1. You need to subscribe to an email marketing service like Aweber.
2. Add your opt-in form (which you’ll obtain from Aweber) on to your Facebook Fan page.
3. Offer a free gift like a report or a video to motivate your fans to opt-in to your mailing list.

Since adding an opt-in form can be a bit technical for many people, here’s a cool video I found that shows you how to do it…

Click here to view the embedded video.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Well, I’m guessing the executives at Facebook have never heard the saying before because if they have, they wouldn’t have shot themselves in the foot by redesigning their home page.

According to several online polls, over 90% of Facebook users hate the new design. And I am one of them.

Their original home page design was just fine. I don’t understand why they feel the need to tinker with it. The redesign has now turned into a public relations headache for them.

So, the lesson of the day is:

Listen to your customers. Unless they tell you that they want something changed, leave it alone.

I’m talking about contributing informative and helpful content in forums. And in your posts, you can include a link to your website in your signature.

Occasionally, you can link to a post on your blog that’s relevant to the discussion.

But here’s the problem with using forums to generate traffic… you have to keep posting to get traffic.

Any post you make or any thread you start will eventually be relegated to the second page and beyond to make way for new threads and posts. And once your posts get relegated, it won’t be seen by the majority of the forum visitors.

So, it’s not a really effective traffic strategy in the long term. Well, here’s one strategy to help you get traffic from forums without writing a single post.

It’s a really simple strategy that has worked offline for decades.

Organize a contest.

Contests are a proven publicity strategy to generate buzz for your business and products.

So, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to organize a contest on forums:

1. Search for forums that share your target market. For instance, if you’re in the dog market, just type “dog+forum” in Google and you should be able to find a few forums for dog owners.

2. Tell the forum owners that you’re willing to sponsor a contest on their forum. You will offer your products and services as prizes. The goal of the contest is to encourage participation in their forum. So, the person who makes the highest number of posts within a specified time (e.g. a month) will be the winner.

3. The forum owners will then post a sticky thread on their forum to announce the contest and the first post on that sticky thread should contain a link to your site. And the sticky thread will stay up on the first page of the forum for the entire duration of the contest.

So, when visitors arrive at the forum, they will instantly see the sticky thread about the contest. And when they read about the contest, they will see your website’s link.

And that’s how you generate traffic from forums without writing a single post.

Simple enough, right? Now, take action!

Step One: You write a report in Microsoft Word. The report can be anywhere from 3 to 70 pages and will contain links to your website.

Step Two: You convert it into a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat software. A PDF file is a universal file that can be opened by PCs as well as Macs.

Step Three: You give it away to your website visitors and newsletter subscribers.

If your readers find the information valuable, they will pass it to their friends and colleagues. Then, their friends and colleagues will pass it to their own circle of friends and colleagues.

In short, your report becomes “viral.” In time, your report may be read by thousands of people and effectively driving free traffic to your site.

Now, what if you want to increase the distribution of your viral report? What would be a simple way to do that?

Well, here’s a simple strategy that could boost your report’s distribution by at least 400%:

I call it the Gang Up Strategy.

Here’s how it works:

Step One: Approach four experts in your market to contribute content to your report.

The key for this strategy to work is that each expert must have their own mailing list that is similar in size to yours. So, if you have 1000 subscribers, look for experts that have a mailing list with around 1000 subscribers.

You can try approaching experts with bigger mailing list but they may feel that it’s unfair to them. There’s no harm in trying, of course. Just don’t be disappointed if they decline your invitation.

Step Two: Compile the content and create the PDF report.

Once you have all the content from the four experts and yourself, compile them and create your viral report. You can host the report on your site or let each expert host it on theirs.

Step Three: Each expert gives the report away to their subscribers.

Once the report is ready for download, each expert will send an email to their respective list to announce the report. I suggest that you write the announcement email to save the experts’ time.

If each expert has an average of 1000 subscribers, your report will be read by an estimated 5000 people. That’s 400% more than having your report distributed to just your own list of 1000 subscribers.

This strategy works because everyone wins.

You and the four experts will gain more exposure from the wider distribution of the report. And your subscribers will get valuable content from five different experts instead of just one.

Easy enough, right? So, take action now!

And the increase in PPC ad costs will definitely affect your bottomline. For instance, if you’re currently paying 20 cents a click and getting a 1% conversion rate for a $50 ebook, you’re making a profit of $30 for every sale.

Now, what happens if the cost per click is driven up to 50 cents?

