terms for site use. Do a Google search for terms of use agreement (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing, then design a page that is unique to you. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/terms_of_use.html
Link To Us This page provides visitors with a number of pre-written links that they can use to link to your site. Do a Google search for link to us (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing, then design a page that is unique to you. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/link_to_us.html
And those pages might be just the start. In addition to the pages above, the reader also has a selection of pre-packaged pages available to them within the ez-WebBuilder system. A word to the wise: Dont turn on pages just because it is easy and set yourself up for a common mistake and that is overdoing it! Instead, approach the additional pages much like you have your home and product pages with attention to detail and the visitor in mind!
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And, you can rely on the tutorial provided in the ezWebBuilder system prior to each of the types of pages available to you. The tutorials are very thorough and give you a complete A to Z overview for each type of page including easy-to-understand information on how to and edit each. Some of these pages will be suitable for your site; some will not.
This really can be fun (no to mention highly beneficial) so play with the different types of pages by turning them on. You can always delete any page you dont want (very quickly and easily). Another word to the wise about this: Set aside enough time to do a really, really great job on every page you include on your site. Do not add a page simply for the sake of having another page. Add pages only when you can make sure they maintain the same level of quality your home page and product pages boast.
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Here are three more samples for you to review: Links This page features a helpful list of neatly organized websites for your visitor. If you decide to add a similar page, I encourage you to do a Google search for link pages (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing, then design a page that is unique to you. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/links.html Recommend Website This page allows your visitors to automatically send an email to a friend with a recommendation to visit your site. If you decide to add a similar page, I would encourage you to do a Google search for recommend site or refer a friend (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing, then design a page that is uniquely yours. See samples: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/recommend.html Press Releases This feature allows you to easily add, manage and date stamp any press release (more on this in Step #8) you have listed on your site. If you decide to add a similar page, I encourage you to do a Google search for press releases or media releases (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing, then design a page that is unique to you. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/press_releases.html Articles This feature allows you to easily add, manage and date stamp all of the articles listed on your site. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/articles.html (Password = freedom) GREAT job! Take a minute to catch your breath. Youve worked through a wealth of information and you are well on your way. Lets enter the home stretch now.
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Yes, you really are about to finish the text for all of your pages. Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back before we get back on course
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In addition, you can upload custom images of your own. I will provide you with information on how and where to order graphics for your pages shortly. But first, lets brainstorm some ideas for the graphics I can use on the pages of the BBQ site. I would like a nice photograph of the editor for the Message From The Editor page maybe Ill take it with my digital camera with a chefs hat and redcheckered apron on, standing in front of a barbecue. I would also like to include an image of the editors signature for the bottom of the Message From The Editor page. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/editor.html I would like to add a few photos of people enjoying a backyard barbecue for the home and product pages.
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And, I would like to add a photograph of any barbecue we discuss, mention or review on the site. Ill grab these images from the merchant site. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net (Password = freedom)
To save yourself wasted time and effort, take just a minute to review the tutorial for adding images to your site. The tutorial is located in the Help & Support area on the Adding Images link of the ez-WebBuilder site.
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You can also do a Google search for low cost images or you can visit the site below (Stock.Xchng) to choose from almost 200,000 royalty free photos that can be added to your site. http://www.sxc.hu/ This is a gem of a site and one you will go back to again and again I certainly do.
Take some time now relying on the ez-WebBuilder tutorials to guide you, to add images to your pages. This is unbelievably easy so do it now and see for yourself the great results! Only you will know how easy the process was.
Baby step #2 Its time to make some observations Baby step #3 Whats it going to be? Baby step #4 Use a work order to organize your thoughts Part 2 Upload your content Baby step #5 Import your content Baby step #6 Identify the images Baby step #7 Place an order for custom graphics Baby step #8 Upload your images Baby step #9 Wrap up your pages Baby step #10 Complete this checklist
Once you have content and images for your pages, and understand the keywords and how to use them, how to upload images and optimize the pages for search engines then you are ready for the NEXT step.
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Step #7 Step #7 Affiilliiate Programs + AdSense = Profiits Aff ate Programs + AdSense = Prof ts
Desired outcome
At the completion of THIS step you will have joined one affiliate program, become a member of the Google AdSense sponsored link program, printed and studied all aspects of each program, selected links from each, copied the HTML code for each into the appropriate pages, and previewed all Product pages to ensure the links are loading correctly.
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And, although there are many great affiliate programs, which you will undoubtedly join as your publishing career progresses, Ill use TheGrillSuperStore.com, to walk you through the process of joining an affiliate program, and placing ads to your home and product pages. Then, once we are done with affiliate programs, Ill introduce you to the Google AdSense sponsored link program. Buckle up, folks. This step promises us a fun and exciting ride! (And we deserve some fun after making our way through the previous long step congratulations to you once again!)
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Part I Joiin your fiirst affiilliiate program Part I Jo n your f rst aff ate program
Again, an affiliate program is a business relationship where one website owner (a merchant) agrees to pay another website owner (an affiliate) a commission simply for referring customers. Merchants typically manage their affiliate program by joining a commission network such as Commission Junction, LinkShare, LinkConnector, NetShops or ShareaSale who provide third-party tracking and infrastructure or by purchasing and installing specialized tracking software on their own server.
As mentioned earlier, its important that your site is complete - at least in appearance, prior to joining your first affiliate program. And, you DO need your own domain name.
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
You should also be prepared to write a brief description of your website. This information is conveyed to the advertiser, who may use this data to determine whether or not to approve you. Once you have completed the affiliate application, in most cases, you should be approved instantly and receive your login information by email.
In other cases, some advertisers approve each publisher manually, so you may have to wait a day or two for approval. Once you receive your password, AND change it to your PERMANENT password, then you should login to the members area. Once logged-in to your account area, take some time, and familiarize yourself with the features and tutorials provided by the advertiser. If they have provided you with printed literature, as many do, take the time to print and review it. The advertiser knows their program better than anyone else and if they have taken the time to develop a document that can provide you with some insight, its worthwhile slowing down a little and taking in the information provided. In my case, TheGrillSuperStore.com does a reasonable job of providing me with the information I need to know to successfully add and manage the ads I plan to place on the BBQ site.
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The strategic placement of a few advertisers on each page is quite sufficient to make good money. Plus, many of your advertisers will easily overlap. By that I mean, that a single advertiser could be appropriate for several different Product pages. For example: On the BBQ site, I have a Product page about Barbecues, another about Grills, one for Smokers, another for Portable Barbecues and one about Barbecue Accessories. One logical advertiser for all of these Product pages is obviously TheGrillSuperStore.com, thats why I chose them, because they have products suitable for each of these pages. So, as you can see, you could end up with just a handful of lucrative advertisers being represented across the full spectrum of all your product pages. The key here is to realize that a handful of relevant merchants for each site you build equates to a money machine! And the Primary and Tier-1 Secondary keywords for that Product page will automatically suggest the best types of advertisers. In all, there should be very little guesswork. Many Webmasters mistakenly think that they need to cram dozens of offers into every page. My question to you is this: Whenever you walk into a typical brick n mortar store to buy something, do you appreciate it when the staff swarm all over with cheesy grins accompanied by the commonplace question, may I help you? Or, do you prefer being approached by a friendly clerk who simply says, thank-you for coming in, hopefully you will find what you want. My name isif I can be of any assistance please dont hesitate to ask.
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A website that opens with an assault of confusing or annoying messages runs the risk of losing impact, because the defenses tend go up in most people, when initially offered too much information, before their needs are properly addressed. A few rules of thumb for my sites are to: 1. Be brief 2. Be clear 3. Be helpful
Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
usually placed within and/or below the 300+ words of content. And a simple text link is all you need. However, I also include a graphic in some cases, but NO distracting flash banners. So, even though most advertisers offer an array of marketing materials (creative), you would be very wise to heed my advice here and go with a simple text link (which most also provide). NOTE: Be sure to modify your text links to have the same appearance, in terms of layout, font and size as the body of your page. It is my belief that one reason for my high conversion rate is that my merchant links blend into the page, thereby attracting the eye, rather that distracting the eye, as is often the case with animated banners, which viewers ignore in droves because, to them, it is obviously just advertising. I liken it to reading about a company in a magazine or newspaper versus seeing an ad for a company. The ad seems like a pitch. While the article appears like an endorsement, since it is part of the copy. It is actually a referral made by the author (you) of the article being read by your visitor. So simply offer some in context words about a merchant related to that pages content and include a link. Remember that if a visitor finds your site, and is interested enough to read some of what youve written, to the point where they eventually glance at your merchant text-link, then they really are inclined to see you as an authority. And you are.
