How to Rank Well in Google Products Search & a Big List of Places to Get Reviews By Tom Critchlow

Google Base aka Google Shopping aka Google Products


What do you know about Google Base? If you're running a site which sells something, you should be paying attention to Google Base because it's the service which underpins various vertical search portals from Google, including Google Products.

In case you're not familiar with Google Products and what they look like, let me give you an example:

See how Apple can't even rank top of Google for the phrase 'buy iphone'? Those 3 links above them are pulled from Google Shopping results. So having your products ranking highly in Google Shopping/Products/Base is clearly a good thing. But how do you get good rankings in this arcane Google offshoot? Is it all about pagerank?

Major Ranking Factors For Google Products

Below I present to you a list of the major ranking factors in Google Products, in no particular order. I've not done enough research to determine which are more important than others:

Title

Having your keyphrases placed strategically in your title tag can help you rank, just like with regular SEO.

Price

If you sell a product cheaper than your competition, you stand a better chance of ranking higher than places which sell it more expensively. Capitalism ftw.

Description

Having a well-thought-out and keyphrase rich description is important. As far as I can see, Google doesn't crawl the URLs you submit to them for any ranking factors - they take all the information from your data submission, so a description can help you rank for long-tail phrases which you can't cover in your title tag.

Data-Stuffing

Data stuffing is so the new keyword stuffing. What do I mean by data-stuffing? Well, in Google Base you have the options to upload data for all kinds of fields. Only the bare minimum are essential, and most are optional. In my experience, however, I've seen that adding more data-fields helps you rank higher and for more varied queries.

Fresh Data

This is actually a ranking factor which Google recommend to get higher rankings, so it would be remiss of me to not include it in this list!! Fresh data, as in updating your feed as often as possible or setting the scheduler to crawl your feed frequently, helps both your rankings and the accuracy of your data. Since Google doesn't crawl your pages, it's important to ensure your feed is up to date with the latest descriptions, prices and names.

Positive Reviews

Notice how I've not included pagerank (or mR) on this list? That's because I'm not sure how important it is to have a trusted domain in the traditional SEO-sense. More importantly, I think, is having a trusted domain in the traditional sense of the word. How does Google measure that? With reviews. Getting positive reviews for your site helps a lot with Google Local, and it's the same principle for Google Base. Although I've not listed these tips in order of importance, I think this is definitely one of the strongest ranking factors, particularly for competitive queries. So, to help you out with your Google Base rankings, I've listed below all of the sites which Google permits as review sites for use in Google Base. Before I list them though, I should point out that there's one site which Google seems to favour above all others for trusted reviews. There'll be no prizes for guessing who it is.... Yep, Google Checkout.

In my experience and research, Google Checkout reviews seem to count for more than reviews left on 3rd party sites. This does seem to make sense since these reviews are presumably more trusted by Google (since it controls the spam filtering and authentication) than 3rd party reviews. That said, it does mean you have to have Google Checkout enabled to profit from them!

An interesting aside here: it's not something I've tested, but if I were building a ranking algorithm based on reviews, I would make the raw number of reviews count as a ranking factor, positive or negative. Why? Because this signifies trust and brand awareness. The more people that are leaving reviews about you, the bigger your brand is. Given Google's shift towards brands recently, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a factor so bear this in mind when getting reviews.

Anyway, if you can't get Google Checkout reviews, try some of the sites on this list (separated by US and UK sites, as they're different!).

US Google Base Review Sites

dealtime.com
pricegrabber.com
cashbaq.com
epinions.com
flamingoworld.com
mrrebates.com
readprint.com
resellerratings.com
shopzilla.com
rateitall.com
reviewstream.com
mouthshut.com
pricespider.com
dooyoo.co.uk
mtbr.com
viewpoints.com
merchant-reviews.com
couponclock.com

UK Google Base Review Sites

pricegrabber.co.uk
reviewcentre.com
shopzilla.co.uk
ciao.co.uk
dealtime.co.uk
truste-marketing.co.uk
webuser.co.uk
maxxsave.co.uk
dooyoo.co.uk
resellerratings.com

From analysis of the top sites across many different searches, these are the sites which Google is reporting as trusted review sites. I've reviewed over 50 Google Products searches and probably at least 100 domains, and this is a list of all the review sites listed. There are probably others but they're either very small sites or aren't particularly trusted. These are the major ones.