With a 1% conversion rate, you’re just breaking even on your $50 ebook.

And what happens if the cost per click goes up to $1?

Now, you’re losing $50 for every sale!

So, how do you overcome this inevitable challenge?

Well, here are two proven strategies to overcome rising PPC ad costs:

1. Extend your customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value (CLV) refers to the total amount of profits you’ll generate from your customer’s expenditure on your products and services in her lifetime. Using the earlier example, if you’re making a profit of $30 from a $50 ebook, your CLV is $30.

So, to overcome rising PPC ad costs, you’ll have to extend your CLV. In other words, you’ll need to generate repeat business by selling additional products and services to your customers.

Here are two ways to extend your CLV:

Tactic #1: Create and sell high ticket information products.

I highly recommend that you create a $97 to $497 information product and promote it via email to your customer list. The fastest way to create a high ticket information product is to conduct a live or teleseminar and record it on video or audio. And when you charge a fee for the seminar, you’re actually getting paid to create your product.

Tactic #2: Sell services.

For example, if you’re selling an ebook on job hunting, you should also sell resume writing or interview coaching services. You don’t necessarily have to be the service provider. You can always set up a joint venture with a service professional and collect a commission for every sale you generate.

2. Share advertising costs with complementary businesses

This is an old strategy used by franchises like McDonald’s. You see, every McDonald’s franchisee has to contribute to an advertising fund. A portion of their sales is automatically deducted for advertising expenses.

The reason is because each franchisee by itself wouldn’t be able to afford to produce television and print advertisements and buy airtime on national television or ad space in national newspapers.

But when they combine their financial resources together, they can afford to create a multi-million dollar advertising campaign. In other words, their leveraging on each other’s resources.

Now, here’s how you can adapt this strategy for your own business:

1. Find and approach one to three complementary businesses to share PPC ad costs.

2. Create a landing page that will promote your business as well as your joint venture partners’ businesses. If the landing page collects visitors’ contact information, each partner has access to the information. The landing page will have to be hosted on a neutral domain to be fair to all parties.

3. Set up PPC ads to send traffic to this landing page. One of the partners will have to be appointed to set up and manage the ad campaign. And that partner should be compensated for her effort. Alternately, you and your partners can outsource the task to a virtual assistant or a professional search marketing firm.

So, with these two strategies, the rising PPC ad costs will not be much of a problem for your business.

Social bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon) store lists of internet resources that users have found useful by category, tags or randomly. These bookmarked sites and pages can be shared with other people who have similar interests.

These links can also be organized by user defined keywords or tags (called folksonomy). Resources can be rated by users, include email links, have comments added, be sorted by popularity and algorithms that draw inferences from other keyword references and participate in automated notification systems.

Social bookmarking links can also be included in your press section and press releases.

There are many social bookmarking services which allow users to add web pages to their bookmark list.

As a blogger, you benefit from having someone add a page from your site to their social bookmark list. Your web page will become searchable in the entire bookmark directory and is available to all members of the service. People will also be inclined to share it with others. This is a great way to build your blog’s audience and increase exposure.

Just by adding a special link to your blog posts, your visitors can add a page from your website to their social bookmark list. There are now over fifty different services available to manage social bookmarks.

On StartupRebel.com, we use the ShareThis widget for social bookmarking, which you can see at the bottom of this article.

If you want to add the ShareThis widget to your blog, click here to get started.

Should I submit my site to search engines and directories? Should I submit manually or automatically using a software?

The truth is search engines hate automatic submissions. They get millions of attempted automatic submissions each day and, as a result, go to great lengths to try to stop them – such as requiring passwords and/or fill-in details before the submission is accepted.

As for directories, automatic submission software has been banned by many because it cannot always place links in relevant categories. In addition, whether you hire a directory submitter or use submission software yourself, you are essentially setting your site up for failure.

Getting too many incoming links too quickly or submitting the same site to the major engines repeatedly can be seen by search engines as spamming and get your site banned entirely.

Submitting your site manually gives you control over where it will be listed. Automatic submitters may list your site with an engine you have never heard of in a country you have never even visited or even worse, they could be associating your site with sites that you find objectionable, such as those that contain pornography. When you submit your own site, you decide what category it will be listed under.

You don’t want your site to end up in the general directory or the miscellaneous category where it may never again be seen by human eyes.

Every site should be marketed differently and submitted to different engines and directories depending on its intended audience. Automatic submission does not give you the option to do this.

