That’s all well and good, though the examples he gives about why this guy is so great really misses the mark.

Here’s a direct quote:

“Now I don’t know much about the technical stuff of how he does it, but I know it works. Not just for me, but for a bunch of my other clients also. Just type in Internet Speaker Australia to Google and you will see he pops up, now if he can do that for himself over and above all these other ‘gurus’, then he knows what he is doing in my book.”

Now the problem I have with that is that anyone can rank highly, be it on the first page or even in first position, for phrases which NO ONE searches for.

If no one is searching for it, then it’s worth nothing. It is a worthless brag.

It’s what I call a “useless keyword victory“, and not something that a person should celebrate, promote or encourage other people to praise.

Before engaging an SEO specialist, I suggest learning something about it yourself. You don’t need to be an expert, but at least educate yourself enough to be aware of what you’re getting yourself into, before handing over the reins (and money) to someone else to further promote and capitalize on your online venture.

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Internet Speaker Australia?

Related posts:

1. How do people search for poetry online? Are they searching for tips on poetry? A “How To...
2. Kindle 3: New and Improved August 27th Amazon releases a new smaller Kindle, though the...

Voice search detects your computer’s microphone settings and will transcribe your words into a search query.

Will this change how people search?

By that I mean the actual search phrases.

Will we see a surge in search terms starting with “I wanna see…”, “Find me information on…” or “I need information about…”

Or how about “Bring me up…” or “Where can I find…”

Already now there are only 1,300 exact matches per month for ‘where can i find’ but as a broad match type it tops one million a month.

Will our search patterns change as we get into the habit of talking to our computers instead of typing on them?

Post from: Startpoint.biz

The Future Is Here: Google Voice Search

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimisation Search engine optimization (SEO), considered by many to be a...
2. From the producers of Lensroll.com… I was imaging the voice of Don LaFontaine when writing...
3. Happy Half Millionth Hub to HubPages HQ! Within the last hour or so HubPages Inc passed the...

Blogging dates back to 1999. I started my first blog (now long since absent from the interwebs) back in 2001. From memory only one of my friends (the geekiest geek I’ve ever known) was aware what a blog was, and that may have been because I showed him mine. But he would have found out what it is anyway, sooner rather than later. But no one else in my circle of friends knew what a blog was.

Short for ‘weblog’, which is a ‘web log’. A log. A journal. Like an online diary.

Within a few years I’d hear the mention of the word in the news, be it broadcast or print, and my ears would prick up. It was a novelty to hear people discuss it. Now everyone knows what one is.

To start with they were nothing more than a place for a person rant or rave about anything that crossed their mind. And to a large extent there are plenty of blogs launched every day that follow that mindset.

But at some point it also became a vehicle in which to get serious. To discuss specific niches, to stick to particular themes. Experts started using blogs to further their reach, or people who were otherwise unknown became known as being experts due to the influence of their blogs.

Some people started making recommendations, about things to buy. Or just went the whole hog and their blog was nothing more than a sales vehicle. Linking to products which they were either getting a kick back for the endorsement or they were making a commission whenever someone clicked through on the affiliate link and bought the product.

Then Google Adsense came along and had ads that picked up on the text and served up a matching ad that was within the same context as the content on the page. People clicked on ads not knowing that they were ads or the information in the ad was enticing enough for them to click through out of curiosity.

People started making money from blogs.

And then things kinda went crazy.

Because some people started to create blogs and publish posts about ‘how to make money from blogging’. And they had absolutely no experience. In some instances their first ever blog post published was about making money.

After doing that for a while many realised it wasn’t working. And they started to do search to find out, and ended up on forums, and would ask “how come I’m not making money from blogging?”

It was a case of the blind leading the blind.

There’s plenty of good information available to learn how to blog, and how to make money from blogging. Of course you need to sift through a lot of the crap to find anything worth taking notice. There are a few good books available. Though many tend to date rather quickly if they focus on the current technology or are a How To on how to use a particular platform. As soon as a site has a revamp all the screenshots become outdated.

There are many steps to blogging success. Promotion is of course an intricate key, and we’re covering that in this series. But before you do that, and before you try and make money, the most important thing to do is think about what you want to blog about.

Unless you’re a gifted comedian with the ability to write well on any number of subjects, and have an audience spellbound, you’re better off sticking to one topic.

If it relates to your work, you could prove to be a valuable source of information for others considering entering the field or even for your peers to learn new ways of doing things.

Or you might wish to cover a hobby or an interest. Something that excites you. Something that you can share with others and describe in your own words in a meaningful and understandable way.

Forget about the money. Don’t set goals. Do it for the love of it. Because if money is your only motivation then you’ll give up before you make anything decent. Because success isn’t instantaneous.

Your blogging could also be a means to drive traffic to your existing commercial website. So you might not want to monetize it at all.

A lot of businesses and even big companies are blogging. As a way to connect and communicate with their audience.

Right now I am blogging unofficially on this site startpoint.biz as me. My opinion, my thoughts. On the blog I maintain at startpoint.com.au I am less personal. Though hopefully just as informative and useful.

Blogging is a part of my business… and who would have thought that would happen when ten years ago when the only meaningful conversation in real life I could have using the word blog was with one other person.

There are two sides to blogging… a blog could be your primary site, and therefore you are reading this and my other posts) in the hope of discovering or being pointed in the right direction on how to promote your blog and get traffic. Or you might have another site and you’re using a blog to get traffic THROUGH rather than TO.