There are plenty of ways of gaining reviews for your site, and I'm not going to go into detail on them here, but David Mihm has a solid post on getting local reviews and the process is exactly the same for products. Check it out, he links out to some great sources there too.

In conclusion, if you're selling something, you should definitely be investing some time in Google Base as it can bring some great results pretty quickly.

Random Musing: by the way, while researching Google Base, I noticed that you can submit all kinds of stuff to them, from jobs to recipes to events to cars. As far as I can see, most of these uploads won't net you much benefit, but I think it can only be a matter of time before we see Google Base results ranking in the main results for job queries, events and all manner of other queries. How long before getting reviews for your site becomes an integral part of the SEO process?

Source: http://mz.cm/JfT6f

5 Steps to Strategically Managing Your SEO Provider

There’s no shortage of stories about bad experiences with SEO agencies. But if you ask an SEO, there’s also no shortage of stories about bad SEO clients. So the real question is how do you make sure that you don’t end up having a bad SEO story to tell or having a bad SEO story told about you?


The truth is that trusting any part of your marketing to a third-party poses some serious challenges. While a search marketing agency can offer you a level of skill and expertise that you don’t have in-house, the wrong choice can end up costing you rankings, revenues, and profits.

But a bad SEO agency experience can often be avoided by being a smart, organized, and efficient SEO client. Specifically, there are five steps you can take to manage the relations you have with your SEO provider, while protecting your investment and your rankings.

1. Educate Your SEO Provider

Make sure your SEO agency understands your business – both your business model and your business goals.

Your business might seem obvious to you, but that's because you live, eat, and breathe it. Conversely, SEO agencies live, eat, and breathe SEO – that’s what they specialize in. Take the time to make sure your agency understands your revenue model and the particular strategy that you’ve chosen.

Similarly, make sure that you explain your business goals to your SEO provider. After all, there's a big difference between "cornering your market" and "dominating your niche." Your SEO agency needs to be aware of your particular goals so that they can devise an SEO strategy that fits best with your business.

2. Define Your SEO KPIs in Advance

Work with your SEO firm to set KPIs that fit with your business goals. After all, there are many ways to measure SEO efforts (i.e., rankings, traffic, conversions, and any blend of these). Both you and your agency should agree in advance on what combination of KPIs to work toward.

For starters, this will enable your SEO agency to develop a strategy around your expectations and business needs. But more importantly, it will put you in a position to evaluate the work they’re doing, as well as measure the SEO ROI.

3. Appoint an SEO Gatekeeper

It's important to appoint an SEO gatekeeper. Ideally, this person would have been involved in the KPI process, and will fulfill two key roles as a kind of SEO project manager:

• Operation Level: The SEO gatekeeper will manage any bottlenecks – whether they’re on your side or the agency side. Essentially, by having one person monitoring all SEO projects, it will be easier to map their progress and push them through on a consistent and steady basis.
• Strategic Level: The SEO gatekeeper will help facilitate cohesion between various projects. By directing all SEO inquiries through a single point of contact, both you and your agency can be sure that the proverbial left and right hands are always working in tandem. For example, your SEO agency will know about new pages, products, and site that your company is creating, and can work them into their strategy.

4. Know Your SEO Stakeholders

Your appointed SEO gatekeeper must now identify all the relevant SEO stakeholders within your organization and establish processes for dealing with them. After all, the SEO gatekeeper will be responsible for ensuring that all strategy decisions are communicated to your agency, so they need to have access to decision makers and be aware of any internal developments that can affect any SEO projects that your agency is working on.

Some of these stakeholders will include:

• SEO Director: This is the stakeholder who will need to take the lead on aligning all internal efforts. They will need to ensure that SEO is involved early on and for the duration of all web projects, and will provide guidance/direction to your AOR and all local agencies.
• Execs & Upper Management: This level of decision-makers is ultimately responsible for the results of any marketing initiative, including SEO. Consequently, these stakeholders are critical for holding people account for working properly with SEO, and shouldn't let things move forward if SEO isn't involved.
• Sales, Marketing, & PR: While the sales team needs the leads generated by SEO, marketing knows that SEO will be its number one acquisition tactic. Similarly, PR is responsible for global messaging, and SEO should be a key part of that strategy.
• Usability/Design: These stakeholders will be integral for creating SEO friend users experiences for all countries/brands, and optimized information architecture for all your sites. Consequently, usability/design in each office needs to be in close contact with local and/or global SEO staff.
• IT/Dev: This layer of your organization is needed to develop multilingual, SEO friendly technologies and test every release of every site for SEO best practices. Having your SEO team closely involved in their development cycle, then, is critical.
• Editorial/Content: One reason "content is king" is because of its importance in SEO. Your content team, then, needs to adapt content production according to search trends/volumes in each country, as well as ensure that there's a steady flow of local content across all your properties.
• Legal: Your legal department will be important for developing a worldwide policy on SEO (i.e., whether you pursue certain practices). This is particularly important so that they don't become a roadblock. For example, you don't every piece of onsite or offsite content to get caught up in legal and slow your SEO momentum. So work out clear processes with them in advance.