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For instance, if you chose baby gift baskets as your topic, then researched the heck out of baby gifts, offering 300+ words on the subject, which your reader responded positively, too, then discreetly added that Arons-Baby-Baskets.com might be a good place to shop online for excellent baby gifts, you have earned the right to be an expert. In any case, at that point, you certainly know a lot more than most of your readers; so dont be shy to make a recommendation or two.
Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
NetShopAffiliates, but may find merchants through Commission Junction, Linkshare etc.
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
Then, as you will see in the above screenshot, there are four ways to find merchants: 1. By Campaign 2. By Other Criteria 3. By Category 4. By Type Of Banner Since I already know who Im looking for, I simply go to the By Campaign list and scroll down the alphabetical directory until I find TheGrillSuperStore.com.
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as I analyze my tracking reports, Ill get a better idea of who coverts best. If I find that my 6% commission merchant actually makes more money that the 10% merchant, because the conversion rate for the former is greater, then I simply change their position. And when I say position, I am referring to the order in which they appear on my site. Generally, I gain many more click-thrus from merchants listed first. So its important to have your higher paying, or better converting, advertiser ahead of the others.
Banner Ad
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Text Link Ad
And out of the total of 10 ads, I found 3 text link ads. No problem however, because all I need is one.
Get HTML
Next, Ill select the text link ad above for my BBQ Product page, so you can more easily visualize a similar process that YOU will follow with your merchant.
First, I would like a new browser window to open each time a visitor clicks on the text link ad so that they will still remain on my site by opening a new browser over top of your site, rather leaving the site entirely. This is important because you dont want to lose a visitor who may click on a merchant that doesnt interest them. In the screenshot below, you will see what a visitor to my Gas-BBQ-Grills.net site sees when clicking through to a merchant. Notice that my Gas-BBQ-Grills.net site remains open in the background, so if my visitor closes TheGrillSuperStore merchant site, they still remain with me, and may either bookmark, read further, or visit another of my advertisers.
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This can be easily accomplished by making a very simple addition to the merchants HTML - as highlighted in blue in the screenshot that follows.
Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
NOTE: Be sure that you switch from the Activedit Editor shown below to the Basic Editor.
In the two screenshots that follow, I scroll to the location where I want to insert my text link ad and left-click the mouse so that the flashing cursor appears.
In the screenshot below, you will see that I then pasted the link into the location. I did this by hitting Ctrl-V to paste my link into that location.
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In a moment I will show you how to modify your text (when necessary so no worries). But for now, lets assume Im happy with the text link as it is, so I hit Save.
Then, I return to my BBQ Product page and scroll down to the bottom of my page and locate my text link, where I notice that the font needs to be increased in size to match the rest of the text on the page.
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
I make these changes by simply highlighting the text and changing the font size to 12 as shown below.
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
If you look closely at the pay code you will notice it also includes my affiliate ID; aid=CD2164, which is important because I would like to get paid (as do you).
So, with this understanding, let me now know show you a simpler and much quicker way, to add text link ad to any of your Product pages in the ez-WebBuilder.
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First, copy the entire pay code by highlighting it and then hitting Ctrl-C (copy)
Next, to give you a visual of the process, Ill go to the BBQ Product page on my site within the ez-WebBuilder, and highlight the text I wish to link.
Next, I paste my pay code into the HREF field, and add; _blank to the Target field so that a new browser is opened each time the link is clicked.
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
Once done, I click on Insert Link, and now I have a new text link ad on the page.
Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
Product pages were limited to a very manageable handful; while article pages sometimes number in the hundreds.
Login Panel (for Google Mastery): www.work-at-home-net-guides.com/login-panel.html Username: barney Password: google
But heres a quick overview of the concept. Google has set up its own pay-per-click program so that businesses can get traffic on a pay-per-click basis. And now we can profit by being on the receiving end of pay-per-clicks. Heres how. Google is willing to do a revenue split with Internet publishers a split of the revenue they get from businesses that pay them for click-thrus to their sites.
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part I Join your first affiliate program
As a member of the Google AdSense program you place JavaScript code on your site that will display a set of Ads By Google. And if a visitor clicks on one of these ads youll earn a piece of the pie. The amounts vary from industry to industry and from keyword to keyword but that is all explained by Google when you join.
Now here is the reason these Google Ads are different from a typical merchant ad
Google uses JavaScript which only needs to be inserted ONCE. And JavaScript doesnt bleed PageRank either (another issue, which is covered in my Google Mastery report). Once inserted those revenue-generating ads populate ALL of your pages automatically. All 300 pages if thats the size of your site! And better yet, Google displays the MOST appropriate ad based on its analysis of your pages content. Meaning that if your page was about baby strollers and Google had a pay-per-click client in the baby stroller business then a baby stroller Ad By Google would automatically appear on that page. Same with every page of your site. And, I have set-up a few styles of AdSense ads for my Gas-BBQ-Grills.net site. http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net Password: freedom As you will see, there are a few varied color options. Ill tell you upfront that I prefer the color of the AdSense ad I used on the homepage because it really stands out. Cool, eh?
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What a boon this has been for students who got the message early on that to win at this you MUST continually add quality content to your site. And, you dont stop until your keyword list is exhausted. You then build another site on another topic and just keep going.
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Part 2 Joiin the Googlle AdSense Part 2 Jo n the Goog e AdSense sponsored lliink program sponsored nk program
I am not a fan of newsletters and dont subscribe to many; however I do read what Allan Gardyne, of Associate Programs, has to say.
It was in the 226th issue that Allan predicted Google's AdSense Program is going to have a huge impact on ad networks and the affiliate marketing industry. It was a bold remark. And he was very right.
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part 2 Join the Google AdSense sponsored link program
Now heres how you benefit: Google is willing to do a split on the revenue they get from those businesses that pay them for click thrus to their sites. As a member of the Google AdSense program you simply place JavaScript code on your site ONCE. (Outlined further in Step #8 Building Trafffic From Multiple Sources) From that time forward, these ads display on each page. And if a visitor clicks on one of these ads youll earn a piece of the action just for the click. The amounts vary from industry to industry and from keyword to keyword but that is all explained by Google when you join. Now heres the reason these Google Ads are different from a typical merchant ad.
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Once you application has been approved, take some time and begin to familiarize yourself with the AdSense for Content, AdSense Blog, FAQ and Optimization Tips.
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Next, I scroll down the page to locate the Manage Custom Channels area (shown in the screenshot below).
I then create a name for each page that I would like to track, which, for now, is my for home and product pages. When I am done, I click Create New Channel. Once done, I will see a list of channels that I have created, one for each of my home and product pages. You may add additional channels later for other pages on the site if you would like more detailed tracking.
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Now that we are done with setting up the channels, I need to determine where I plan to place my ad.
Now, one of the main reasons I suspect this location works so well, is because we naturally read from left to right and the ad (after the headline), is definitely one of the first things we see on the page. I have numerous different sizes of ads available from Google and typically settle on one of the following sizes: 468x60, 160x600, 250x250 or 350x250 (as shown in this next screenshot).
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Step #7 - Affiliate Programs + AdSense = Profits - Part 2 Join the Google AdSense sponsored link program
Still, I encourage you to learn how to test and try the different ad sizes provided by Google. This really is fun and highly beneficial. I also encourage you to try placing ads in different locations on the page (Google allows up to 3 ads per page). I have found that the skyscraper ads (a style of ad available in your AdSense account) can also produce good results. Try this now for yourself. Youre almost there; so dont start cutting corners now.
Ad formats
Google gives us the ability to modify the look of each of the ads we place on our sites. We can choose from border or no border, and we can change the color of the Link Title, Advertisers ad text, and the www.advertiser-url.com.
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Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting a format for your ads. I have found that those with a designers flair have a tendency to want to blend-in-the-ad to match the look and feel of the website. Dont do it. Ads should stand out and grab the readers attention. I have also found that the color of the Link Title, shown in the graphic above should be the standard click-on-meblue, because most people instantly recognize this color as a link. As I said above, there is no exact science you can rely on here and the best thing for you to do is to familiarize yourself with the AdSense system. You will use this system again and again so getting acquainted with it now just makes good sense. Because every site and every topic is different, you should start testing and tracking various formats so that you can determine which is best suited for your sites visitors. Yes, I am going to say it again. EVERYTHING on your site is there for the visitor and EVERYTHING you do should be with the visitor in mind.
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On the next page, select the type of Ad unit (I recommend choosing the default Text and image ads), and then press Continue.
On the next page, select your Ad Format. I would suggest choosing 250 x 250 Square for now.