Finally, manual submission is the only way to choose the descriptions and keywords that you think will be most effective in the promotion of your site, as most engines and directories allow you to choose your own.

Common Myths About Search Engine Submission

1. Search engine submission requires a lot of research.

Almost every search engine and directory has a link labeled “Add a site” or “Submit URL” which will take you directly to their submission form. All you have to do is follow their rules and enter your information carefully.

2. Your website should be listed in all search engines.

If you list your website with the top tier search engines, it will find its own way into the second tier and beyond. In fact, you don’t even have to submit your website at all for it to be listed, search engine spider’s are constantly combing the web and will eventually find your site on their own if your site contains links to other sites.

3. Your website should be submitted on a weekly or monthly basis.

Actually, continually submitting your site can be classified as spamming and result in your site’s banishment from a search engine’s database. As a general rule, do not resubmit a new version of a page unless you have an unfavorable ranking.

4. Good submission is costly.

The truth is you don’t have to pay a submission service to submit your site to the search engines. In fact, submission to most major search engines is free.

What You Should Know About Search Engine Submission Services

Be particularly careful of companies that guarantee search engine positioning. These claims usually take one of three forms:

1. A guarantee of top rankings coupled with a promise to keep working on achieving top rankings until that goal is accomplished. These companies are only interested in your initial payment and have no intention of continuing to do anything.

2. Promises of first page listings on Google and/or Yahoo. These companies do not make it clear that they are referring to “sponsored results” and NOT “natural listings.” They will charge you a set monthly fee and only spend a tiny portion of it generating traffic to your site from sponsored listings.

3. “Money Back Guarantee” that a certain percentage of your keywords will receive top rankings on the “major” search engines. Their list of “major” search engines includes several small and/or outdated engines that are very easy to achieve top rankings in. Only the search engines themselves can guarantee top listings and ethically they can only do this through sponsored listings.

1. Potential site design problems

• Search engines do a poor job of indexing frames and your site is better off without them.
• Most search engines cannot or will not list dynamic URLs that contain any of the following: ?, &, %, +, =, cgi-bin, or .cgi.
• Search engines cannot index splash pages that are made mostly or entirely from Flash. Hyperlinks made with Flash cannot be spidered by the search engines. So, unless you add standard HTML hyperlinks, none of your pages will be spidered.
• Sites that use Image Maps for navigation run the risk of not being accessible to search engines because the web crawler often gets trapped in the code that makes up the Image Map.
• Search engines also cannot follow links found in Javascript.
• Any of the previous three indexing problems can be addressed by creating a site map page using standard HTML links that link to every page and adding a standard HTML link on each page that links back to the site map.

2. Keyword optimization

• To get listed correctly on search engines, each page of your site needs to be optimized. Since keywords are essential to this process, choosing the right ones is crucial.
• Try to think about specific phrases instead of just words. Competition on the internet for general terms makes it extremely unlikely that a site that relies on words or phrases that are too general to rank well in search engines.
• Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes. Think about what they would search for if they were looking to purchase your products or services. Ask friends and family members what they would search for if they were looking for a site like yours.
• Check out the competition. Do a search using keywords that you already know you want to utilize and click through to the top sites that come up. View their source HTML code and see what keywords they used in their meta tags.

3. Choosing your title tag

• Search engines and directories place a lot of importance on the keywords that are found in your title tag.
• Your title tag is what most search engines will use for your title on their search results page. Make it interesting!
• Title tags should be between 50 and 80 characters long – including spaces.
• You should include one or two of your most important keyword phrases in your title tag but it should remain as close as possible to a readable sentence.
• Place keywords at the beginning of your title tag in case it is too long for some engines. If it must be shortened, you won’t lose the most important parts.
• Every page on your site should have its own title tag with its own keywords that are related to the content on that specific page.

4. Utilizing your page copy (the actual text a visitor will read)

• Each page should contain at least 200 words if possible.
• The text on each page should contain keyword phrases but remain logical and readable.
• Use the keyword phrases that you have used in your title tags and meta tags.
• Add additional text pages to your site in the form of how-to-articles, tips, or tutorials. This will help you obtain better rankings through the use of keywords and the addition of links as other sites will want to link to useful information.