With all the stakeholders identified, it’s important that your SEO gatekeeper has access to decision makers within your organization. Sometimes a small change in internal priorities can bottleneck an SEO projects in a big way. Your SEO gatekeeper needs to be able to communicate the opportunity costs of delaying certain SEO projects to those who can influence internal priorities.

5. Protect & Maintain SEO Momentum

As an SEO client, it’s important to understand and maintain SEO momentum. You can't put SEO on hold and then pick up where you left off a few months later.

Rankings change constantly. If your SEO initiatives get held up, your rankings will slip while your competitors’ increase.

Maintaining SEO momentum is probably where your SEO gatekeeper will play their most important role. In addition to managing internal bottlenecks (IT, legal, etc.) they should also implement procedures to address unforeseen variables.

For instance, if a key IT resource leaves your company, there should have a policy/procedure in place to assuage any potential bottleneck. Similarly, internal SEO deliverables should be planned well in advance of their deadline so that you have breathing room if a sudden internal priority arises.

Most importantly, any change in SEO service provider should be a pre-planned and measured on. After the decision to change is made, a new SEO agency should be selected before you fire your old one, and then your SEO gatekeeper should plan and manage a transition of responsibilities from one agency to the next.

Basically, you should never just fire your SEO firm without there being an alternative in place to follow current SEO projects through to the end, and having additional projects planned and scoped in advance.

Any interruption in your SEO efforts can end up setting you back months or years, and that can not only mean having to reinvest in SEO all over again, but losing the SEO equity you’ve built to date.

Managing Relationships, Rankings, and Your Bottom Line

Every business relationship is a two way street. After all, it takes two to tango. So it's important to take responsibility for your side of the relationship.

Granted, it’s tempting to think “well, I’m the client, and the customer is always right,” but that’s reckless and irresponsible – especially when future revenues are on the line.

As business goals and priorities change, make sure to keep your SEO agency (and any other marketing service provider) in the loop, because these are changes they need to know about and understand. And make sure you understand what their strategy for you is, and why they chose that route. This will help you get the most out of your investment with them, both in the short and long term.

Source: http://bit.ly/lrQ4XZ

Driving Traffic to Your Online Home Based Business Website

Being a top online home-based marketer today takes some creativity, mindset, and knowledge of current strategies and techniques to achieve. One shouldn’t just set-up a website on the Internet and expect traffic to magically start flowing to that website automatically. Today there are so many ways to advertise your business for free through the internet. Whether you are an online home based business or have a small business and a website on the internet, these same strategies can work for any business trying to market on the internet.

Sure, you can pay Google for their services, like pay-per-click, or yahoo, but why not take advantage of some free techniques and put more money in your pocket. One very popular way to get some traffic to your website that many people use is social marketing. Social marketing is the use of accounts with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This has become a very popular way of socializing with people and marketing across the world. Another technique is to have your own blog. Again, it is another way of socializing with people and establishing a relationship, so you can blog about your business and ask them to visit your site. The whole idea is to get your website to show up when someone types in the right combination of keywords. Basically you want your website to show up on that first page of Google or Yahoo.

There are more ways to be creative for free out there if you just want to take a little time and save some of your hard earned money for your own pocket. These are just a couple of examples of what you can do to stay competitive in the market.

10 FREE Traffic Generation Tactics!

Turn Your Site into a Visitor Magnet and Attract Swarms of Qualified Traffic with Our Top 10 FREE Traffic Generation Tactics!

No matter how cool your site is or how fabulous your product is, you're not going to generate enough sales to make your business viable unless you get traffic! You have to get the word out about your site and give people a reason to visit it, or else you'll go the way of the dodo.