Either way, stick around, we’ve got some more ground to cover.

COMING SOON: Chatrooms

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Blogging

Related posts:

1. A New Challenge Is About To Begin Both here and at Hubpages. First, another welcome to Startpoint.biz....
2. What are Backlinks? Backlinks are important to Search Engines. They are taken into...
3. Crash Course in Web Promotion Since 2001/2002 I’ve been drafting a marketing document of sorts,...

There’s two ways to get backlinks, one is to be enormously popular and people link to you anyway. You don’t even have to be ENORMOUSLY popular, you could just have a page that says something profound, thought provoking or provocative. It could contain an image or a concept or an idea that is novel. Maybe it’s the flavour of the week. It’s a fad, it’s explosive, it has limited shelf life but for right now it’s relevant.

People ‘talking’ about your site (in blogs, chatrooms, forums or social networks) and directing others there by posting a link, that’s natural. That is organic. It’s not forced.

The other way is to submit your site to link directories, blog directories, contact people for Link Exchanges… aka reciporal linking. Linking to it from your own webpages, talking about it, pushing it, promoting it… that’s not natural. You are the driving force behind it.

While the former is preferable it doesn’t necessarily mean the latter is bad or wrong. Depending on how you execute it.

Copying and pasting the same title and description on every social bookmarking site that you’re signed up to is not a good idea. It’s predictable. And can be a colossal waste of time, with your account being banned, or your links being removed or search engines discounting the weight of an obvious attempt to game the system.

It’s a rare occasion when I link to my articles. Yes, you will see me do it on Facebook and Twitter. For every hub, lens or blog post you’ve seen me link to, there’s probably 10 or even 20 that has gone unheralded. Most of the time I just let them sit and mature and be found, crawled and indexed by search engines.

Now and then when I want some immediate attention, I do throw out a few backlinks. But my main tactic is to spend more time creating content rather than promoting it. It’s a long term strategy, which can take 6 to 12 months to pay off, but I’m patient and I am seeing the rewards.

UP NEXT: Blogging

Post from: Startpoint.biz

What are Backlinks?

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimisation Search engine optimization (SEO), considered by many to be a...
2. What comes first? The keyword research or the content? Either. It’s entirely up to you. Sometimes a subject area...
3. Your Bright Idea [caption id="attachment_94" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo by Fellipe Silva"][/caption] Before we...

Did you know that this year there will be nearly 9,000 young men diagnosed and over 360 young men will die of testicular cancer because they didn’t find it in time.

To raise awareness we’re going to do one of those Facebook status update campaigns that the ladies enjoy doing like a secret girls club with us guys on the outer along with our boys germs.

Starting April 1st through to April 7 2011 is Testicular Cancer Awareness Week, between now and then we want to raise public awareness direct people to an education program which was conceived because of the alarming number of young men presenting advanced, incurable cases of Testicular Cancer.

The “Get A Grip!” campaign is designed to promote education, awareness, and the importance of early detection through monthly self-exams and correct diagnosis.

To spread the word all you need to do are these 3 simple steps…

1) Update your Facebook Status with your nut:

• Chestnuts: I’m single
• Pinenuts: It’s complicated
• Brazil nuts: I’m a touch and go man
• Cashews: Engaged
• Pecans: In a relationship
• Walnuts: I’m married
• Almond: I’m the “other one”
• Macadamia: Can’t find the right one
• Peanuts: I wish I was single
• Hazelnut: I want to get married

2) Send the following message to all your male Facebook friends (don’t tell the girls!)

What type of nut are you?
 
In the spirit of Facebook slacktivism, I give you:
 
Raising testicular cancer awareness on Facebook!
 
Did you know that this year there will be nearly 9,000 young men diagnosed and over 360 young men will die of testicular cancer because they didn’t find it in time.
 
To raise awareness (and beat the girls at their own game) we want you to stop by http://www.startpoint.biz/promotion/what-type-of-nut-are-you/ for the full list of NUTS and their meaning.
 
The page also has information about Testicular Cancer Awareness Week, which is only a couple of weeks away, starting April 1st 2011, through to April 7.
 
So stop by http://www.startpoint.biz/promotion/what-type-of-nut-are-you/ and find out more!

3) Stop by TCAW and find out information how to regularly check yourself for the warning signs of testicular cancer. 9 out of 10 guys play with their nuts on a regular basis, you might as well have a good medical excuse!

So spread the word and get a grip!

Post from: Startpoint.biz

What type of nut are you?

Related posts:

1. Opportunity Knocks [caption id="attachment_120" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Our paths crossed."][/caption] Not long after...
2. Enormous Potential Over the next few weeks I would drop in to...

Many site owners and consultants engaging in SEO attempt to pursue qualified visitors to a site, and the quality of visitor traffic can be measured by how often a visitor using a specific keyword phrase leads to a desired conversion action, such as making a purchase, viewing or downloading a certain page, requesting further information, signing up for a newsletter, or taking some other specific action.

In a broad sense, SEO is marketing by understanding how search algorithms work and what human visitors might search for, to help match those visitors with sites offering what they are interested in finding. (Source)

How does Google work?

Google awards “points” for how often keywords are mention, how prominent they are on the page and the location on the page. It is important not to overdue repetitive keywords as Google filters these sites out as “keyword spamming”. Other scoring factors include “link popularity”, “click popularity”, “freshness of content” and much more.

