Is article marketing dead?  Many marketers think that after the Google Panda update, that article marketing is a waste of time. I however see article marketing to be just as strong as it has been, however as part of a different type of marketing called content marketing.

Before Panda you could simply write an article and submit it to one of the many article directories. If you knew what you were doing, you could easily get the article ranked in Google search results rather quickly.  You would get your traffic from the links that you placed in the article and your website was monetized with affiliate links as just one example.  Because of this, a massive amount of websites were being ranked by Google that did little for the visitor in terms of the content on the website and more for the marketer in terms of the number of people who would visit and click one of the monetized links.

One of the purposes of Google’s update, (Panda) was to update their algorithm to filter out search results that included these articles on article directories. This is why many say article marketing is dead.

I however say that if you stop trying to scam the system by spinning articles, submitting the same article to many different directories and instead focus on writing original content that is solid and useful, you will be providing what Google wants.

Google is looking for good content to give as results in search results. They want to see original content. You see the focus is on the content that is on your webpage, not the link from an article directory pointing to an inferior webpage.  The content on your webpage is extremely important.

I never did like article spinning so I welcome this change as it makes the internet a better place for both the site visitor and the site owner. Provide good content that the visitor is looking for and you will reap the rewards. Your website will get more traffic as a result of the quality of your content.

The principles are still the same, use of keywords etc, now it is just a bit more complicated. Focus first on the content for your website by using original, high quality content and still provide articles to the directories although one at a time and with the same high quality that would be on your website. When you focus on content marketing you are focusing on what the future of Google search is for the future.

One of the most popular questions that I get from people looking to break into Internet Marketing is about choosing a market or what most term a niche. In particular if the niche they are looking at is a good one or a bad one. What a loaded question that is I tell you. Many of these same people as well as IM’ers who have been doing this for awhile, seem to think that there is some formula to successfully choosing a profitable niche to market in. Usually the answer they receive from me comes with a hard dose of reality. It’s not the answer they were expecting to hear.

Now I did say that there was not a formula for determining if a niche is going to be profitable or not, BUT there are a few things you can take a quick look at to start out. Keep in mind however that these are not written in stone. That is where many miss the boat, or perhaps miss out on an opportunity.

The first an biggest thing is that there has to be customer demand. The amount of competition, big or small means nothing to me. If there is not any demand for the products in that market forget about it. Also keep in mind that “demand” does not necessarily relate to the number of searches a particular keyword phase gets in the search engines. You have to make sure that the keyword searches are “money spending” searches. Look for phrases that suggest the person searching for that keyword is most likely to spend money. A keyword phase that starts out with “FREE” is not one of them.

Next everyone gets into this competition thing, you know how many websites are trying to rank for a particular keyword in a market. Too many think that this is a strong indicator. I tend to disagree with this. I would be more likely to compete against 500,000 websites that have very little backlinks before I would compete against 20 websites that have 1 million backlinks. Those 20 websites are a whole lot stronger in the SERPS than the 500,000 and that’s what matters the most, not the quantity of competitors, but the strength of the competitors. I see way too many make this mistake, missing an opportunity because they just looked at the number of websites.

And finally there is something else beyond the numbers that many marketers get tripped up on. And this is something that comes from just poor advice that many get, mostly in the IM forums, and follow up on that advice. It’s all about passion. Now follow me carefully here because this can be tricky. I know you have heard it a million times, and you have heard it both ways, both of which can be correct answers.

One is when choosing a market choose one that they are passionate about. True they will be more interested in the process as they have a lot of interest, but what if the numbers as related above tell a different story? They can have the greatest website in the world about their passion but if there is no demand or too great of strength in competition,,,well it goes without saying what the end result will most likely be.

The other answer is to disregard their passion and choose solely based on the numbers. Again true, but what if the subject is so disinteresting to the marketer that they fail to give the process time and quit before they see any success. The numbers may be awesome in some “embarrassing problem” market, but if the marketer cannot get interested, or in this case perhaps stomach it, they too will have little chance at success.