The good news is, there are lots of ways to effectively advertise your site online and drive tons of "qualified" traffic to your site -- for free! ("Qualified" traffic consists of people who belong to your target niche market and are most likely to buy the products or services you offer -- THESE are the people you want coming to your site!)

As more and more people turn to the Internet as their first shopping choice, enterprising entrepreneurs are coming up with increasingly ingenious ways to attract visitors to their sites. In this issue, you'll discover how YOU can use these tactics to turn your site into one of the "main attractions" for your niche market -- without spending a dime!

Let the "Top 10" countdown begin!

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #10:

Use viral marketing strategies to "infect" people with
the desire to learn more about your product!

These days, viral marketing messages are spreading through the Web like wildfire. Viral marketing is any type of advertising that is "self-perpetuating," compelling people to share it with others so that it spreads through a community like a virus -- but a good one!

Hotmail.com is a textbook example of viral marketing on the Internet. Hotmail was one of the first free e-mail services on the Web. In its first one and a half years, Hotmail managed to sign up an incredible 12 million subscribers! How did it accomplish this? Simple: At the end of every e-mail, Hotmail included the following message: "Get your private, free e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com," encouraging everyone who received an e-mail to sign up for the free service themselves.

Large companies use viral marketing messages to perpetuate awareness of their brand, often by creating humorous videos or animation clips that people send to their friends for a laugh. Some smaller companies have also used this strategy successfully. An example is "Homestar Runner," a small business that's created a set of cartoon characters and animated shorts that circulate around the Web, encouraging people to visit the main site and buy the company's merchandise.

If you like to play around with video or animation, you might think about adopting this strategy to generate interest in your own product. Just keep in mind that it can be very difficult to determine the exact return on investment for viral marketing campaigns, since it's impossible to keep track of where the ad goes. This type of viral marketing is good for generating interest in your site and products, but it doesn't always translate into immediate sales.

To see more examples of viral marketing, check out the following sites (warning: part of the popularity of some viral ads is their "cheeky" or risqué nature. Some viral ads contain material that viewers may find offensive):

*
ViralBank: Go here to discover "the web's most entertaining e-mails"! This site features images, video, games, microsites and text e-mails that have spread virally through the Internet.

*
ViralMeister: This site features a list of news items concerning the latest viral ad campaigns as well as a sampling of popular viral ads circulating the Web. Visitors are invited to submit "funny or cool videos, images, jokes or anecdotes" to be featured on the site.

*
Lycos Viral Chart: Offers a top 10 list of "cheeky" viral e-mails, as well as viral campaigns listed under other headings, such as "New Releases" and "Celebrities." Visitors are invited to submit viral ads for review and vote on the best campaigns.

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #9:

Use online business networking communities to hook up with other entrepreneurs for link swaps and joint marketing ventures

Business networking communities are springing up all over the Web. They're similar to dating or social networking sites, but are used by entrepreneurs to find other businesspeople with whom they can establish mutually beneficial business relationships.

Sites like these can offer great opportunities for entrepreneurs to set up joint marketing ventures with like-minded businesses, or simply to find link-swap partners who can help drive more traffic to their sites. (We'll be looking at link swapping in greater detail later on, in case you're not familiar with this effective traffic generation tactic).

Business networking communities can also help generate traffic by allowing their members to create personal profile pages with links to their main business sites. These links can improve a site's ranking with the major search engines.

If you decide to join a networking community, be sure to partner with people whose business is complementary to your own. Their site has to attract visitors who are likely to become your customers as well -- for example, it probably won't do you any good to have your all-vegetarian tofu burgers featured on a Cattle Rancher's Association site!

Here are some business networking communities you may want to check out:

* Ryze
* LinkedIn
* AlwaysOn
* Spoke

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #8:

Become a recognized "name" in your niche market by participating in newsgroups, discussion forums, or blogging networks

A great way to establish an online identity and develop relationships with your potential customer base is by taking part in newsgroups and discussion forums or starting up a blog related to your niche market. These tools can really help you communicate directly with your niche market and discover what their wants and needs are.

For example, if you sell special mountain biking shoes, spend some time hanging out in mountain biking forums -- that's where your target market's going to be! Or you could start your own blog in which you describe your latest mountain biking adventures -- complete with attention-grabbing photos, of course! You could even combine the two tactics and generate interest in your blog by mentioning it in forums and newsgroups.