Google doesn’t “see” websites the way humans do. Instead, Google reads text based code such as .html. Because of this, it is important to design your site with clean code. The less code on your site and more text the better you will rank. If you are not a web designer, commission a designer to review your code. Have him or her remove all extraneous code and unnecessary tags. (Source)

SEO is a big subject which requires more than one blog post. And there’s plenty of information that is freely available that can tell you how to do it the right way, the wrong way and also the naughty way (some give instructions on how to do it the naughty way, which is the wrong way, while others warn you against it).

Don’t try any “black hat” techniques. Eventually you will come undone. And all the work you’ve put in will count for nothing. Do it the right way, the proper way, and you won’t be in for any nasty surprises.

UP NEXT: Backlinking

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Search Engine Optimisation

Related posts:

1. The Future Is Here: Google Voice Search I just read in a Mashable article that Google has...
2. 30 Day Hub Challenge Gameplan: The Last 10 Days It’s time to hit the Internet! If all goes to...
3. About Since 2007 I have been working on Lensroll.com with my...

Image by Michal Zacharzewski

E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail, is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail.

A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk.

Suspicious or potentially dangerous electronic mail may include:

• spam (unsolicited commercial email or junk mail)
• unsolicited mail containing viruses
• mail where sender is unknown and subject line is enticing and/or personal (eg urging the receiver to open immediately)
• attachments
• particular file extensions

E-mail spam has steadily, even exponentially grown since the early 1990s to several billion messages a day. Spam has frustrated, confused, and annoyed e-mail users. The total volume of spam (over 100 billion emails per day as of April 2008) has leveled off slightly in recent years, and is no longer growing exponentially. The amount received by most e-mail users has decreased, mostly because of better filtering. About 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200 spammers.

Spammers collect e-mail addresses from chatrooms, websites, customer lists, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users’ address books, and are sold to other spammers. Much of spam is sent to invalid e-mail addresses.

“Pills, porn and poker” are some of the common products advertised in spam. Others include replica watches.

In order to send spam, spammers need to obtain the e-mail addresses of the intended recipients. To this end, both spammers themselves and list merchants gather huge lists of potential e-mail addresses. Since spam is, by definition, unsolicited, this address harvesting is done without the consent (and sometimes against the expressed will) of the address owners. As a consequence, spammers’ address lists are inaccurate. A single spam run may target tens of millions of possible addresses — many of which are invalid and therefore undeliverable.

Sometimes, if the sent spam is “bounced” or sent back to the sender by various programs that eliminate spam, or if the recipient clicks on an unsubscribe link, that may cause that email address to be marked as “valid”, which is interpreted by the spammer as “send me more”.

Nowadays spam isn’t limited to unsolicicted bulk email. It’s also done in blog comments, forum threads, guestbooks, social bookmarking sites… if you annoy someone, they’ll tell you you’re spamming. And they’ll probably be right.

Spamming is NOT a good way to promote your website.

Spam is a desperate act by a person who is impatient in achieving their traffic goals. And it’s ineffective. And it’ll get you banned and give you a bad reputation.

UP NEXT: Search Engine Optimization

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Spamming

Related posts:

1. Happy Half Millionth Hub to HubPages HQ! Within the last hour or so HubPages Inc passed the...
2. The Power Of The Sig Most forums allow you to include a forum signature with...
3. Changing Direction [caption id="attachment_116" align="alignright" width="222" caption="Photo by Michaela Kobyakov"][/caption] It’s been...

Photo by www.annaOMline.com

Step 2: How To Start A Website (Because You’ll Need Something To Promote Right?)

You need to decide on a domain name. Unless you’re doing a hosted blog or a myspace page. Even then you should have a good think about what you’re going to name it. And if you’re serious about it, you’ll eventually need a domain name.

What is the criteria for a good domain name?

Plenty of experts, wannabe experts, enthusiasts and amateurs will have a plethora of of rules and guidelines, but my three are simple, here’s what I look for:

• Memorability
• Brandability
• Repeatability

Memorability… will it be easily forgotten? It won’t matter if you’ve gone for a generic name, a descriptive name, a business name or a completely made up name, it’s got to be something that’s not quickly forgotten. You want it to stick. Also hyphens, which aren’t necessarily damaging from an SEO point of view, might lose you more than a few type-ins (people typing in the web address in the browser, rather than searching or clicking on a link).

Brandability… Is it something that can be established as your brand. Again, it doesn’t have to be up there with McDonalds, Dell, Coke or a myriad of other well established brands where they pour millions of dollars a year into marketing and promotion, you must be able to integrate your domain name into the site as a logo, and that logo should have the legs to be able to do all the other jobs you want it to do. Will you need it on business cards, letterheads, t-shirts? Okay, your website idea may never need to expose itself in the real world, but make sure that it can do the job for you.

Repeatability… some sites will be hampered in being spread via word of mouth, and by word of mouth I mean someone telling another person what the name of the site is. Does it need to be spelled out? If you were to run a radio ad with the domain name mentioned, is the audience going to understand simply by hearing the double-u, double-u, double-u, site name, dot com?

That’s where hyphens may be a problem, or using numbers to replace words (2 for to, 4 for… for) or what sounds like a really clever play on words or a deliberate misspelling might inadvertently drive traffic to another site.

