Successful Web Marketing

5 Lessons Of A Successful Web Marketer

Wiki - What Webmasters Can Learn From It

I've been actively researching ways to quickly and effectively build content to websites. And while blogs tend to be near the top of the list, there are other opportunities out there.

One such opportunity is a Wiki. And while a Wiki won't suit all sites, there are those that can use a Wiki effectively. If you think you are one of those sites, take a look at this article.

What is a Wiki?

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and links between internal pages on the fly.

Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.

Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.

A History of Wiki

The first ever Wiki site was created for the Portland Pattern Repository in 1995. That site now hosts tens of thousands of pages. Since then they have grown to become one of the most popular community and web based applications available.

One of the most well known and popular Wiki projects is the Wikipedia.

Why Use a Wiki?

Wikis are growing at a phenomenal pace. This is because, at their core, they are about as simple as can be. That simplicity means that people find them easy to use, just like e-mail and blogs and like e-mail and blogs, Wikis also perform a very useful service in a simple way. A Wiki allows a group of people to enter and communally add or edit entries. These entries can be viewed and edited by anyone who visits the Wiki.

What this means is that, when you come to a Wiki, you are able to read what the Wiki's community has written. By clicking an "edit" button on an article, you are able to edit the article's text. You can add or change anything you like in the article you are reading.

This simplicity and the utter openness of a Wiki cause many people to instantly reject the idea. They assume that because anyone can edit a Wiki at any time, the Wiki must be flawed. But Wiki supporters claim this is an incorrect assumption.

This is because users involved in Wikis tend to be self policing. They check and re-check facts entered by themselves and others. Much like bloggers who can spot a spam blog quickly, Wiki users also know when a Wiki looks fraudulent.

Also, while not many Wiki employ it, there is the ability to have editorial control over the Wiki. That means that the Wiki owner can hold approval rights to all entries. Plus many Wikis require a simple registration before allowing entry or editing of articles.

SEM Benefits of Wiki

The biggest benefit of a Wiki likes in its use of heavy interlinking between pages. As a Wiki grows to become a resource it refers to itself more and more often through these links. For example, look at this wikipedia page about Wikis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

One would think that such heavy interlinking would cause the search engine to review the site more closely, potentially marking the site as spam. However, provided the site is useful, and because of the fact that it is a Wiki, search engines tend to let this type of heavy interlinking pass their usually rigorous spam tests.

Also, because it is community based, the Wiki provides an almost endless supply of new and fresh content to the website.

Wiki Resources

If you are interested in Wiki projects and how you could perhaps use one on your site, take a look at these resources.

http://phpwiki.org/
http://tikiwiki.org/
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wiki.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software

Using Free Traffic Exchange

These days internet has emerged as both, a market and hub for marketing. Unlike the 'brick and mortar' world where large manufacturers manage to squeeze out the market bases of smaller companies, the internet provides haven like the free traffic exchange. They are extremely useful to those product and service providers who do not have the advertising budget to compete with large corporations.

Free traffic exchanges can be described as opt-in-clubs, which only other manufacturers of products and services can join. By joining these exchanges, a member is obliged to look at other members' web pages. To gain membership you have to submit in your website which then goes into rotation with the hundreds and thousands of websites already registered with that particular traffic exchange. (This works best for people with high-speed internet connection.)

These exchanges are generally of two types auto surf and manual. In the former, the exchange automatically keeps on flipping the pages in the web browser. In a manual exchange you need to click on a graphic or banner control to change pages. Most exchanges operate on the credit system. You gain credit by spending time (for example, 30 seconds) on a particular website. The more the number of sites you spend time on, the more your credit. However your credit gets reduced when another member visits your website. With increased credit your website goes into heavy rotation insuring a more effective and wider reach. You can easily register with these exchanges. Most just request some personal information and your URL.

However, you have to be quite alert in choosing a traffic exchange that would suit your business needs. Select one with many members as this helps in getting more exposure. One factor that is conducive to an effective exchange is demography. You should insure that your business is similar to those available on the exchange. Suffice it to say that a manufacturer of handcrafted china won't get out of an exchange dominated by marketers of leather goods. The drawback of this is that in an exchange where everyone is offering similar services, you would have to work harder to insure that your site does not get lost.