So you see, they really have to go past the numbers. They have to take a look at themselves as a Internet Marketer and to answer some hard questions when it comes to choosing a niche to market in. Are they willing to do whatever it takes to stay in the game especially in the beginning when there will be very little if any gains? If the answer is no, then I would suggest that they look for another niche where the answer is yes. To this I would then answer their question about the choice of a niche, “Absolutely Yes!, That is one of the hottest markets to be in today”

To Your Success

How many WSO’s have you bought that have you so excited to implement only to find out that there is some small piece of the puzzle missing? If you are like me, it has happened quite often.

Fortunately I figured out what was missing and created what some are calling the most comprehensive package on the subject of optimization available. Optimization Overdrive goes way beyond SEO, it gets into what really makes your website a website that your visitors will actually enjoy visiting.

You can pick it up HERE Hurry cause this offer will not last long.

Blogs are a great way of get a ton of traffic and for building relationships.
This can be either with your own blog or through other peoples. Other peoples…what?  Yes through Blog Commenting.

It is one of my favorites and works really well.  You visit other blogs in your niche and look for posts where you can contribute to the discussion. It may be in the form of a question, a challenge to the post, or to add more value to the post.

The key is to make your comment thoughtful and engaging.  You will then include a link back to your site.  More on these in a minute.

You may know of some of the blogs in your niche where you can do this at.  Finding others to post on is simple as doing a Google search for “your niche + blog”.  Once you have a couple of good ones you can also try this, copy their domain address and do a Google search for this; related:domain.com. You will get a bunch more to post on.

When it comes to posting comments, it is very important that you are providing something to the discussion.  You will become much much more successful if you are. Don’t blast the comment with your keywords etc., just be real and genuine.

Many times your name will be the anchor text for the link to your site so do not add your link into the comment itself, there should be a block in the form for you to enter your website.

You will notice many blog comments will have the picture of the person making the comment.  This too is a good idea as it adds credibility to you.  If you would like your picture to show up got here to http://en.gravatar.com/ and sign up.

Many blog posts that you will make will need to be first approved by the blog owner before your post (and your link) will appear.  So by following the advice above you can greatly increase the chances of your comments, and your links going live.

If you are using Word Press, this is a must have plug in.  Created by warrior Chris Landrum, it is the best SEO tool I have seen for insuring that your Word Press site is optimized as good as it can be, and you know that this is extremely important when it come to ranking your site in Google.

Here is a brief review of the Easy Word Press SEO Plugin –GET THE PLUG IN HERE–

Easy WordPress SEO Blows the Competition Away

This plugin makes the task of preparing your WordPress site and it’s content to get the most Google love a easy as can be, hence the name of the product.

There are plenty of other SEO plug-ins out there, but none of them are as feature rich as this one, not even the popular SEOPressor.  In fact it blows away SEOPressor along with other top SEO plugins like ClickBump SEO.

One of the best features is it’s accurate keyword density calculations.  There is an option for you to factor in the word length of you keyword phrase, the others assume that your keyword is just a single word.  That ban make a huge difference.

Say your content is 1,000 words, and you’re aiming for a 3% density of your one-word keyword. It needs to appear, then, 30 times in your post.

keyword density = (# of keywords / total # of words) * 100 = (30 / 1000) * 100 = 3%

But what if you want to attain the same 3% density with keyphrase consisting of 4 words? Then you MUST consider the keyphrase length to get the correct density.

keyword density = (# of keyphrases / (total # of words / # of words in keyphrase))

Using this multi-word keyphrase formula, you’ll find that if the four-word keyphrase appears in 1,000 words of content 30 times, then

keyword density = (30 / (1000 / 4)) * 100 = 12%

12%!!!!!!! That is not going to get you any Google love.  None of the other premium on-page SEO plugins factor in the length of your keyphrase! You could be using one of them to optimize your post with a long-tail keyword, and be lulled into a false sense of security.

Next take a look at the below, this plug in analyzes the whole page, not just the post like every other SEO plugin does.

Easy WP SEO’s analysis includes everything on the page. It looks at your page the same way Google does. If your post or page title has your targeted keyword in an h1 tag, it knows about it, and won’t nag you about not having your keyword in this important tag in your content.