Things That (In My Opinion) Don’t Matter

The length of a domain may not matter at all, provided the words are spelled correctly and sound natural. For instance years ago www.youhaveasecretadmirer.com was available. Now that’s a REALLY long string of words, however… it’s a phrase that most people are familiar with, so it wouldn’t be hard for a person to remember.

If you’re after a generic name, all the best keywords will be gone, so you’ll be extremely lucky to find a keyword phrase of just two words, you might find a good one of three. But then rearranging those words might bring about the same result of availability, so it might be hard for people to remember. So really think hard about what it is you’re doing, who your target audience is, and what you’re providing them. You might consider registering the name as a business name in your country or state.

Protecting Your Domain Name/Idea

It might be a wise investment to buy up everything on the block to ward off cyber-squatters or less scrupulous people who wish to cash in on your reputation.

Eg: if you wanted freshlinksdaily.com you might also want to get dailyfreshlinks.com

Google has registered a number of misspellings that forward to their main site: Gogole, Gooogle, Gogle, ww.Google.com, 466453 (look at your phone pad), and Elgoog.

And trademarking is important too. Maybe not straight away, but if the site does take off there are plenty of vultures out there who will attempt to trademark the name so they can use it to have your domain taken away from you.

There’s a LOT of things to consider, but you don’t have to take them ALL into a account from the outset. Just be aware that if whatever you’re doing does start to find success, that you might want to protect your idea and investment.

Registering Your Domain Name

Registering a domain name is easy enough. For as little as $9 a year to $35+. There is no set price, it depends entirely on the registrar.

There are plenty of honest and reliable domain name registrars, and no doubt plenty more who neither. If you have friends, both online and offline, who have registered domain names, find out where they registered them and how much it cost. For me I trust www.dotster.com for my domain name registrations.

UP NEXT: Spamming

Post from: Startpoint.biz

The Domain Name Game

Related posts:

1. Your Bright Idea [caption id="attachment_94" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo by Fellipe Silva"][/caption] Before we...
2. Enormous Potential Over the next few weeks I would drop in to...
3. Lightning Doesn’t Strike Twice – Groundbreaking Ideas I originally wrote and posted this on Joel Comm’s AdsenseChat...

Photo by Fellipe Silva

Before we talking about how to promote your website you first need a website.

Perhaps you’ve already got one, or several, but if you don’t you’ll obviously need one. Otherwise what will you promote?

Websites can do many things, and be many things. But I’ve narrowed it down to five general types of website which you’ll find on the net…

Information, Business, Education, Entertainment and Social.

And in no particular order we will have a brief look at each…

Business

If you have a business site your methods of promotion are pretty simple: SEO (Search Engine Optimization, making sure you rank well in the search results of as many search engines that you can), sponsoring events, Advertising (PPC advertising programs such as Adwords) and on your work vehicles, business cards and Yellow Pages entry.

That’s about it really.

Don’t try and use the techniques, tactics, strategies or ideas I’ll be outlining in this series. No matter how hard you try, you will end up looking like a spammer.

But all is not lost, you can always create a site that falls in one of the other categories, and use these techniques. And run banner ads on that site to plug your business site.

The best place to start is to come up with an idea that has roots in something that you already have an interest in, be it a hobby or past time. More on that as we discuss the other types.

Entertainment

Think flash games, flash animation, web comics, music, fiction, video production…

If you’re a creative type of person pretty much anything you do can be transferred to the online world so it can entertain others.

Also witty banter on a blog would comfortably fall into this category.

Education

If you have the ability to pass on to others what you know in any of your creative pursuits (outlined in “Entertainment”) then you can also Educate people.

You can write “How To” articles!

But it’s not just restricted to that. Whether a person is a bricklayer or a dressmaker, fisherman or a remote control car enthusiast, if you have a gift whereby you can convey what you know to reach and teach those who don’t, then you have a talent that can not only draw a crowd but can make you money online.

“Content is http://www.startpoint.biz Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:15:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.startpoint.biz/search-engines/internet-speaker-australia/ http://www.startpoint.biz/search-engines/internet-speaker-australia/#comments Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:15:33 +0000 Glen http://www.startpoint.biz/?p=197 Post from: Startpoint.biz

Internet Speaker Australia?

1. How do people search for poetry online? Are they searching for tips on poetry? A “How To...
2. Kindle 3: New and Improved August 27th Amazon releases a new smaller Kindle, though the...

Voice search detects your computer’s microphone settings and will transcribe your words into a search query.

Will this change how people search?

By that I mean the actual search phrases.

Will we see a surge in search terms starting with “I wanna see…”, “Find me information on…” or “I need information about…”

Or how about “Bring me up…” or “Where can I find…”

Already now there are only 1,300 exact matches per month for ‘where can i find’ but as a broad match type it tops one million a month.

Will our search patterns change as we get into the habit of talking to our computers instead of typing on them?

Post from: Startpoint.biz

The Future Is Here: Google Voice Search

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimisation Search engine optimization (SEO), considered by many to be a...
2. From the producers of Lensroll.com… I was imaging the voice of Don LaFontaine when writing...
3. Happy Half Millionth Hub to HubPages HQ! Within the last hour or so HubPages Inc passed the...

Blogging dates back to 1999. I started my first blog (now long since absent from the interwebs) back in 2001. From memory only one of my friends (the geekiest geek I’ve ever known) was aware what a blog was, and that may have been because I showed him mine. But he would have found out what it is anyway, sooner rather than later. But no one else in my circle of friends knew what a blog was.