You can preview all of the available Ad Formats by clicking on the link shown in the graphic above. Next, choose the with-no-border from the drop-down menu shown below. You can change it later if you like.
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At this point, I would like to change the border and background color of the google ad from white, to the gray background color to match my site. As you can see in the screenshot above, the current # for both the Border and the Background is set to FFFFFF. I can find the # codes for the background color of my site, by heading over to ez-WebBuilder where I login to my account, and then click on the Design icon in the toolbar.
Next, I click on the Edit Body tab, and locate the Background # code, which, in my case, is C5CFB8. Yours will be different for your template. I make a note of the code, and you should, too.
I then head back to Google AdSense and replace the Border and Background # codes, which are currently FFFFFF, to the one I just collected from the ez-WebBuilder.
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Once thats done, Ill scroll down the page, assign the ad I am creating to my BBQ Product page channel in the dropdown menu, and press Continue.
Ok, were almost done, and not too worry, once you get the hang of this, you will fly through it with great ease. When you press the Continue button, shown in the previous screenshot, you are presented with the JavaScript for your new ad.
Not too worry; it is not nearly as scary as it looks. In truth, it can be great fun, so just relax, take a deep breath and keep moving forward here the finish lines in sight now!
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And, while youre taking a few deep breaths, Id like to point out that the Quick Start Guide (which is visible in the screenshot above) is an excellent source for additional information, so feel free to check it out any time you need a little help. In fact, you may want to make a note of it, so you can refer back to it later. Next, I need you to login to the updates page to grab a copy of the code (shown below) I use to neatly display the Google ad in the first paragraph of a page. For information on the updates page, go to page 2 of this manual for the login URL, username and passcode. I had the wrapping code developed for my personal use and you are welcome to use it as well so that you may properly display the google ad on your page. Wrapping code shown below:
Now, what you need to do next is simply insert the Google AdSense JavaScript that you just created into the location of the wrapping code (as show above highlighted in blue). Once you have replaced the blue highlighted section with your google AdSense JavaScript, the combined code will look like this:
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Great work! All thats left to do now is to head back over to the ezWebBuilder and insert the code into the page, below the headline (as shown below), in the Basic HTML Editor view.
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And then I press Save, to preview the new ad inserted into the first paragraph of my BBQ Product page.
As you can see, the google ad is posted above and you will notice a number of things: 1. The ad looks neat and tidy 2. The fonts are blue to remind readers it is a hyperlink 3. The text wraps nicely around the ad 4. The ad is on the left side of the page, following the natural flow to read left to right. Sure, we covered a lot of ground here, but as I said above, the finish line is in plain view now. But before we prepare to cross it together, I would like to point out that its really up to you to learn how to display the ads on your pages. Have fun with this. Be creative. Make your ads stand out.
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And, once you have done this, you will want to put your efforts to the test measure the profitability of each ad. Now is the perfect time for a Starbucks break. You may want a little java in your veins for we are about to build a steady stream of visitors all going straight to your new site.
At the completion of THIS step you have become a member of the Commission Junction network as a publisher, downloaded, printed and studied their 57-page Publisher Account Manager Guide, joined some of their most lucrative affiliate programs, selected links from your chosen advertisers, copied the HTML code for each into the appropriate Product page, embedded protective shareware into the HTML of your pages to protect them from scumware and previewed all Product pages to ensure ads are loading correctly.
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Step #8 Step #8 Buiilldiing Traffiic from Mulltiiplle Sources Bu d ng Traff c from Mu t p e Sources
Desired outcome
At the completion of THIS step you will have submitted your site to the major search engines, reviewed my Google Mastery report, have a good understanding of Link Popularity, created a linking plan for your site, begun the process of writing and continually adding Articles and linking them strategically to your Home and Product pages, created a site map, started to gather inbound links using the PAD technique, added link to us and link pages, considered purchasing a few links, and added a traffic analysis counter.
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By gaining a firm grasp on what Im about to reveal, you will position yourself to profit in a big way with affiliate and sponsored link programs, in ANY industry you choose. By properly executing the few final steps in this module, you will dramatically improve your chances of getting massive exposure on the Net at the search engines, especially Google.
Baby step #1: Submit your site to all the major search engines
Until the search engines index you, which can take between 5 minutes to 5 months, you essentially have a lonely brochure that relies solely on your promotional efforts to drive eyeballs to it. But, thankfully your site has been carefully organized to rank highly with search engines so that people find you. But THAT can only take place after your site gets submitted to the search engines. Since the beginning of my online publishing career, I have relied on a by donation only service called SelfPromotion.com to submit to all the major search engines and indexes.
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One of the key components of this service is an extremely powerful automated submission tool. The owner, Robert Woodhead, originally created this site because of being repeatedly spammed by scam artists who promised theyd register his URL at the top 500 search engines. As he says, there arent anywhere near 500 search engines, only about a dozen major English-language search engines that generate 90% of all traffic. Plus, there are about 200 general and special purpose indexes that are useful. NOTE: A search engine is a database of web pages, while an index is a database of web sites. Your listing in an index depends on what you tell them, not whats on your page, as with search engines. Robert goes on to say: So, having been quite annoyed, and given that there is nothing more dangerous than an annoyed hacker (in the original, honorable meaning of the word), I decided to build a site that would let everyone properly register their URL to all major search engines and indexes. And he states the purpose of his site as follows: If you want more people to visit your website, you must know how to create search-engine-friendly web pages, and then submit your URL to all the major search engines. That's what this site is all about. The good thing about Robert Woodhead is that hes reliable, has a great sense of humor, and is always upto-date with the ever-changing world of Web promotion.
exposure, then SelfPromotion.com can really make life easy for you, especially since Robert stays up-to-date on the new engines and indexes, as well as their ever changing protocols. SelfPromotion.com ingeniously automates the process by generating a custom form that you fill out only once. Then Tooter his tireless submission daemon goes around the Net and does all the typing for you, which saves you a huge amount of time. www.selfpromotion.com
Yahoo is an exception
While tooter will automatically submit your site to a ton of places, it does not auto-submit to major indexes such as Yahoo, Open Directory or Snap. The reason is that listings in these indexes are sufficiently valuable and because of this, a hand-done, optimized submission is well worth taking the time to craft. And, thankfully, Robert, at SelfPromotion.com, conveniently provides the correct rules.
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SelfPromotion.com in a nutshell
1. Roberts submission service is free. He calls it a shareservice. However, for as low as a $10 annual fee he offers extras, such as an espionage tool that analyses competitors sites and multi-submit which turbo-charges the whole process. 2. Tooter is comprehensive. It knows how to talk to all the important search engines and indexes, (and a lot of the semi-important ones) and the list is growing daily. He has even compiled a list of over 500 specialty indexes and search engines targeting particular topics and regions. 3. What I like the best is that the tedious (and important) task of submission now takes only minutes. And as you build more sites, this can really be a time saver. Hell let you submit up to 10 sites per account. 4. And I trust the guy. There are many scam artists out there offering to do a few free submissions, in order to get you on the hook for fees up to $500. 5. His Secret Net Tools have been indispensable to my growth in affiliate marketing. I recommend, that as soon as you have opened a free account and tested his service by submitting your site with tooter, that you return and make a donation to gain access to the Secret Net Tools.
b. Getting listed in Yahoo 2. Articles: a. Trends in Submission b. Glossary of Useful Terms 3. About the Site: a. How it works
Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of SelfPromotion.com.
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This report reflects a great deal of time and work and really helps cement your foundational knowledge of Google. And, once you understand completely how the worlds most popular search engine works, there will be no stopping you!
Take a minute now to review the Table of Contents for the report. Youre nearing the handbook and I know youre getting excited (and I am glad). For now, however, lets take a deep breath, grab your beverage of choice, and a note pad and pen. Go ahead and take notes you will really want to take-in all of this information. And, its so, so important that you do! Table of Contents Part ONE Mastering Google Basics 1. The History of Google A Good Place To Start 2. Learning To Do Better Searches Makes You A Better Content Publisher 3. Work With Google NOT Against Them
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4. Meet Googles Two Spiders FreshBot And GoogleBot And Learn Why FreshBot Can Make It Seem Like Your Site Disappeared 5. Indexing Cycles Explained 6. Google NoNos Stay Away From Search Engine Games Or Pay the Price Of Lost Rankings Part TWO Mastering Your Pages 1. Google Finds Pages Not Sites 2. Stemming Makes It Easier To Write Content 3. Keyword Density Review 4. Site Submission Review Part THREE Mastering Your Links 1. Google Provides The Most Relevant Search Results Because It Factors In Back Links (backward links) So YOU Need To Do The Same 2. ON-Page Linking Strategies 3. OFF-Page Linking Strategies Part FOUR Mastering Your Income 1. The Google AdSense Program Make A Lot Of Dollars AND Cents 2. Keep Publishing Dont Stop Its Money In The Bank 3. How Chat-Rooms Can Cost You Money 4. A Twice-a-Month Buzz Subscription Keeps You Inspired, Informed And Motivated -- PLUS You Get My Valuable Report On Hiring Authors For FREE!