However, most newsgroups, blog networks, and discussion forums do NOT allow people to blatantly advertise in them! If you want to generate traffic through these sites, the best way to do it is to offer friendly, useful advice to people who express a need for something, and then include a subtle link to your business site at the end of all your messages. If people like what you say, they may decide to visit your site and check out your products or services.

Taking part in newsgroups, forums and blogs can be very time-consuming, but can still be a great way to establish a name for yourself in your niche market.

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #7:

Get your visitors to tell their friends about you!

A good way to drive visitors to your site is to ask your existing customer base to do it for you!

There are lots of sites that offer free "tell-a-friend" buttons you can place directly on your site, in order to encourage your visitors to send e-mails to their friends telling them about your site.

If your site offers a free opt-in newsletter, contest, quiz, or "tip of the day" -- in other words, any information that people will want to share because it's fun, valuable, or exciting -- include a "send to a friend" button in that feature as well. It's a great way to get the word out about your site to as many people as possible -- and there is nothing more powerful than a personal recommendation from a friend or colleague.

Here are just a few sites that offer free "tell-a-friend" tools:

* http://www.1-hit.com
* http://www.hitbox.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?tools/tools
* http://www.refdev.com/free_scripts/Perl/Recommendation/

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #6:

Encourage people to "get busy" with your site
with interactive traffic generators

One of the best ways to get traffic to your site is to offer valuable content that's updated on a regular basis, so that your visitors are prompted to pay frequent return visits to see what new information you have available. Provide content that's relevant to your industry, such as articles, product reviews, or "how-to" advice columns -- anything you think your visitors will find useful or entertaining.

As you develop your collection of written content, consider placing it in a searchable archive so that your visitors can access past articles and product reviews. This will encourage people to think of your site not only as a place where they can buy things, but also as a valuable source of information.

You should also consider offering other free resources to attract your target audience. Remember, the most powerful word in a marketer's arsenal is "free"! The more useful tools and resources you offer your visitors, the more they'll appreciate your site.

Offer fun or helpful interactive tools that relate to the purpose of your site. For example:

* If you sell recipe books or kitchenware, include a measurement converter that easily allows people to convert imperial measurements to metric and vice versa.

* If you sell clothing, include a size converter that shows how the clothing sizes compare to measurement systems used in different countries. (For example, a woman's size 10 in the U.S. is equal to a size 12 in the UK and a size 40 elsewhere in Europe!)

* If you sell scuba gear or sailing goods, link to current tide and weather information.

* If you sell books on philosophy or self-improvement, include IQ tests or quizzes that determine personality types.

* If you sell education products, include interactive math or grammar games and other fun learning tools.

This strategy tends to be better for getting repeat traffic than for attracting new visitors, but if you include a "tell-a-friend" button with your interactive traffic generator, you may prompt visitors to share the news about your site with others -- and get them to drive new traffic to your site for you!

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #5:

Increase your site's exposure by swapping links with other sites

If you want your site to be seen by as many potential customers as possible, try to get it mentioned on sites they're likely to visit. You want to find sites that are related to yours, but not competing with it.

For example, if you sell ski goggles, try to get your product mentioned on alpine tourism sites, sites that sell skis, boots and poles, and sites that sell winter clothing -- but not on other sites that sell ski goggles!

A great way to get your site mentioned on other sites is to contact those sites directly and offer to "link swap" with them. Tell them you'll put a link to their site on your site if they'll do the same for you. Not only will this generate a lot of increased exposure for your site -- it can also boost your ranking with the search engines.

Search the Web for sites that cater to your niche market -- AND that get a lot of traffic! If you own a souvenir shop, for example, see if you can get your site listed on local hotel and restaurant sites, as well as other travel and hospitality sites tourists are likely to visit.

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #4:

Get the message out about your site by giving away free content

One of the best ways to make sure your site gets mentioned on other sites is to offer them valuable free content.

Many online business owners are happy to get quality information to put on their site or in their opt-in newsletters so offer them some of the regularly updated content you've posted on your own site (as suggested in Traffic Generation Tactic #6). By providing other site owners with free articles, product reviews, or advice columns, you'll be doing them a favor -- as well as increasing the exposure of your own site!

Try to get your content published on popular web sites or in newsletters that have huge mailing lists. Before you offer your content, do a little research to discover how much traffic the site gets, and how many people subscribe to the site's opt-in newsletter. Try to find out which sites are the "hot spots" in your niche market -- THAT'S where you want your articles to be published!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember, this tactic will ONLY work if you include your contact info and a link to your site at the end of every article! That'll make it easy for people to visit your site and learn more about the products or services you sell -- so make sure that every site or e-zine that publishes your content includes this contact info and link.


TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #3:

Be one of the first sites people see listed when they search
your keywords in the free search engines

The free search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN are still one of the most effective ways to get the word out about your site. There are lots of different techniques you can use to ensure you get a good ranking with the free search engines. For example, you can...

* Submit your site to the free search engines and online directories
* Optimize your web site so that it's easily indexed by search engine spiders
* Pay close attention to your keyword inclusion and placement
* Create content-rich "information pages" to direct traffic to your site

... And these are just a few tactics that will help you improve your search engine ranking! You can spend the time needed to do all this work yourself, or you can use software that will do the job for you, such as WebPosition Gold.

To explore search engine optimization strategies in more detail, check out Issue 96 of the "Marketing Tips" newsletter.

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #2:

Use e-mail promotions to present your visitors
with offers they CAN'T refuse!

Yes, it's true: E-mail promotions are one of the top two ways to attract qualified traffic to your site. If you have list of customer or subscriber e-mail addresses, then you're set!

People who have visited your site and signed up for your newsletter (or a contest or survey) are far more likely to buy than someone who has never heard of your site before. It's essential that you stay in touch with these people!

Encourage visitors to frequently return to your site by e-mailing them attractive promotional offers, such as e-coupons or discounts on new products you're offering... notification of a sale or a contest you're running... even free services or products you've decided to give away to a limited number of people!

You can manage your mailing list and automate your e-mail promotions using software like Mailloop. To learn more about how to build a substantial list of opt-in e-mail addresses, start by checking out Issue 49 of the "Marketing Tips" newsletter. For more advanced strategies, you'll want to read "The Insider Secrets to E-mail Marketing."

And now, the time has come for...

TRAFFIC GENERATION TACTIC #1 (drum roll please...):

Build an army of affiliates to drive TONS of traffic to your site for you!

Without a doubt, an affiliate program is the BEST way to increase your site's exposure! You can get your affiliates to drive qualified traffic to your site using all the techniques we've mentioned so far, as well as other effective advertising techniques that require an initial investment.

You can literally get your affiliates to do ALL your marketing for you! In fact, one of our most successful clients doesn't spend ANY time optimizing his site for the free search engines -- he lets his affiliates do it for him! Many of them go to great lengths to make sure their sites are highly ranked -- and because they all link to his site, they boost his search engine ranking as well!

And the best thing about affiliate programs is that you don't pay your affiliates a dime for all the work they do unless they help you make a sale! It really is a win-win proposition:The more sales your affiliates help you make, the more money they earn as well.

For more on growing your own affiliate program, check out "The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet," which is filled wiht lots of in-depth information on how to start up and make the most of an affiliate program.

Final thoughts

In order to maximize your site's exposure, it's best to use a combination of the tactics listed above. For example, if you're sending out an e-mail promotion, you may want to include a "tell-a-friend" option in the e-mail so that the people on your mailing list will send the promotion to others. If you have an affiliate program, ask your affiliates to post your articles and product reviews on their sites in order to help you build a reputation for yourself as an industry expert.

Remember: When it comes to online marketing, there are three words you need to keep in mind: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! Your site has to be mentioned often in places where your niche market hangs out if you want your site to be seen by as many potential customers as possible.

If you think you could be doing more to boost your site's traffic numbers (and really, who couldn't?), start putting these top 10 Traffic Generation Tactics to work for you today -- then sit back and enjoy all that free traffic coming your way!

Have fun!

Source from EBizStarup

Business Development, SEO Analyst From Ahmedabad India.: How to Get Friends on Facebook and Get as Many as 5-6 Leads Per Day

Business Development, SEO Analyst From Ahmedabad India.: How to Get Friends on Facebook and Get as Many as 5-6 Leads Per Day

How to Get Friends on Facebook and Get as Many as 5-6 Leads Per Day

Building a good reputation can take time. What can you do to speed up your popularity on Facebook?

If you have not already done so, set up a Facebook account. Once you have your Facebook account set up, make sure your profile page is complete. Fill out your favorite books, movies, interests, and info on your family. These are all things that will help you make a connection with other people.