Short for ‘weblog’, which is a ‘web log’. A log. A journal. Like an online diary.

Within a few years I’d hear the mention of the word in the news, be it broadcast or print, and my ears would prick up. It was a novelty to hear people discuss it. Now everyone knows what one is.

To start with they were nothing more than a place for a person rant or rave about anything that crossed their mind. And to a large extent there are plenty of blogs launched every day that follow that mindset.

But at some point it also became a vehicle in which to get serious. To discuss specific niches, to stick to particular themes. Experts started using blogs to further their reach, or people who were otherwise unknown became known as being experts due to the influence of their blogs.

Some people started making recommendations, about things to buy. Or just went the whole hog and their blog was nothing more than a sales vehicle. Linking to products which they were either getting a kick back for the endorsement or they were making a commission whenever someone clicked through on the affiliate link and bought the product.

Then Google Adsense came along and had ads that picked up on the text and served up a matching ad that was within the same context as the content on the page. People clicked on ads not knowing that they were ads or the information in the ad was enticing enough for them to click through out of curiosity.

People started making money from blogs.

And then things kinda went crazy.

Because some people started to create blogs and publish posts about ‘how to make money from blogging’. And they had absolutely no experience. In some instances their first ever blog post published was about making money.

After doing that for a while many realised it wasn’t working. And they started to do search to find out, and ended up on forums, and would ask “how come I’m not making money from blogging?”

It was a case of the blind leading the blind.

There’s plenty of good information available to learn how to blog, and how to make money from blogging. Of course you need to sift through a lot of the crap to find anything worth taking notice. There are a few good books available. Though many tend to date rather quickly if they focus on the current technology or are a How To on how to use a particular platform. As soon as a site has a revamp all the screenshots become outdated.

There are many steps to blogging success. Promotion is of course an intricate key, and we’re covering that in this series. But before you do that, and before you try and make money, the most important thing to do is think about what you want to blog about.

Unless you’re a gifted comedian with the ability to write well on any number of subjects, and have an audience spellbound, you’re better off sticking to one topic.

If it relates to your work, you could prove to be a valuable source of information for others considering entering the field or even for your peers to learn new ways of doing things.

Or you might wish to cover a hobby or an interest. Something that excites you. Something that you can share with others and describe in your own words in a meaningful and understandable way.

Forget about the money. Don’t set goals. Do it for the love of it. Because if money is your only motivation then you’ll give up before you make anything decent. Because success isn’t instantaneous.

Your blogging could also be a means to drive traffic to your existing commercial website. So you might not want to monetize it at all.

A lot of businesses and even big companies are blogging. As a way to connect and communicate with their audience.

Right now I am blogging unofficially on this site startpoint.biz as me. My opinion, my thoughts. On the blog I maintain at startpoint.com.au I am less personal. Though hopefully just as informative and useful.

Blogging is a part of my business… and who would have thought that would happen when ten years ago when the only meaningful conversation in real life I could have using the word blog was with one other person.

There are two sides to blogging… a blog could be your primary site, and therefore you are reading this and my other posts) in the hope of discovering or being pointed in the right direction on how to promote your blog and get traffic. Or you might have another site and you’re using a blog to get traffic THROUGH rather than TO.

Either way, stick around, we’ve got some more ground to cover.

COMING SOON: Chatrooms

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Blogging

Related posts:

1. A New Challenge Is About To Begin Both here and at Hubpages. First, another welcome to Startpoint.biz....
2. What are Backlinks? Backlinks are important to Search Engines. They are taken into...
3. Crash Course in Web Promotion Since 2001/2002 I’ve been drafting a marketing document of sorts,...

There’s two ways to get backlinks, one is to be enormously popular and people link to you anyway. You don’t even have to be ENORMOUSLY popular, you could just have a page that says something profound, thought provoking or provocative. It could contain an image or a concept or an idea that is novel. Maybe it’s the flavour of the week. It’s a fad, it’s explosive, it has limited shelf life but for right now it’s relevant.

People ‘talking’ about your site (in blogs, chatrooms, forums or social networks) and directing others there by posting a link, that’s natural. That is organic. It’s not forced.

The other way is to submit your site to link directories, blog directories, contact people for Link Exchanges… aka reciporal linking. Linking to it from your own webpages, talking about it, pushing it, promoting it… that’s not natural. You are the driving force behind it.

While the former is preferable it doesn’t necessarily mean the latter is bad or wrong. Depending on how you execute it.

Copying and pasting the same title and description on every social bookmarking site that you’re signed up to is not a good idea. It’s predictable. And can be a colossal waste of time, with your account being banned, or your links being removed or search engines discounting the weight of an obvious attempt to game the system.

It’s a rare occasion when I link to my articles. Yes, you will see me do it on Facebook and Twitter. For every hub, lens or blog post you’ve seen me link to, there’s probably 10 or even 20 that has gone unheralded. Most of the time I just let them sit and mature and be found, crawled and indexed by search engines.

Now and then when I want some immediate attention, I do throw out a few backlinks. But my main tactic is to spend more time creating content rather than promoting it. It’s a long term strategy, which can take 6 to 12 months to pay off, but I’m patient and I am seeing the rewards.

UP NEXT: Blogging

Post from: Startpoint.biz

What are Backlinks?