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www.jamesmartell.com/audio-reports/googlemastery/index.html
Username: barney Password: google Listen to this report BEFORE moving forward trust me here. As I mentioned before, the information in this report is needed so what follows makes perfect sense. I want all of this to be crystal clear to you (which is why I wrote the report and provided it free to you). Assuming you took my advice, you just learned some pretty neat stuff and acquired a healthy respect for the search engines, which, as you now know, have a pretty tough job. Better yet, you can now really appreciate the importance of inbound links. Which brings us to this next bit of information
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Of course, this presents a huge challenge to its engineers who must devise algorithms that effectively prioritize these pages. In previous modules, you learned the very best techniques for optimizing your content to attract the attention of search engine spiders, plus you learned how to do your submissions the right way. And, until very recently, that was all that was needed to win the search engine wars, as far as I knew. But, now you must do a little bit more. The reason is that Google, along with several major search engines, has started to factor in another important criteria in determining rankings. So, in addition to the optimization you have done, the search engines also really want to know who is linking to you. As the name implies, the term link popularity is a measure of how popular your page is, based on the number and quality of incoming links from other external pages on the Net! And, how important a particular page is within your site, which is based on how many internal links are pointing to that page, signifying THIS page is IMPORTANT.more important than the rest. Of course, your money pages are your Home and Product pages, so most of the links from your Article pages (internal) and other pages on the Net (external) will point there. Simple really. All of the major search engines factor link popularity into their relevancy algorithms, in one form or another. As a result, by increasing the number of links to your site, (or page) you can dramatically improve your rankings.
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But it is also important to have quality links. A quality link is a link from a site (or page) that already has high link-popularity. I regularly get PageRank at Google of between 4 and 5, on many of my pages, which is very good. If you find a page on the Net with a similar PageRank at Google, AND can get a link back to a Home or Product page on your site, then a measure of its PageRank is conferred on your receiving page, which boosts that pages ranking accordingly. So, if you found a page with a PageRank of 5, lets say, (whether external or internal) and put a link on it to a page with a PageRank of 1, then the PageRank of the receiving page would typically jump to 3-4 during the next indexing! I see evidence of this process all over my sites every day. So please pay close attention to the precise way that I go about this below. It could be worth a lot of money to you but you have to learn to do this the right way.
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Kids usually had several choices on any given Friday or Saturday night. Uppermost in these teenagers minds were thoughts like, will the band be good? and will there be lots of cute girls or nice guys? who else is going? What the lineup inferred was this . everybodys going!
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Thats because people who are guessing are writing much of what you read there. The real secret to understanding link popularity is to recognize that these changes are simply another way for Google (and others) to improve their search results. For instance: If you have a bona fide site about automotive products, with Product pages about leasing, parts, accessories, tools and loans, then all you have to do is devise ways to green flag the spiders about the true nature of your site. There is no need to try and fool anybody with link spamming. Simply follow the rules I have used successfully to gain maximum rankings by organizing your internal links properly and by gathering links from external sources (as I will outline shortly). But first, Ill develop an inbound link plan for Gas-BBQGrills.net so you can get a visual on what it takes to obtain top rankings at the search engines, especially Google.
And some Articles, - if constructed with care, - should also receive an inbound link from time-to-time from other webmasters who will link to them because of the quality of their content. (Obviously, this is just another reason to create valuable content.) Stop here and think about all of this for just a minute. I mean really think about it all. Do you see now how focusing all of your time and attention on working on the site, and ignoring or not spending enough time to gather up the required number of links, can defeat your best efforts here? If this isnt clear to you, go over the above information once again. Now you will understand the entire business boils down to only two things: publishing quality content and arranging quality inbound links. Thats really it. Everything else is just details. And, much like it took some focused effort to get your initial home and product pages created, - it will also take focused effort to get the initial inbound links for your new site. And now that you thoroughly understand the importance of inbound links, its time to do a quick estimation of how many are needed.
This gave you insight into the approximate number of inbound links required for the Primary keyword chosen for that Product page. In the case of the BBQ Product page, the Primary keyword I selected for the page is gas barbecue grills. Ill do another backward link check for you below, - as a refresher, - so you can better understand the procedure I follow to determine how many links are needed for any one page of a site. (You will need to have downloaded the Google Toolbar to complete the next steps.) To begin, I will first do a Google search for gas barbecue grills as shown in the screenshot below.
I then click on the site in the #1 spot, which in this case is grillsearch.com, and do a Backward Link check.
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I can see by the backward link check that the page in the number one spot in the rankings, - as shown in the screenshot above, - has a total of 42 backward links, - as shown in the screenshot below.
Upon closer evaluation of the 42 backward links, I can see that 18 of the inbound links are from pages on their own site (known as internal links), and 14 of them of from other pages on other sites on the Net (known as external links).
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I also determine by clicking through the four pages of Google results, that Google is only showing 32 of the 42 links. I told you there are anomalies with the backward link checks. But not too worry; it gives us a good place to start. And with this information, in order to compete for the #1 spot, I can begin to make some estimates based on my Google backward links check such as, that I need at least 32 inbound links pointing to my BBQ Product page. I estimate that 14 of these links should come from pages on other sites and 18 links from within pages on my own site. That shouldnt be too difficult.
I will use the Primary (gas barbecue grills) and Tier-1 Secondary keyword (barbecue grill) from the Product page - as the clickable anchor text links that will point back to that page. In addition to those keywords, I also like to vary it up a little so I will use a variation of the Primary (gas barbecue grill) and Tier-1 Secondary keyword (barbecue grills). I will also use this website address for the page as well: (http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/gas_barbecue_grills.html). So, in total then, I have determined that I will use five different anchor text links when arranging links back to my BBQ Product page. I know this may seem like a lot to wrap your brain around, but it really is just in the details now. And, if you listened to my Google Mastery report, this should all start making sense. Now, lets keep moving. As you will see, I have chosen a variety of anchor text options because it gives the BBQ Product page the opportunity to rank for multiple keywords - and so will you - if you just follow my lead. And once I gain rankings for the keywords above, I can expand the list to include other similar words such as gas grill or gas barbecue review, or other keywords on my list that relate to that page. See. Its just not that hard. And, you just follow this same process for each of your own Home and Product pages. Of course, there is no exact science for this process - I may need to find a few more links but will wait until after we see where we end up once the page has been ranked before I decide this. For now, we have selected a variety of anchor text links for each page so its time to start setting up some internal links, which can be great fun.
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would get you a lot of brownie points with a hungry search engine spider. So you should always think: what would be of most interest to my reader? Are the topics of both pages sending and receiving related? 3. Place a few links (two or three) within the text of the article as they would naturally occur. And be sure to use keywords as the anchor text for each hyperlink (see below for a typical use of keywords as anchor text within your articles). Obviously, each link goes to a related Article or Product page on this site.
NOTE: You place anchor text within the articles in addition to providing a site map or a related articles directory. Put as many as you see fit. The rule of thumb here is: Am I making it easier for visitors to get the information they want? In the case of my BBQ Product page, I have estimated that I require approximately 18 inbound links to the page from other pages on the site. To accomplish this, I will provide a backlink from my Home Page, three Product pages, Site Map, and 13 different Articles to the page, with each page using one of the five different anchor text links I selected earlier.
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The bottom line is that youll have a tremendous advantage over competing pages at the search engines if you take my advice and write or have written numerous, quality, on topic pages that are internally linked with intelligence. Very few other sites owners know about the power of strategic internal linking to boost rankings. But YOU do! And you know what? VERY few Internet marketers know about this concept. So please do this as I suggest. And dont delay. As I have found out, things can change fast on the Net.
Visit the Updates page (see page 2 of the manual) for a video tutorial of the internal link process.
2. The name of every Product page (also keyword focused) I have organized many Site Maps and each one of them is different than the other and unique to the site. The main thing I keep in mind when creating a Site Map is that it, too, is a GREAT place to develop a neatly organized list of links to ALL pages on the site - using of course, the appropriate anchor text. I would recommend that you take some time and organize your site in a logical manner on paper. I also strongly encourage you to do a Google search for site map (in quotation marks) to see what others are doing and to design a page that is unique to you. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/site_map.html Once you have developed a site map for your site on paper, you should login to the ez-WebBuilder, click on the Add Page icon in the toolbar, and add the page.