Here are just some of the other features of this superb plugin:

• Optimizes your content for 23 proven on-page factors, more than any other plugin!
• Provides a detailed checklist of SEO suggestions – know at a glance what tweaks you need to make!
• Supports optimizing content for multiple keywords!
• Supports semantically-related (LSI) keywords – in 25 different languages!
• Readability scores – 6 different sophisticated tests analyze your content for readability, and shows what adjustments you need to make
• Automatic bold, italic and underline keyword decoration
• Automatically adds rel=”nofollow” to your external links
• Automatically inserts keywords in image alt tags
• Links to video tutorials for all features embedded in the admin panel!

Over 1,800 have been sold and I don’t how much longer it is going to be available at THIS LINK

Grab this awesome plugin today, you will be glad you did.

Cheers

Scott

Today on the internet there is a vast number of ways you can make money. One of those is from Google AdSense. It is a feature that allows website owners to have Google place sponsored ads onto their site. Whenever a site visitor clicks on one of the ads, the site visitor makes a little bit of money.

Getting Google AdSense up and running on your site is relatively easy. You will obviously first need a website. It is advised that if you are new to AdSense that you wait until your site is about 3 months old and you have 10-15 pages of content on it before you apply. After you have 10-15 pages of content you will go to the AdSense website, http://adsense.google.com and follow the simple instruction for setting up your account. You will at the end of the process get an snippet of HTML code that you will place on your website.

You do not have any control over what ads appear on your site but you do have control over the topics. The ads that Google will show on your page will be relevant to the content that you have posted on your site. For example if your posting is an article about BBQ ribs, then the ads would be related to BBQ.

You can have the ads placed at different locations as well. This is determined by you when you select the ad style during your account setup and where you place the code onto your site. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

You can earn unlimited earnings from the program but it is far from a get rich quick type of plan. The amount that the clicks payout varies greatly, I’ve seen as low as $0.03 to up around $2.50. The amount you make is going to be mostly affected by the amount of traffic you draw to your site and the placement of the ads on your site.

Google does have some very strict policies for AdSense use and people are kicked out of the program on a regular basis for abusing it. If you elect to try out AdSense be sure to fully read their Terms of Service and follow them, once you are banned it is forever.

So is Google AdSense a way to make money? Absolutely. Can you make a lot? Well that’s up to you and how much time you want to devote to getting paid pennies for clicks. I ad it into most of my sites, but it is not the primary money maker, far from it. I do however get a few hundred bucks a

Check out this video for a cool way to become more productive.

Cheers
Scott

I know you have heard it a million times, heck I’m guilty of it too, “write down your daily to do’s, schedule your daily routine, yeah yeah yeah”. Sometimes I just get too caught up in something next thing I know the whole day is gone and I did not even get half of what I wanted to do, accomplished.

<<<<INSERT LOUD SIREN NOISE>>>>> Warning Warning Warning

Did I just here you say “What I wanted to do”?

You see where this is headed right?  Each and every time this happens to me it is because I did not plan the day, I just did so in my mind and that is not being very productive.  So for the millionth time myself, from this day forth I will;

1. Be Prepared to Start the Day

Spend about 10 minutes at the beginning of each day and write down the tasks that need to be done that day.  Focus on the doing the harder things first if possible.  Also look at your business as a whole and chances are you will find that 20% of the things you do amount to 80% of your successes, focus more on the 20%’ers.

2. Group Similar Tasks Together

For example if you have e-mails to send out, spend a 30 minute block of time for all of them.  The same with blog posts, articles, meetings and so on.  Once you get used to this you will be amazed at the results.

3. Hold Yourself To Your Schedule

If you set a 30 minute block of time to do e-mails and you did not get them done, stop.  Move on to your next scheduled task.  You can go back to an uncompleted task later in the day during your scheduled “anything goes” time.  Of course there will be some exceptions here, just make sure they are of extreme importance not for convenience sake.