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimisation Search engine optimization (SEO), considered by many to be a...
2. What comes first? The keyword research or the content? Either. It’s entirely up to you. Sometimes a subject area...
3. Your Bright Idea [caption id="attachment_94" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo by Fellipe Silva"][/caption] Before we...

Did you know that this year there will be nearly 9,000 young men diagnosed and over 360 young men will die of testicular cancer because they didn’t find it in time.

To raise awareness we’re going to do one of those Facebook status update campaigns that the ladies enjoy doing like a secret girls club with us guys on the outer along with our boys germs.

Starting April 1st through to April 7 2011 is Testicular Cancer Awareness Week, between now and then we want to raise public awareness direct people to an education program which was conceived because of the alarming number of young men presenting advanced, incurable cases of Testicular Cancer.

The “Get A Grip!” campaign is designed to promote education, awareness, and the importance of early detection through monthly self-exams and correct diagnosis.

To spread the word all you need to do are these 3 simple steps…

1) Update your Facebook Status with your nut:

• Chestnuts: I’m single
• Pinenuts: It’s complicated
• Brazil nuts: I’m a touch and go man
• Cashews: Engaged
• Pecans: In a relationship
• Walnuts: I’m married
• Almond: I’m the “other one”
• Macadamia: Can’t find the right one
• Peanuts: I wish I was single
• Hazelnut: I want to get married

2) Send the following message to all your male Facebook friends (don’t tell the girls!)

What type of nut are you?
 
In the spirit of Facebook slacktivism, I give you:
 
Raising testicular cancer awareness on Facebook!
 
Did you know that this year there will be nearly 9,000 young men diagnosed and over 360 young men will die of testicular cancer because they didn’t find it in time.
 
To raise awareness (and beat the girls at their own game) we want you to stop by http://www.startpoint.biz/promotion/what-type-of-nut-are-you/ for the full list of NUTS and their meaning.
 
The page also has information about Testicular Cancer Awareness Week, which is only a couple of weeks away, starting April 1st 2011, through to April 7.
 
So stop by http://www.startpoint.biz/promotion/what-type-of-nut-are-you/ and find out more!

3) Stop by TCAW and find out information how to regularly check yourself for the warning signs of testicular cancer. 9 out of 10 guys play with their nuts on a regular basis, you might as well have a good medical excuse!

So spread the word and get a grip!

Post from: Startpoint.biz

What type of nut are you?

Related posts:

1. Opportunity Knocks [caption id="attachment_120" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Our paths crossed."][/caption] Not long after...
2. Enormous Potential Over the next few weeks I would drop in to...

Many site owners and consultants engaging in SEO attempt to pursue qualified visitors to a site, and the quality of visitor traffic can be measured by how often a visitor using a specific keyword phrase leads to a desired conversion action, such as making a purchase, viewing or downloading a certain page, requesting further information, signing up for a newsletter, or taking some other specific action.

In a broad sense, SEO is marketing by understanding how search algorithms work and what human visitors might search for, to help match those visitors with sites offering what they are interested in finding. (Source)

How does Google work?

Google awards “points” for how often keywords are mention, how prominent they are on the page and the location on the page. It is important not to overdue repetitive keywords as Google filters these sites out as “keyword spamming”. Other scoring factors include “link popularity”, “click popularity”, “freshness of content” and much more.

Google doesn’t “see” websites the way humans do. Instead, Google reads text based code such as .html. Because of this, it is important to design your site with clean code. The less code on your site and more text the better you will rank. If you are not a web designer, commission a designer to review your code. Have him or her remove all extraneous code and unnecessary tags. (Source)

SEO is a big subject which requires more than one blog post. And there’s plenty of information that is freely available that can tell you how to do it the right way, the wrong way and also the naughty way (some give instructions on how to do it the naughty way, which is the wrong way, while others warn you against it).

Don’t try any “black hat” techniques. Eventually you will come undone. And all the work you’ve put in will count for nothing. Do it the right way, the proper way, and you won’t be in for any nasty surprises.

UP NEXT: Backlinking

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Search Engine Optimisation

Related posts:

1. The Future Is Here: Google Voice Search I just read in a Mashable article that Google has...
2. 30 Day Hub Challenge Gameplan: The Last 10 Days It’s time to hit the Internet! If all goes to...
3. About Since 2007 I have been working on Lensroll.com with my...

Image by Michal Zacharzewski

E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail, is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail.

A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk.

Suspicious or potentially dangerous electronic mail may include:

• spam (unsolicited commercial email or junk mail)
• unsolicited mail containing viruses
• mail where sender is unknown and subject line is enticing and/or personal (eg urging the receiver to open immediately)
• attachments
• particular file extensions

E-mail spam has steadily, even exponentially grown since the early 1990s to several billion messages a day. Spam has frustrated, confused, and annoyed e-mail users. The total volume of spam (over 100 billion emails per day as of April 2008) has leveled off slightly in recent years, and is no longer growing exponentially. The amount received by most e-mail users has decreased, mostly because of better filtering. About 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200 spammers.

Spammers collect e-mail addresses from chatrooms, websites, customer lists, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users’ address books, and are sold to other spammers. Much of spam is sent to invalid e-mail addresses.

“Pills, porn and poker” are some of the common products advertised in spam. Others include replica watches.