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As shown in the screenshot above, the publish date appears to the left, and the hyperlinked headline and first paragraph of the article appears to the right. And if you have used the Primary keyword in the headline, - as I have above, - the anchor text link becomes another great internal link. It takes two steps to set up an Article Map in the ezWebBuilder system, beginning with the creation of the article page, and then with the addition of individual articles. Ill begin by showing you how to set-up the Article Map page, - which begins with clicking on the Add Page icon in the toolbar.
Next, locate and click on the Articles icon within the menu that appears.
Then I add a title for the page, uncheck the Check to show box (I add a link to the Article Map manually in my page Footer menu more on this in the next Baby step), and then click the Add Web Page button.
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I then format the Article Map by creating a headline and a paragraph or two that preambles the list of Articles that will be automatically displayed there each time I add one. You should now be getting into the habit of writing articles and publishing them to your site on a regular basis. Early on, you will probably be writing the bulk of your articles. If time permits, I strongly suggest you write an article or two a day. For those of you who do not have much time, write an article or two a week, or hire an author from Elance. (See Hiring Authors report) Remember that each article represents a keyword from your keyword list. There may be 50 articles to write or 300 articles to write depending on the length of your keyword report. Also remember that each article will point back to a Product page (or two or three) and might also point back to another article. Be sure to follow the standard keyword density rules and more importantly, write naturally. Now that I have successfully added an Article Map, I can add an article to the site by following a simple procedure, where I first click on the Manage Pages icon in the toolbar.
Then I locate the Article page in the index, and click on the Edit link.
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I then click on the Add Article tab, and add the article by carefully completing each of the fields in full.
Remember: There are an array or problems that occur as a result of duplicating content, all of which we have detailed throughout this handbook. The examples I provide you are just that examples. You will need to develop your own unique content, - and that goes for things such as Site Maps as well as Footer menus, too. I always take the time to think through what I want my Footer menu to look like on paper and you really should, too. Once you have completed this small step, you can follow this next simple procedure. First, they click on the Manage Pages icon in the toolbar.
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Next, click on the Add a Footer to the Pages in Your Site link.
After this, simply add and format the links for the pages you would like to show up in your Footer menu. Note: Be sure to include a link to your all important Home and Product pages and be sure to use the appropriate anchor text.
Now, you may also want to include a link to a few of your Supporting pages, as I have done in the example above.
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Note: I dont typically optimize the Supporting pages, but rather label them exactly what they represent (I.e. Privacy Policy). And, I usually display the Footer menu on all pages of the site.
If you want more information on adding a Footer to your site, the ez-WebBuilder provides a great tutorial in the Help & Support area of the system so check it out.
Tracking your links and your progress Knowing how many links you need before you get started Paste a tracking sheet on the wall next to your computer Challenging yourself Dont wait to get started
grill). Now I am going to take you through 7 different linking strategies. And I am going to encourage you to pick a few of the plans, but to focus only on one strategy at a time. Note: Of all 7 strategies, the PAD Technique (Professional Article Distribution) is by far the most powerful, and should be your main focus.
I would also like to point out that some students really have done well with PAD, while others have struggled. The ones that do well seem to instinctually understand a few things: 1. Its a numbers game and they work to develop a list of 50-100 target websites 2. Quality articles are MUCH easier to distribute than crappy ones 3. When a webmaster responds to a request, its time to focus and do a little negotiating - because if they agree to publish one article, it is pretty easy to get them to agree to publish a couple more - especially if you create some custom content just for them 4. It is the most important job you can do because you can have the nicest site in the world, but with no inbound links, you will not gain top rankings at the search engines 5. Each PAD article only needs to be placed once but can be placed with more than one webmaster to a maximum of 3 times. If you havent done so already, take a minute right now to return to the Google Mastery report to download and print the Professional Article Distribution document as shown below. You will need this as we go forward. Its located in Part THREE - Mastering Your Links of my Google Mastery report.
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Login Panel (for Google Mastery): www.jamesmartell.com/audio-reports/googlemastery/index.html Username: barney Password: google
You saw me do this for my BBQ site. Now you know why. The important thing to remember is that you should provide the exact anchor text for them to use in their link to you. Otherwise you risk not informing their spider where the link goes. As you now know, your Primary keywords should be used as often as possible with hyperlinks. By writing text for your link partner, you insure that the most appropriate anchor text is used. The thing you want to avoid is the scenario where a Webmaster places a link on his site about Home and Garden Directories, lets say, to your site about Home and Garden, but then unknowingly hyperlinks click here portion. You did get a link, which is good, but what does click here tell the spider? Well, unfortunately, nothing. Whereas, if you had taken the time to provide your Internet friend with some anchor text that was already hyperlinked for the text, outdoor decor, lets say, which youve written a page about, then you would have signaled loud and clear to Googles spider that THIS page, which already scores high because it is linked from a Home and Garden site, is even MORE relevant because it is about outdoor dcor, which is a popular keyword. This way you increase your link-popularity by adding more precision, and relevancy. Obviously, since you will be posting a single set of instructions for other webmasters, you cannot get links to multiple pages. But as you will see in the example below, I provide links to my Home and Product pages, which, as you know,
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features various Primary keywords and some of my best merchants. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/link_to_us.html
The process to take advantage of this strategy is very simple: 1. Research and write a quality article 2. Add 2 or 3 anchor text links pointing each one back to your Home or Product pages 3. Submit the article to a few quality directories NOTE: Submitting articles to directories is a good strategy, however it is NOT a replacement for my PAD Technique, which is to provide an article to a webmaster who agrees to publish it on their site. To locate a few good directories, the reader simply needs to do a Google search for article directories, or visit the site below for a listing of the top directories. http://www.sitepronews.com/articledirectories.html TIP: If you plan to use article directories as a strategy to develop inbound links to your site, I would suggest writing one unique article for each of the 27 article directories listed on the site above, each of course embedded with 1-3 of your carefully crafted anchor text links back to the Home and Product pages of your site. This will give you between 27 and 81 inbound links to your site.
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Once we found one, we would send an email to the Webmaster and make a reciprocal link request. However, because this technique has been so widely used, it is no longer an effective method of creating inbound links to a site unless it is done with great care. And, by great care, I mean that I will only exchange a link with another website if the link that I place on my links page benefits not only me, but my visitors as well. In other words, only if it makes sense to exchange links, will I add their link to my page. In return, I will send the Webmaster a link to my Link to Us page so they can select an anchor text rich link for their site. You should know that I no longer go out looking for link partners; however, I do make it clear on my sites that I will exchange links with other related sites and I make it very easy for them to approach me. And there are enough other Webmasters out there still looking for link partners which is why this is a good strategy for attracting inbound links. All of this said you should be very particular in choosing which websites you link to. I would also suggest that you keep the inbound links from link partners to around 25% (or less) of the overall inbound link mix for your site. It takes just two steps to set up a Links page in the ezWebBuilder system starting with the creation of the links page, and then with the addition of individual link partners. Ill begin by showing you how to set-up the Links page, which begins with a click on the Add Page icon in the toolbar.
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Then click on the Add Page tab, enter a title for the page, uncheck the Check to show box and then press the Add Web Page button.
Next, add a headline and a one or two paragraph preamble to the page, and then click Save. See sample: http://www.gas-bbq-grills.net/links.html Once thats done, I return to the Links page, and click on the Add Link tab each time I want to add a new link partner.
In addition to adding link partners to the Links page, I will also list any other sites that I feel will be beneficial to my visitor.
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If you would like to give this strategy a try, I recommend the Permanent Links program offered by www.textlinkbrokers.com. Give them a call, or make your purchase online.