4.  Keep Workspace Organized

You know, Tidy Space, Tidy Mind.  Not only your desk and surroundings, but your computer too. Schedule this Friday afternoon if possible, and go through your computer filing system to include your bookmarks. Make sure everything is in a logical location.  Eliminate as much clutter as possible and things seem to go much smoother.

5. Schedule Breaks

What?  We are talking about work here not slacking off.  Seriously schedule a 15 minute break every 2 hours if you work online full-time, or a 5-10 minute break if you can only work online for a few hours each day due to your job.

6. Eliminate Distracions

For me it is e-mails popping up all throughout the day.  Now I just shut it down until my schedule tells me that it is time to be on e-mail.  I have 3 15 minute sessions scheduled each day.  Distractions could be other things such as TV, or an uncomfortable office chair.

7. Review At The End of The Day

Look at your list and see how well you did.  Perhaps in the beginning you will not be getting everything done that was on your list, you just need to adjust.  Once you get in the habit of doing this you will know how much you can get done during your scheduled online work sessions.

So there it is, my list that I am going to adhere to, are you?

Scott

Blogs are everywhere. Most regular users of the internet spend a decent amount of their time online reading blogs. There’s just no getting away from them – and they are definitely here to stay.

As an internet marketer blogging should definitely be something you utilize in your business. Put it this way, if you don’t have a blog you are really missing out on some of the ‘good stuff.’ Here are five reasons to start a blog today

1.  Blogs are a source of traffic

You can place as many links and adverts on your blog as you like, which is how they can send traffic to your other sites. Mix in your links and recommendations within your blog posts, that way people will be reading a particular blog post and if they found it interesting they will be fairly likely to check out your links.

2.  A blog establishes you as an authority source

Blogs are essentially a way of sharing your knowledge and experiences with others. In doing so you are establishing yourself as an expert in your field. Just think about the blogs you regularly read yourself, why do you read them?  What are you getting out of it?  Are you learning something, staying up to date? Are you buying something from them?  Whatever it is, the blog has you reading the content on a regular basis.

3.  Blogs are a great way to build deep relationships with your customers

Most blogs allow people to make comments on the posts. People may ask you questions or add their own thoughts or opinions about what you were talking about in your original post. This provides you with a great opportunity to respond to them and engage in a conversation.

4.  Blogs are a great way to make money in their own right

You can quite easily monetize a blog in a number of ways for example through Google Adsense or selling advertising space. It is also possible to ‘flip’ a blog and is something which has become increasingly popular in recent years.

5.  Search engines love blogs

Google likes websites which are content driven and are updated regularly. It likes them because Google’s job or any search engine is to provide people with the relevant content they are looking for. A blog matches this perfectly!

There are many other reasons I could give to start a blog, but whatever the reason the simple truth is that you can’t afford not to use them if you are serious about your online business.

Start blogging today!!

Scott

I am about to share with you a little simple strategy for driving extremely high traffic to your website.  Now granted you are not going to get a ton of it, but I will take quality over quantity any day of the week.

What is unique about these sites and is the reason why the traffic is so high quality is that the visitors are searching within the site for topics to read about, not searching on Google.  Another thing is that they are PDF’s.

So all you have to do is to submit your content to 10 of the sites listed below.  You could reasonably expect to get about 15 readers per month at each site reading your PDF.  That is provided you are in a good niche that has plenty of information seekers.  15 visitors per month, that’s .5 visitors per day per PDF posted.

I know, not huge numbers, but do this daily for 90 days and you can start to creep into some numbers that will be impressive.  At the end of 3 months you would have 90 PDF’s on 10 sites, or the potential to have 45 visitors per day to your site. Think you could at least convert  1 of them?

For less than an hour’s worth of work daily to make this happen, it is well worth it.

Here are some great document sharing sites.

http://scribd.com

http://www.slideshare.net

http://issuu.com

http://www.free-ebooks.net

http://www.getfreeebooks.com

http://www.globusz.com

http://www.yudu.com

http://www.youpublish.com

http://www.ebook2u.com

http://www.jogena.com

http://www.virtual-ebooks.com

http://eBooks.biz

http://e-library.us

Take Action Today and add document sharing sites to your success tool kit.

Scott