In order to send spam, spammers need to obtain the e-mail addresses of the intended recipients. To this end, both spammers themselves and list merchants gather huge lists of potential e-mail addresses. Since spam is, by definition, unsolicited, this address harvesting is done without the consent (and sometimes against the expressed will) of the address owners. As a consequence, spammers’ address lists are inaccurate. A single spam run may target tens of millions of possible addresses — many of which are invalid and therefore undeliverable.

Sometimes, if the sent spam is “bounced” or sent back to the sender by various programs that eliminate spam, or if the recipient clicks on an unsubscribe link, that may cause that email address to be marked as “valid”, which is interpreted by the spammer as “send me more”.

Nowadays spam isn’t limited to unsolicicted bulk email. It’s also done in blog comments, forum threads, guestbooks, social bookmarking sites… if you annoy someone, they’ll tell you you’re spamming. And they’ll probably be right.

Spamming is NOT a good way to promote your website.

Spam is a desperate act by a person who is impatient in achieving their traffic goals. And it’s ineffective. And it’ll get you banned and give you a bad reputation.

UP NEXT: Search Engine Optimization

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Spamming

Related posts:

1. Happy Half Millionth Hub to HubPages HQ! Within the last hour or so HubPages Inc passed the...
2. The Power Of The Sig Most forums allow you to include a forum signature with...
3. Changing Direction [caption id="attachment_116" align="alignright" width="222" caption="Photo by Michaela Kobyakov"][/caption] It’s been...

Photo by www.annaOMline.com

Step 2: How To Start A Website (Because You’ll Need Something To Promote Right?)

You need to decide on a domain name. Unless you’re doing a hosted blog or a myspace page. Even then you should have a good think about what you’re going to name it. And if you’re serious about it, you’ll eventually need a domain name.

What is the criteria for a good domain name?

Plenty of experts, wannabe experts, enthusiasts and amateurs will have a plethora of of rules and guidelines, but my three are simple, here’s what I look for:

• Memorability
• Brandability
• Repeatability

Memorability… will it be easily forgotten? It won’t matter if you’ve gone for a generic name, a descriptive name, a business name or a completely made up name, it’s got to be something that’s not quickly forgotten. You want it to stick. Also hyphens, which aren’t necessarily damaging from an SEO point of view, might lose you more than a few type-ins (people typing in the web address in the browser, rather than searching or clicking on a link).

Brandability… Is it something that can be established as your brand. Again, it doesn’t have to be up there with McDonalds, Dell, Coke or a myriad of other well established brands where they pour millions of dollars a year into marketing and promotion, you must be able to integrate your domain name into the site as a logo, and that logo should have the legs to be able to do all the other jobs you want it to do. Will you need it on business cards, letterheads, t-shirts? Okay, your website idea may never need to expose itself in the real world, but make sure that it can do the job for you.

Repeatability… some sites will be hampered in being spread via word of mouth, and by word of mouth I mean someone telling another person what the name of the site is. Does it need to be spelled out? If you were to run a radio ad with the domain name mentioned, is the audience going to understand simply by hearing the double-u, double-u, double-u, site name, dot com?

That’s where hyphens may be a problem, or using numbers to replace words (2 for to, 4 for… for) or what sounds like a really clever play on words or a deliberate misspelling might inadvertently drive traffic to another site.

Things That (In My Opinion) Don’t Matter

The length of a domain may not matter at all, provided the words are spelled correctly and sound natural. For instance years ago www.youhaveasecretadmirer.com was available. Now that’s a REALLY long string of words, however… it’s a phrase that most people are familiar with, so it wouldn’t be hard for a person to remember.

If you’re after a generic name, all the best keywords will be gone, so you’ll be extremely lucky to find a keyword phrase of just two words, you might find a good one of three. But then rearranging those words might bring about the same result of availability, so it might be hard for people to remember. So really think hard about what it is you’re doing, who your target audience is, and what you’re providing them. You might consider registering the name as a business name in your country or state.

Protecting Your Domain Name/Idea

It might be a wise investment to buy up everything on the block to ward off cyber-squatters or less scrupulous people who wish to cash in on your reputation.

Eg: if you wanted freshlinksdaily.com you might also want to get dailyfreshlinks.com

Google has registered a number of misspellings that forward to their main site: Gogole, Gooogle, Gogle, ww.Google.com, 466453 (look at your phone pad), and Elgoog.

And trademarking is important too. Maybe not straight away, but if the site does take off there are plenty of vultures out there who will attempt to trademark the name so they can use it to have your domain taken away from you.

There’s a LOT of things to consider, but you don’t have to take them ALL into a account from the outset. Just be aware that if whatever you’re doing does start to find success, that you might want to protect your idea and investment.

Registering Your Domain Name

Registering a domain name is easy enough. For as little as $9 a year to $35+. There is no set price, it depends entirely on the registrar.

There are plenty of honest and reliable domain name registrars, and no doubt plenty more who neither. If you have friends, both online and offline, who have registered domain names, find out where they registered them and how much it cost. For me I trust www.dotster.com for my domain name registrations.

UP NEXT: Spamming

Post from: Startpoint.biz

The Domain Name Game

Related posts:

1. Your Bright Idea [caption id="attachment_94" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo by Fellipe Silva"][/caption] Before we...
2. Enormous Potential Over the next few weeks I would drop in to...
3. Lightning Doesn’t Strike Twice – Groundbreaking Ideas I originally wrote and posted this on Joel Comm’s AdsenseChat...

Photo by Fellipe Silva

Before we talking about how to promote your website you first need a website.