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But before we go there, lets touch on how we are going to send our press release out to the World Wide Web. I recommend you take a minute now and check out http://www.prweb.com
As you will see, you can register for free by providing a user name and password on the left hand side of the page. Once you have done this, take a site tour. I suggest you read press releases posted both on the homepage and in the archives (the tab for this is on the top of the homepage). This will show you how others are writing press releases. You can choose to read only the press releases that are related to your industry AND you can set up your account so you receive these every day delivered right to your Inbox for free. All you have to do is read these when they come in. You will learn more about your industry, about what your competitors are doing, about what works and what doesnt
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all of which you can use to keep your visitors informed. And, remember, that is your goal! Of course, you can also see how press releases are written. In fact, PRWeb now offers a Free Webinar that shows the basics of how the organization works, provides great press release writing tips and shows exactly how quick and easy the distribution process is for anyone! When youre ready, register for this Free Webinar! Trust me, here - youll be glad you did. And, in the meantime, I have provided a few notes on writing a press release to give you an idea of just how simple this process is: Use a catchy headline and make sure to incorporate your Primary keywords Tell the summary of the press release in the very first paragraph Use the body of the press release (the next few paragraphs following the first paragraph) to bottleneck which is really nothing more than clearly and concisely elaborating on the first paragraph Sprinkle the press release with keywords AND 2 or 3 links to your pages And much like sales letters for your website, the press release should provide a solution. With this in mind, it is always beneficial to write with the readers problem in mind Dont forget to share with the reader how and why you are credible and are a reliable source for the information conveyed in your press release A press release can be friendly, but above all else, it should be written in a crisp business format Stick to the point
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Your press release should end with a closing that includes a call to action (when applicable) and the closing should be an About Us paragraph Try to keep the press between 400 and 500 words (The press release example that follows was written by a professional writer who regularly writes press releases for a variety of clients and news distribution services. When writing one yourself, which is easy to do, keep it short and sweet. The following example gives you a good idea of how to write and format a release and does a good job of conveying the tone and style you should use.) Do not use hype or come across as trying to sale. Instead, convey valuable, usable information - this more than does the trick. And, anything that sounds pushy, has too much hype, or appears to be going for the hard sale, will not be picked up. Its just that simple.
There are samples of these on the PRWeb site, as well as instructions for distributing your press release. It is important you review these, as writing press releases and distributing them via the Net will provide you with huge returns. As an example of a press release, I have provided one that a professional writer wrote for my upcoming BootCamp I hope to see you there.
James Martell Shows BootCamp Attendees How To Cash-In On Online Shopping Trend From His Hometown Las Vegas, NV, March 27, 2006 Competition in the arena of affiliate marketing is fierce. Few successful affiliate marketers share their closely guarded secrets and even fewer encourage others to join in on this lucrative, home-based business, or are willing to show affiliate marketing newbies how they, too, can cash-in on the growing online shopping trend. All of thats about to change. James Martell, world-renowned affiliate marketing pioneer and one of the Webs most respected leaders, is offering a three-day, one-on-one training, or Affiliate Marketing BootCamp, as he calls it.
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Slated for June 4th, 5th and 6th 2006, on Canadas beautiful west coast, this training is sure to be as unique as Martell himself, with results as strong as his unparalleled online success. Targeted to new and experienced affiliate marketers alike, or for those who already have Martells recently refreshed Affiliate Marketing Handbook 2006, - THIRD EDITION (http://www.work-at-home-netguides.com) and are looking for the extra push they need to get up and running, Martells BootCamp packs years of his personal research, development, and experiences into just three days, making it an invaluable investment. More and more people are looking to work from home, where they can set their own hours, their own pace, and their own personal and financial goals, Martell explains. This BootCamp is as much for them as it is for the individual who has dabbled in affiliate marketing and may be floundering or perhaps just procrastinating. This BootCamp is about learning and about finally achieving, hopefully even exceeding, personal and financial goals, just as I have done. Attendees can expect Martell, who has expertly tapped into more than 60 different industries and boats nearly 100 specialty shopping sites via the Web, to show exactly how to: Research Topics Work with Web Publishing Software Choose Templates Plan Site Maps Develop Keyword Lists Use His Keyword Density Formula Choose Merchants Submit to Search Engines & Directories Work with Authors on Elance Arrange Quality Inbound Links Monitor Traffic Manage Site(s) Adjust to Online Change And much more
Martells BootCamp will be kicked off with a reception at the sprawling Martell home, where attendees will meet James business partner and wife, Arlene, and have a chance to discuss with the couple exactly how they have carved out enviable success as affiliate marketers.
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And, because Martell feels strongly about family time and family involvement, he is offering a 50% discount on BootCamp fees to all enrolling spouses. Whats more, all meals during the conference are on Martell and include a dining experience at his favorite local restaurant, making this a truly one-of-a-kind experience. For more information about Martells Affiliate Marketing BootCamp, go to http://www.affiliate-marketers-bootcamp.com/ About James Martell: (http://www.jamesmartell.com/) James Martell resides with his wife Arlene and four children Adam, Justin, Shelby and Victoria in White Rock, B.C., a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. Although a carpenter by trade, James has been in business for himself most of his adult life. Immediately before his foray into website publishing in 1999, he owned and operated two successful telecom services in the Vancouver area; one was an innovative idea that used a simple voicemail platform to offer extended-local-calling for a flat fee instead of the usual per-minute rates charged by the local phone company and the other service offered residents of Vancouver a series of telephone-based information hotlines, such as Movie Listings, Winning Lotto numbers and Road Reports. Finally he discovered the lucrative world of Affiliate Marketing from an associate who was doing well offering consumers free ISP accounts. Eager for similar success, James built his first website with FrontPage using the know how his friend taught him. Soon he was getting a staggering 5,000+ visitors a day through natural search results at the major search engines. Within six-months he branched out with four additional sites, providing an excellent monthly income similar to his former traditional business, while working from home, setting his own hours and finally enjoying the financial freedom and time with his family he desired. After first teaching a few of his friends the basic rules he formulated and then seeing them succeed, too, James launched workshops to train others. The success of his teachings led him to release a downloadable training version of the live classes, the original James Martells Affiliate Marketers Handbook, which now, three years later, has been revised and updated to become the most comprehensive handbook available today. (http://www.work-at-home-netguides.com) About Net Guides Publishing Inc.: (http://www.work-at-home-netguides.com/) Located in Las Vegas, NV, Net Guides US corporate headquarters is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Founded in 2002, Net Guides currently boasts nearly 100 specialty shopping sites spanning across more than 60 industries. Net Guides publishes the Affiliate Marketers Handbook and the respected twice-monthly audio newsletter, called the Affiliate Buzz and employs freelance writers from around the world.
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TIP: If you plan to use press release submission as a strategy to develop inbound links to your site, I would recommend that you begin with one, and then consistently distribute a new one each month.
347
techniques they had either developed themselves or by studying the teachings of others. That is definitely more my style. Enter Ed Keay-Smith, a reader of mine, and a valued associate from Perth Australia, who I met at CJU 2005. While at CJU, Ed introduced himself, and told me he was on a break-ation with his wife Lois and his daughter Sasha, who were eagerly awaiting the end of the conference, because they were all heading to Disneyland afterward. During the conference, Ed shared with me his success with paid search, and more particularly Google AdWords, and offered to give me some assistance in this area. He also gave me a nice software tool that he uses (and that I believe he had developed) to prepare his own keywords for his search campaigns. After the conference, Arlene and I headed for home, and Ed and his family headed for Disneyland. Upon his return to Perth, Ed emailed me and again offered his assistance.
348
It wasnt until a few months later that I took him up on his offer and had him walk me through the process of setting up an AdWords simple Google campaign for one of my new sites. At the time, I had few small campaigns running. Nothing to right home about, thats for sure. After a short discussion he agreed to take one of my campaigns to see if he could improve upon it. He did, actually quite dramatically. It was after seeing this improvement, which translated to additional profits for my site, I decided to ask Ed if he would put together a special report for those readers of
2002-2006 Net Guides Publishing, Inc. - All Rights Reserved. 349
mine, who wanted to learn how to supplement their natural search results, by purchasing some additional traffic from Google AdWords. He did, and I am pleased to be able to make it available to you at no cost. Its a great resources, and one that should help you bring additional profits to your site. Heres what one reader recently said:
I suggest you learn more about this from Ed - and buy a little traffic in the beginning, just to get you started. Admittedly, your first traffic is a thrilling thing to experience and Ed is THE guy to help you here! You can access and download this free 42-page report titled; How to Use Google AdWords Advertising to Increase the Number of Targeted Visitors to Your Web Site on my password protected updates page. (See page 2 of this manual for login instructions.)
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You can also join Eds newsletter for additional tips and hints and download a copy of his FREE Google AdWords AdWrapper software by visiting his site. www.adwordsmarketing.com
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By getting real time data on how each of your pages are doing on the Net, you will definitely be in the drivers seat - and be able to make modifications with confidence.
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To sign up and download go to: www.Stat-Dragon.com, click on the Try it out for FREE with our free 30 day trial.
Next, I would recommend selecting the Bronze Plan, by clicking on the free trial button.
At this point, you are moved through to the PayPal checkout, where you can subscribe for $0.00 for the first month.
If you followed my lead in Step #1 How To Get And Stay Organized, you already have a PayPal account, so now just simply login. If you skipped that step, you will want to complete the form provided to complete the process so you can use your credit card.