For beginners it is always a good idea to join a few exchanges of both auto run and manual varieties. You can survey the sites and then decide which works best for you. However, it is the manual ones which are better in the long run because the possibility of actual sales is much higher. One of the tricks of the trade is to use a multi-tab web browser. The browser continues to run several websites in multiple tabs while only one window is open for viewing. You can easily surf many exchanges at the same time in this manner.

About the Author
Jakob Jelling is the founder of Sitetube.com. Please visit http://www.sitetube.com/promotion.shtml and learn how to promote your website.

Do You Really Understand the Blog Animal And How He Can Help You?

By David Callan

The growth and popularity of blogs in general has been phenomenal within a very short period of time. Blogs or web logs as they were previously called is where all the action on the World Wide Web is, right now.

It is amazing how quickly web sites have been relegated to the back seat. Actually the role of web sites is rapidly being re-defined but it is clear blogs will be the place where all the traffic will be congregating for a long time to come. What some thought was a passing fad is clearly here to stay and is a permanent development that has already had far reaching effects on communications and the way we transmit and receive information.

Yet most entrepreneurs who have quickly jumped onto the blog bandwagon do not seem to fully understand and appreciate what blogs are really all about. Worse still, many of those who have remained away have no idea what all the fuss is about.

A clearer understanding of blogs is bound to benefit any e-commerce business owner or online entrepreneur.

Everybody can be a publisher or media owner
Probably the most significant impact of blogs is the fact that it is rapidly changing mass media, as we have known it since the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Powerful media companies have been in the hands of a few people who have carefully controlled what we see in our media. Sometimes deliberately to achieve their corporate goals and objectives. Blogs are effectively transferring that power back to the people and away from the hands of a few.

This era of blogs means that anybody can be a publisher or media owner and effectively transmit whatever information they want and push whatever cause is dear to their hearts. The impact of blogs in politics for example has been a clear demonstration of the power of blogging. We have some blogs covering politics that have a couple hundred thousand visitors on a daily basis.

This may be a scary development to many folks including media owners but it presents a number of excellent opportunities for entrepreneurs to reach huge audiences with their messages at a tiny fraction of what their budgets used to be in the days when blogs did not exist.

Breaking news, courtesy of the blog community
Further power of blogs to handle breaking news in real time, complete with photographs and video clips, has clearly been evident in retimes. For example during the Tsunami tragedy last December. Footage of the damage being caused by the giant waves was seen in blogs long before the traditional media channels got wind of what was going on.

This opens up a whole range of new opportunities that can be tried out in the years to come. Not many entrepreneurs have realized this yet.

Anybody who didn't have a site can own a successful blog
Blogs are so easy to set up, maintain and run that a new breed of online entrepreneurs is on the rise. It consists of many individuals who for one reason or another were unable to set up and maintain heir web sites.

We are now in an era where an online entrepreneur needs little else other than lots of creativity, there is actually so much that he or she can do without a single cent in capital.

Distinct advantages of having a blog
Blogs tend to get lots of traffic. Lots more than websites do. Besides search engines seem to love them. Blogs are also able to build up links much more easily than web sites. Thus it is no longer surprising for a nobody-novice to suddenly shoot up in stardom and recognition.

No entrepreneur can afford to be left behind
The benefits of a business having in it's stable a blog or two that is capable of attracting huge traffic, is very important and can be extremely useful in helping a business to achieve its' marketing goals and objectives.

Any entrepreneur whether online or offline who does not have a blog to help promote their business is making a very serious mistake that they will definitely live to deeply regret. In fact even playing catch-up with a blog that already exists will continue to be more and more difficult.

There are a number of advantages that blogs have which will continue to be extremely useful to entrepreneurs and webmasters. One of them is the fact that they easily allow for customer comment and anybody can be able to post a comment at your site. In a way this is a form of research and sampling because it enables the business to get feedback and thus be able to gauge the sort of response they will receive when they finally roll out their product or service into the market.

Start using your blog more carefully and watch your traffic and revenues steadily climb as a result.

About the Author
Article by David Callan. David is the leading search engine consultant with AKA Marketing.com's Google Optimisation team. AKA Marketing.com provide full SEO services as well as telephone based consulting for those preferring the DIY approach.

Popup Ads - Redesign Them and Explode Your Sales!

Most people put popup ads and Spam in the same category; they genuinely don't believe in their effectiveness.

However, marketing statistics show that popup ads are powerful marketing tools that can significantly increase your sales and subscribers to your opt-in list or newsletter. On the flip side, popup ads are the third most hated entity on the Internet, behind Spam and adware. This is because most popup ads are the rude interrupting variety that traps the user into an unending loop.