Contact info is very important. If people can only contact you through Facebook, they might go somewhere else to do their business. Recently, I was looking for some info on a specific company to purchase their product. I found a distributor who lives in my city. I sent a friend request with a note. It took her over a week to get back to me. During that week, I had already found another distributor and purchased my product. Since she had no phone listed, she lost out on a new customer.

If you have a business, make sure that your Facebook page is open for all to see. There is nothing more frustrating then trying to find someone and not sure if this is the person who sells what I am looking for because they have blocked their page to views unless you are their friend.

Now, how to get friends with Facebook this is the tricky part. Facebook will slap your hand if you request too many friends. Thiss is to keep us from spamming, more on that subject later. So the first step in getting friends is similar to what the Bible says about making friends “A man that has friends must show himself friendly.” So you are going to need to show yourself friendly on Facebook and request some friends.

If you are in network marketing, look for other network marketers to be your friends. Search for company names, find fan pages of MLM groups. Send the people on those pages a friend request.

When requesting a new friend, you need to send a personalized note. Before you click “Send Request” note there is a box that says “add message”. Click on that first and send your message. I usually look at someone’s info page before sending this out. I find something to comment about them. So for instance I might write, “Hi Cindy, we are both fans of the “group”. I noticed you sell Mary Kay. How is this business working out for you? I love to meet her people here on FB and am looking forward to connecting with you.” That’s it.

The most tricky question of all and seems to be different for everyone is how many requests you should request per day. I can send out 2-3 a day before getting my hand slapped by Facebook. However, I know some who say they add 20 per day. Others say they can add about 10. Keep in mind if you add too many too fast you will either have your account shut down or you will have certain privileges suspended.

One you are a friend provide good helpful content for your readers. This is where the spam speech comes in. I used to send info once to twice a day about my business opportunity or product. In the beginning a couple people commented. I even recruited some that way. However, for the masses, most people do not like to be bombarded with info on joining other people’s opportunity. This not only includes your status updates, but your private messages as well. Do not spam people with your company details. If you spam people, they will eventually stop reading your posts and either skip over them or unfriend you. I know because I do that every day to people who spam me. I do not want to hear about other people’s companies. This is the wrong way to approach people.

So today, get out and make a couple new friends on Facebook. Establish trust! Be their friend. Be helpful and caring (that is what friends do). You will eventually get to talk about your business, but before you do build that friendship. Your closing ratios will be much higher that way.

Directory Submission- Submit your site to SEO friendly directories

Directory submission is an important part of search engine optimization. It is essential for every webmaster to have his website submitted to SEO friendly directories. One way links are imperative to SEO success. They are involved in helping you develop your web presence. Choose a trustworthy SEO firm to get the desired results.

Having an tremendous website does not guarantee plentiful traffic. The site needs to have appropriate keyword rich content and precious information to give to customers. It has to reach out to consumers all over the world. Manual directory submission is supportive in such a state of affairs. You can hire professionals SEO to have your site submitted manually to quality directories. You can rest assured that each manual directory they submit to will be relevant to your site. The directories chosen by them are based on pedigree and reliability. The SEO firm you choose can make or break your online presence. Do not get influenced by empty promises and tall claims. There are quite a few SEO firms out there who talk big about impeccable customer service, link building, directory submission, article submission and more. Choose carefully! Choose wisely!


You need to have related incoming links to your website. You need to have your website submitted to directories with high PR rank. Hire only quality directory submission services to make certain stupendous results. If your article is submitted to a directory that is not appropriate to your website, it will logically not give you the desired outcome. Hence, it makes good judgment to hire a reputed seo firm that chooses directories thoroughly. You can rest assured that your site will never be blacklisted by any search engine. Submitting your site to article directories is a sure shot way to boost your web presence. You will get highest one way links. Additionally, the incoming links to your website will be related and appropriate.

Directory submission service is the require of the hour. Webmasters are realizing the need and significance of this service. All of them need to rank high on search engines. Sorrowfully, very few of them achieve their goals. The ones who be successful are the ones who hire quality directory submission service. They outsource this work to professionals and choose to focus on their key business. They don’t waste their expensive time focusing on something that can be done by professionals. If you own a website then you should hire skilled SEO consultants to optimize your site and project it to greater heights. There are various methods of search engine optimization. Directory submission is one of them.


There are a variety of benefits of a quality directory submission service. It is a given that search engines prefer websites that show off of a great number of back links in them. Directory submission can build back links and improve your web presence. It can generate substantial traffic to your website.