353
During the sign-up process, I take note of the Subscription Details: Your subscription will automatically renew at the rates stated above, unless you cancel prior to the end of the billing period. And clicked through to complete my purchase.
Next, I enter my email address, select a username and password, and click Submit to login to my new account.
OK, I am in.
2002-2006 Net Guides Publishing, Inc. - All Rights Reserved. 354
Next, I enter the URL for my website in the field provided, and click the Get Code button to automatically generate the StatsDragon tracking code for Gas-BBQ-Grills.net. I copy the tracking code (Ctrl A = highlight, then Ctrl C = Copy), and login to my ez-WebBuilder account, and click on Manage Pages.
And, lastly, paste your Stats Dragon Code in the field provided, click Save, and then select the Tracking Code check box.
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And were done. Now to check my stats, I simply login to my account, using my username and password.
http://www.stats-dragon.com/login.php
Baby step #2 Review Google Mastery Baby step #3 Develop an inbound linking plan Baby step #4 Set-up some internal links Baby step #5 Set-up a Site Map Baby step #6 Set-up an Article Map Baby step #7 Set-up a Footer menu Baby step #8 Distribute a number of professionally written articles Baby step #9 Set up a link to us page Baby step #10 Submit to a few article directories Baby step #11 Attract a few good link partners Baby step #12 Submit your site to a few paid directories Baby step #13 Considering buying a few links Baby step #14 Distribute a press release Baby step #15 Pay-per-click search engines are another option Baby step #16 Add your counter Baby step #17 Complete this checklist
Once you have submitted your site to the major search engines, reviewed my Google Mastery report, have a good understanding of Link Popularity, created a linking plan for your site, begun the process of writing and continually adding Articles and linking them strategically to your Home and Product pages, created a site map, begun to gather inbound links using the PAD technique, added link to us and
2002-2006 Net Guides Publishing, Inc. - All Rights Reserved. 357
link pages, considered purchasing a few links, and added a traffic analysis counter. then you have finished your training and are ready to begin your new career on the Internet with a very good chance of succeeding!
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Summiing It Up Summ ng It Up
Congratulations on joining an elite group of people! Those with the know-how to successfully publish to the Net are few and far between. So, if youve been diligent, and followed the steps Ive outlined in this manual, -- then you may want to give yourself a hearty pat on the back! THIS, my friend, could be the beginning of something HUGE for you, because the Internet is still in its infancy. And, Im extremely pleased that you chose my manual as a guidebook to help you learn the ropes and prosper as an affiliated publisher for some great companies. Heres a review of what youve accomplished:
Summing It Up
360
Summing It Up
361
Affiliate networks:
1. CJ.com - The grand daddy of commission networks is Commission Junction. Choose from thousands of merchant in hundreds of industries. 2. LinkShare.com - Representing more than 500+ merchants, LinkShare has emerged as one of the top affiliate programs on the Net. 3. ShareaSale.com Affiliate network providing payper-sale, pay-per-lead and pay-per-click programs. 4. LinkConnector.com An affiliate marketing network that helps merchants and affiliates increase online sales through increased traffic. Link Connector provides additional revenue opportunities and helps affiliates locate optimal promotions for their sites. 5. JohnsonLane.com - Primary a provider of financially based merchants programs including credit cards, mortgages, credit services, etc.
2002-2006 Net Guides Publishing, Inc. - All Rights Reserved. 362
Recommended Resources
6. ClickBank.com - Offering a variety of merchants in the areas of software, ebooks and other electronic, downloaded product and services. 7. QuinStreet.com - A smaller affiliate/merchant exchange featuring a few dozen merchants. They offer quality products and services. 8. DirectLeads.com Growing quite rapidly DirectLeads represents hundreds of merchants. Easy interface and good commissions.
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364
Appendix of Worksheets
Big List
BIG List
365
Appendix of Worksheets
_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________
_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________
(Note: Develop a title tag include primary & tier 1 keywords. Not to exceed 64 characters)
Title-tag:
Page Description:
_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________
(Note: Develop an accurate 20-30 word page description. Include primary & tier-1-2 keywords.)
_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________
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Appendix of Worksheets
Primary Keyword:
_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________
(Note: Develop a title tag include primary & tier 1 keywords. Not to exceed 64 characters)
Keyword Variations:
Keyword Meta-tags:
Alt-tag:
Title-tag:
Page Description:
______________________________________________ ______________________________________________
(Note: Develop an accurate 20-30 word page description. Include primary & tier-1-2 keywords.)
Heading 1 (H1):
_____________________________________________
Heading 2 (H2):
367
Product Pages
Primary Keyword
Merchant Category
368
Page Names
Primary Keyword
Keyword Variations
369
Index Index
A
Acrobat Reader, 30 ad copy, 37 Adobe, 30, 31, 32 AdSense, 79, 80, 265, 291, 293, 294, 295, 297, 298, 302 advertisers, 16, 18, 19, 29, 42, 49, 50, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 127, 188, 203, 206, 209, 210, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 274, 278, 305 advertising programs, 70 affiliate, ii, 4, 6, 7, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 33, 34, 36, 49, 59, 60, 61, 64, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 87, 89, 115, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 160, 161, 167, 169, 179, 217, 218, 219, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 274, 275, 284, 286, 291, 305, 308, 311, 347, 348, 349, 362, 363, 365, 366 Affiliate Fuel, 16 affiliate manager, 75 Affiliate Manager, 217 Affiliate Marketing, 6, 15, 20, 46, 47, 347, 348, 349 affiliate networks, 167 Affiliate Organizer, 42, 43, 58, 140 Affiliate Summit, 45 affiliate website, 17 affiliated publishers, 16, 18, 161 affiliates, 6, 8, 15, 16, 20, 29, 40, 76, 87, 160, 217, 218, 340 algorithm, 94 algorithms, 169, 185, 316 Alt tags, 163, 204, 246 Amazon.com, 15, 166, 168, 270 animated banners, 272, 273 Article Map, 328, 329, 330, 360 article page, 153, 156, 325, 329 Article page, 161, 254, 327, 330 Associate Programs, 291 automated submission tool, 309 BIG list, 72, 74, 126 Blog, 293 Book n Buzz, 240 buzz, ii, 3, 13, 34, 35, 36, 240, 350
C
choosing a topic, 59, 62, 63, 83, 128 ClickBank, 16, 366 ClixGalore, 16 code, 15, 43, 115, 116, 158, 165, 265, 284, 285, 289, 292, 297, 299, 301, 302, 303, 305, 355, 358 commission, 15, 16, 21, 37, 38, 49, 65, 71, 74, 75, 78, 79, 86, 119, 155, 160, 166, 276, 277, 365 Commission Junction, 16, 275, 305, 365 Commission Junction University, 208 Commission Rates, 74 content, i, 4, 10, 23, 65, 79, 93, 103, 105, 112, 123, 128, 149, 152, 154, 159, 160, 165, 167, 178, 187, 200, 202, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 214, 216, 217, 220, 223, 224, 225, 232, 236, 239, 241, 252, 253, 254, 255, 259, 262, 263, 264, 272, 273, 281, 282, 283, 286, 289, 290, 298, 316, 320, 325, 331, 334, 336, 339, 363 conversion rates, 19, 350 cookie, 16, 75 Corporation, 55 creative, 49, 64, 75, 127, 149, 228, 273, 305
D
Domain Maniac, 136, 140, 142 domain name, 40, 41, 42, 90, 91, 125, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 146, 201, 202, 203, 267 Dreamweaver, 38
E