Perhaps you’ve already got one, or several, but if you don’t you’ll obviously need one. Otherwise what will you promote?

Websites can do many things, and be many things. But I’ve narrowed it down to five general types of website which you’ll find on the net…

Information, Business, Education, Entertainment and Social.

And in no particular order we will have a brief look at each…

Business

If you have a business site your methods of promotion are pretty simple: SEO (Search Engine Optimization, making sure you rank well in the search results of as many search engines that you can), sponsoring events, Advertising (PPC advertising programs such as Adwords) and on your work vehicles, business cards and Yellow Pages entry.

That’s about it really.

Don’t try and use the techniques, tactics, strategies or ideas I’ll be outlining in this series. No matter how hard you try, you will end up looking like a spammer.

But all is not lost, you can always create a site that falls in one of the other categories, and use these techniques. And run banner ads on that site to plug your business site.

The best place to start is to come up with an idea that has roots in something that you already have an interest in, be it a hobby or past time. More on that as we discuss the other types.

Entertainment

Think flash games, flash animation, web comics, music, fiction, video production…

If you’re a creative type of person pretty much anything you do can be transferred to the online world so it can entertain others.

Also witty banter on a blog would comfortably fall into this category.

Education

If you have the ability to pass on to others what you know in any of your creative pursuits (outlined in “Entertainment”) then you can also Educate people.

You can write “How To” articles!

But it’s not just restricted to that. Whether a person is a bricklayer or a dressmaker, fisherman or a remote control car enthusiast, if you have a gift whereby you can convey what you know to reach and teach those who don’t, then you have a talent that can not only draw a crowd but can make you money online.

“Content is king!” Is the cry heralded around the internet by Internet Marketing Gurus.

More importantly than that Unique Content Is King.

If you can bring to the table original content, that you can explain without losing the audiences interest while drawing from your wealth of experience then you should make a site about what you know.

Even if it’s giving away a few trade secrets, share it.

If you are a builder then make a website about DIY projects. Search engines gobble up that sort of stuff and dish it out when someone comes with a query trying to find a quality website.

You won’t be doing yourself out of a job, quite the opposite, use the site to advertise your business. If people have enough information to be able to do it themselves then a lot of them will realize that they don’t have the time, experience or contacts to do the job justice. And if you’re in their area then who are they going to call to do the job? The person who was honest with them in the first place. The person who took the time to educate them without a sales pitch.

Information

News, wikipedia type sites, product reviews…

There is a difference between educating someone and informing them.

• Perez Hilton isn’t telling you how to become a celebrity, he’s telling you about what the celebs are up to.
• Wikipedia can give you an excellent outline of the life and legend of King Arthur, but it won’t tell you how to make a coat of chainmail.
• A product review doesn’t tell you how to build your own computer, it tells you which are the best features in a comparison between 4 of the newest netbooks.

And a lot of people are searching for information. They do it every day, on Google and other search engines finding out the what’s, when’s and where’s.

Social

Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, Forums

It would take a very unique twist to enter the ranks of the Facebooks, Myspaces and Twitters in terms of world domination but like any gold rush, there’s plenty trying. The same applies to contenders of bookmarking sites heavyweights Digg, StumbleUpon and del.icio.us. These days you’ve got to go for the tightly focused niche. The narrower the better, as it’s far easier to find a passionate fanatic then a generic follower.

Forums have proliferated over the last ten years and installing them has never been easier with the likes of phpBB coming as a quick click installation via Fantastico in the webhosting cPanel. But if you can keep the spammers at bay you still have to get plenty of traffic and approximately 100 sign-ups before you have a chance of getting just one active participant. Of course once you find your tipping point and success kicks in you’ll have plenty of flaming, trolling and sockpuppets that need controlling, and it doesn’t take much for a community to split and a previously loyal segment of your regulars run off and start their own forum. It doesn’t matter if it’s individual groups of geeks, Christians or atheists, they’ll all find an area of common ground where they don’t agree and a point of contention.

UP NEXT: The Domain Name Game

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Your Bright Idea

Related posts:

1. The Domain Name Game [caption id="attachment_142" align="alignright" width="224" caption="Photo by www.annaOMline.com"][/caption] Step 2:...
2. What are Backlinks? Backlinks are important to Search Engines. They are taken into...
3. Spamming [caption id="attachment_146" align="alignleft" width="220" caption="Image by Michal Zacharzewski"][/caption] E-mail spam,...

And I will.

In the meantime though I will be summarizing each chapter and distilling it into blog posts.

We’ll need a startpoint, so we’ll first discuss the type of site you have or the one you want to have, and from there we’ll begin our journey into innovative, imaginative and sometimes outright crazy website marketing and promotion ideas. The same tactics and strategies may also work for your hubs and lenses.

I don’t recommend that you use EVERY single suggestion to promote the one site or webpage, but use what we’ve discussed and tweak it to suit your purposes. Don’t try and force a square block into a round hole, not every webpage is suitable for a ‘digging’. You need to mix things up a bit and find the right fit, depending on where your audience is.

UP NEXT: Your Bright Idea

Post from: Startpoint.biz

Crash Course in Web Promotion

Related posts:

1. From the producers of Lensroll.com… I was imaging the voice of Don LaFontaine when writing...
2. Blogging Blogging… it’s a word that most people, if they’ve been...
3. Your Bright Idea [caption id="attachment_94" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo by Fellipe Silva"][/caption] Before we...