It is possible to produce Popups that provide relevant information to users in a non-intrusive way. You just need to be sure that you are providing relevant information to the visitors to your site (information that they are already actively looking for.

If you are using conventional popup ads on your site, you may have noticed oh, in the last year or so...that your opt in list has been continually declining. You can attribute this decline to the advent of the popup blocker. Just in case you're not familiar with pop-up blockers, here's the short summaryЎ­over the past year, a lot companies, even the major ISP's (Internet Service Providers) such as AOL, Google and Yahoo have been releasing software designed to block pop-ups, so that anyone who has the software installed can control how many pop-ups they see from what website or even block them totally. In lots of cases, the average Internet user doesn't even know that they have a popup blocker installed on their toolbar.

There is new technology available now that lets you create a new type of popup ad. This ad is an animated floating ads that look and behave like pop-ups but are essentially a part of the main web page, so popup blockers can't stop them.

Unlike conventional popups, which open new browser windows, these ads are part of your web page.

Using this new technology, you can:

1. Conduct polls and surveys to can get useful feedback from your visitors/aid your marketing efforts

2. Capture email addresses from visitors by offering them free information

3. Use your thank you pages to introduce your visitors to your other products. Since they are already in a buying mood, there is a pretty good chance that they will be receptive.

4. Add "tips of the day" and change them every so often to generate interest.


As a smart internet marketer, I'm sure you know that by capturing the visitor's email address, and then following up with them via an effective auto-responder campaign, you can more than double your chances of closing the sale. By using the new popup ads, you can do exactly that!

Joe Borges makes it easy to get your website optimized and rapidly build your opt-in list. Learn how to increase your subscribers and sales quickly and easily by visiting:

http://www.tekretail.com/hadboxsmall.html

About the Author
Joe Borges is an experienced Internet Marketer and Software Consultant with experience in website development and implementation. He is also a professional SEO Consultant, helping internet businesses increase their web presence, website traffic and Search Engine Ranking. Get tools and strategies that you can use right now to make your online business thrive by visiting:

http://www.tekretail.com/seo-software.html

Automated SEO Tools- Why Aren't You Using One?

Oftentimes, the most important facets of SEO are overlooked, even by webmasters and seasoned SEO experts. Why? Because somehow all the emphasis gets put on the importance of keywords, leaving all other SEO elements in the dust.

Equally important aspects of SEO include:

1. Reciprocal Link Exchange (Linking Strategy)

2. Page Rank

3. Avoiding getting penalized by the Search Engines, and more importantly, avoiding getting banned.

I am an online business owner and SEO specialist. I have seen people put emphasis on the wrong things, to the detriment of equally important elements.

So, how can you build a website that is completely optimized and that attracts thousands of visitors each month? One way is to simply analyze the websites of your competitors. Sound confusing? It's not, once you really understand the concept of not "reinventing the wheel". If you follow this philosophy, you can parlay the success (read: copy) of websites that are already successful into your own online success.

Your first step is to completely automate the SEO process. This means choosing an SEO software tool that will let you analyze all of the important SEO information of your competitor's sites - Reciprocal Link Exchanges, PageRank, Search Engine Ranking and Reciprocal Links. This way, you can quickly and easily see exactly what your competitors are doing to be ranked as well as they are. A good automated SEO tool will give you a step-by- step process, that you can follow for any website you set up, to ensure your success. Best of all, that formula will have been proven to work because your successful competitors are already using it!

In addition to all of this, a good SEO tool will help you to avoid being penalized and even banned by the Search Engines.

Consider the following:

1. You can be penalized by linking to websites that have been penalized and even banned by the search engines.

2. You have to keep track of all the websites that you are linking to manually to avoid having this happen to you.

3. You need to know who your link partners are linking to; they may be linked with a site that has been penalized or even banned by the Search Engines, which could lead to your getting penalized or banned as well.

Automating your SEO process will make all of the above not only easier, but quicker as well, since you will no longer have to search through and keep track of thousands of websites manually.

Joe Borges makes it easy to get your website optimized and listed in all the major search engines. Learn how to automate your SEO Process for online business success by visiting:

http://www.tekretail.com/bestseo.html

About the Author
Joe Borges makes it easy to get your website optimized and listed in all the major search engines. Learn how to automate your SEO Process for online business success by visiting:

http://www.tekretail.com/bestseo_free-ebook.html