eBay, 16, 17 Elance, 239, 240, 262, 330, 344, 348 Explorer, 46, 54 ez-WebBuilder, 141, 143, 144, 150, 163, 165, 191, 192, 201, 241, 244, 245, 247, 257, 260, 261, 262, 263, 279, 284, 285, 286, 287, 295, 299, 300, 303, 328, 329, 333, 341, 358
B
backward link check, 320, 321, 322 backward links, 169, 175, 178, 314, 322, 323 Backward Links, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 183, 184, 185, 337 Backward Links check, 170, 171, 174, 183, 184, 185 Backwards Link, 164 Better Business Bureau, 77, 216
Index
F
Fast Creative Inc., 114, 124 fonts, 241, 304 Footer menu, 329, 331, 332, 333, 360 freelance copywriters, 62 freelance writer, 223, 224, 240 FrontPage, 2, 12, 38, 117, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 349
J
James Martells Affiliate Buzz, i JavaScript, 289, 292, 301, 302
K
keyword density, 161, 165, 186, 207, 233, 238, 239, 240, 330 keyword list, 64, 90, 101, 104, 108, 113, 126, 127, 131, 132, 133, 152, 153, 154, 159, 160, 164, 177, 179, 180, 181, 184, 187, 203, 213, 219, 220, 224, 233, 236, 254, 290, 330, 363 keyword lists, 42, 97, 98, 112, 125, 130, 154, 179, 180, 181 keyword phrase, 110, 131, 133, 184, 185, 213 keyword phrases, 96, 131, 213 keyword research, 88, 168 Keyword Variations, 162, 186, 227, 234, 236, 237, 287, 369, 370, 371, 372 keywords, 4, 64, 88, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 126, 127, 133, 135, 148, 152, 154, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 203, 204, 205, 211, 213, 214, 220, 227, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, 241, 250, 254, 264, 271, 286, 324, 326, 338, 339, 346, 350, 351, 355, 369, 370
G
Gmail, 47, 48, 50, 119 Google, 3, 4, 7, 9, 32, 37, 38, 47, 48, 61, 70, 71, 72, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 89, 91, 103, 108, 110, 119, 127, 128, 135, 164, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 183, 184, 189, 203, 206, 234, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 262, 263, 265, 266, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 295, 296, 297, 300, 302, 305, 307, 308, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 323, 325, 328, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 340, 344, 351, 352, 353, 354, 360 Google AdSense, 4, 61, 79, 80, 119, 263, 265, 266, 288, 289, 291, 292, 295, 300, 302, 305, 314, 325 Google Mastery report, 288, 289, 312, 324 Google toolbar, 171 graphics, 115, 119, 120, 121, 145, 163, 194, 199, 260, 262, 264, 272
H L
header graphic, 142, 145, 193, 198, 199, 200, 203 headline, 148, 152, 161, 163, 186, 203, 204, 226, 233, 239, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 295, 303, 329, 330, 342, 346 headlines, 132, 158, 241 Hiring Authors report, ii, 36, 221, 239, 330 Hiring Authors Report, ii HTML, 114, 115, 116, 132, 158, 161, 162, 163, 165, 185, 189, 246, 248, 249, 265, 278, 279, 284, 303, 305 hyperlinked keyword, 153 Link Connector, 16 link partner, 334, 338, 340, 342 link popularity, 90, 315, 316, 318, 319 link-popularity, 103, 132, 158, 169, 172, 283, 317, 338 LinkShare, 16, 71, 365
M
media releases, 259 merchant, 16, 18, 37, 38, 40, 49, 50, 75, 87, 106, 125, 127, 129, 148, 155, 161, 163, 164, 168, 179, 180, 187, 189, 204, 215, 216, 217, 224, 237, 252, 261, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 287, 289, 291, 292, 325, 365, 366 merchants, 15, 16, 18, 19, 23, 29, 37, 64, 75, 77, 78, 106, 119, 125, 126, 127, 130, 134, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 158, 160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 181, 188, 189, 202, 203, 214, 256, 264, 270, 271, 274, 275, 276, 277, 279, 286, 287, 288, 290, 325, 339, 365, 366 Meta tags, 162
371
I
inbound link development, 344 inbound linking plan, 319, 320, 360 internal links, 154, 155, 158, 170, 195, 316, 319, 322, 324, 325, 360 Internet publishers, 76, 289 ISP, 2, 6, 27, 129, 349
Index
N
natural writing, 211, 233, 238, 239, 243 navigation bar, 148, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 163, 164, 165, 168, 180, 188, 193, 194, 200, 203 Navigation Bar, 188, 192, 196, 203, 369, 371 navigation bar buttons, 163 Netshops, 16, 275, 279
Product page, 148, 161, 203, 204, 248, 253, 254, 270, 271, 274, 276, 278, 279, 281, 285, 287, 300, 304, 305, 317, 320, 321, 323, 324, 326, 328, 330 Product Page buttons, 194 product pages, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 184, 196, 197, 203, 220, 221, 222, 224, 227, 257, 258, 261, 263, 266, 271, 287, 288, 294, 320, 325 PRWeb, 344, 346, 347 publishing tool, 12, 38
R
rankings, 18, 28, 93, 94, 102, 118, 120, 137, 170, 173, 178, 245, 286, 312, 316, 318, 319, 322, 324, 325, 327, 336, 344, 364 RoboForm, 53 royalty free photos, 262
O
online publisher, 43, 126, 150, 207, 211 optimization process, 241, 246 optimization rules, 241 optimized, 152, 153, 154, 159, 160, 161, 172, 182, 183, 185, 187, 310 Outgoing Link, 177 Outlook Express, 47 Overture, 83, 84, 89, 127
S
search campaigns, 351 search engine, 9, 18, 19, 90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 110, 117, 133, 137, 138, 153, 161, 173, 175, 177, 181, 185, 245, 286, 309, 312, 313, 315, 316, 323, 326, 334, 343, 366 search engine visitors, 153 search engines, 2, 20, 23, 28, 64, 91, 92, 93, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 118, 130, 133, 135, 137, 150, 154, 157, 162, 169, 172, 183, 202, 205, 211, 212, 213, 253, 255, 264, 307, 308, 309, 311, 315, 316, 319, 325, 327, 334, 336, 339, 344, 349, 350, 359, 360, 363, 366 secure site guarantees, 216 SelfPromotion.com, 308, 310, 311 ShareaSale, 16, 71, 365 Shelby Cobra, 44, 68 simple text link, 273 Site Map, 326, 327, 328, 360 spammers, 137, 138 spider food, 93, 159, 185, 246 spiders, 93, 94, 120, 132, 133, 153, 155, 160, 161, 169, 186, 194, 232, 248, 316, 318, 319, 327 sponsored link, 70, 79, 81, 115, 173, 265, 266, 291, 292, 305, 308 sponsored link programs, 70, 79, 115, 308 start page, 44, 45, 46, 58 Stats Dragon, 358 strategic internal linking, 325, 327 sub-headline, 148, 161, 204, 248, 249
P
PAD, 178, 307, 334, 335, 336, 340, 360 Page description, 162, 204, 246 page optimization, 148, 149, 176, 185, 204 PageRank, 7, 164, 165, 166, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 183, 184, 185, 189, 193, 203, 270, 274, 289, 317, 337, 367 PageRank Penalty, 7 PageRank score, 189 paid search techniques, 351 pay-for-performance model, 15, 160 payment rates, 16 PayPal, 54, 58, 356 pay-per-click, 288, 289, 291, 350 PDF file, 30 press release, 259, 344, 345, 346, 347, 350, 360 press releases, 155, 157, 259, 345, 346, 347 Press releases, 344 primary keyword, 105, 131, 148, 152, 154, 165, 204, 241, 246 Primary keyword, 148, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 168, 169, 170, 180, 182, 185, 186, 204, 227, 239, 246, 247, 283, 321, 325, 329 Primary Keyword, 148, 161, 183, 184, 185, 186, 204, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 235, 236, 237, 246, 253, 254, 369, 370, 371, 372 product page, 148, 152, 153, 154, 156, 161, 164, 165, 176, 180, 181, 193, 202, 244, 251, 274
T
target audience, 62, 64, 67, 69, 75 taxes, 55
372
Index
template, 54, 114, 122, 124, 125, 131, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 150, 155, 158, 191, 192, 198, 203, 241, 244, 246, 253, 299, 363 template designs, 131, 141 templates, 38, 119, 120, 121, 124, 141, 145, 146, 194, 199 text link, 153, 278, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 286, 329 text link ad, 278, 280, 284, 286 Text Link Ads Inc., 323 Tier-1 secondary keyword, 159, 185 Tier-1 Secondary Keyword, 235, 237 Tier-1 Secondary keywords, 164, 187 Tier-1 Secondary Keywords, 162, 186, 233, 236, 254, 369, 370 tier-2 secondary keywords, 158 Tier-2 Secondary Keywords, 186, 187, 236, 237, 253, 254, 287, 369, 370, 371 title tag, 132, 182, 250, 369, 370 Title tag, 162, 204, 246, 249, 250 traffic, 2, 6, 18, 91, 92, 110, 119, 140, 164, 183, 184, 194, 272, 288, 291, 307, 309, 339, 344, 350, 353, 354, 355, 361, 366
two-tiered plan, 21
W
web hosting, 116 website navigation, 149 website publishing service, 118, 122, 141 website publishing software, 115, 117, 118, 121, 122, 125 Wordtracker, 91, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113, 131, 157, 179, 180, 181 work-at-home, i, ii, 8, 11, 17, 20, 32, 288, 348, 349
Y
Yahoo, 17, 83, 84, 91, 310, 312 Yahoo! Publisher Network, 83
373