5. Using meta tags to your advantage

• Meta tags were originally created to enhance search engines ability to investigate websites by giving them information that they otherwise might have had trouble determining.
• Most people still believe that meta tags are the be all and end all of search engine optimization. However, increasing competition for high search engine rankings led to many people stuffing their meta tags with keywords in order to spam the search engines. As a result, meta tags are no longer awarded as much importance.
• There are two types of meta tags that can help you in your endeavor to improve your ranking: meta keywords and meta description.
• Your meta keywords should not exceed 1024 characters and should only include keyword phrases that you used in the copy of your page, title tags, meta description or other tags. Be careful not to use any one word more than 5 times. Be sure to include specific geographic locations, if appropriate to your site.
• Your description meta should not exceed 250 characters. Its job is to accurately describe content while trying to attract visitors to your site. The description meta should include 3 to 4 of your most important keyword phrases with the most important at the beginning.

6. Your images “alt” attribute

• Any image on your page can help your page’s ranking if they include an “alt” attribute.
• An “alt” attribute can be added to any image on your page and will show up to help those who may have images turned off in their web browser.
• This attribute should be used to describe the image and not just to use the opportunity to make a list of keywords. Limit yourself to 2 to 3 keywords per image.
• An “alt” attribute is a good place to use common misspellings for your keywords or plurals that you may not have used elsewhere. This will enable you to capture those users who search for these terms as well.

You should never do anything in your optimization that could lead the search engines to believe that you are trying to trick them into giving your site a higher ranking.

This is considered spamming and you will be penalized, perhaps by the removal of your site from the search engine’s database. These tricks include but are not limited to:

1. Listing keyword in places other than your meta tag. There are very few legitimate reasons for a list of keywords to appear in the text of a page or within the HTML code of your site.
2. Using the same color text as your page’s background color.
3. Using the same tag more than once, such as the inclusion of multiple title tags.
4. Submitting identical pages. Never duplicate a page and submit it without giving the copies different file names.
5. Submitting the same page to any one engine more than once within 24 hours.
6. Using keywords in your keywords meta tag that do not directly relate to your page content.
7. Submitting your URL more than once a month.

Webmasters began optimizing their sites for search engines in the mid-1990s. Site owners realized the importance of having their sites appear at the top of search engine results in order to ensure traffic to their sites. Most web users will not scroll down through pages of results but will visit those sites that appear at the top of the first page of results.

At first, search engines relied only on factors that were within the webmaster’s control and, as a result, they became victims of abuse and manipulation. Webmasters were guilty of including irrelevant keywords on their sites to increase the number of visits to their websites and thereby increase their ad revenue.

Webmasters also manipulated the HTML source of a page to try to improve their rankings in search engine results. In addition, inaccurate, incomplete and inconsistent data, whether purposefully included or not, led to pages ranking for irrelevant searches and failing to rank for relevant searches.

Search engines, not wanting to be held hostage to a webmaster’s ulterior motives, developed more complex ranking algorithms. They based these algorithms that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.

Today’s search engines use hundreds of factor to rank websites on their search results pages. The factors themselves and the weight each factor carries can change continually. The top four search engines, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com, carefully guard the algorithms they use and these algorithms can vary widely.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

SEO is about understanding how these algorithms work and what web users are likely to search for when looking for information on a specific topic on the web. The goal is to match those users with sites that offer what they are interested in finding.

Search engine optimization may involve making changes that are noticeable to visitors or just working with the HTML code behind the scenes to optimize presentation and structure. Noticeable changes could include the use of unique content on pages or attention-grabbing titles that are easily picked out by search engines and attractive to human visitors as well.

Less noticeable changes to the everyday visitor are incorporating a definite hierarchical structure to a site or choosing a domain and URL that are more likely to improve a site’s ranking.

Search engine optimization techniques are classified into two categories: those that search engines recommend as part of good design and those that search engines find unacceptable.

The latter is referred to as “spamming” or “spamdexing.” Most reputable SEO consultants do not offer spamdexing techniques, as they can result in the banning of a site from a search engine.

There is an obvious potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. All of the major search engines do provide information and guidelines to aid webmasters in site optimization.

As of 2007, the top search engines do not require webmaster to submit their sites for inclusion in search results. They use technology which discovers new sites and pages automatically.

Search engines look at a number of different factors when it investigates new sites and pages may not be indexed until they gain more traffic or include more links. However, some search engines do operate a paid submission service that will guarantee inclusion but not ranking.

Do Not Depend Solely On Search Engine Optimization

A successful internet marketing campaign cannot rely solely on search engine optimization. The focus of the campaign should be not necessarily to rank the highest for certain terms in search engines but to achieve your business objectives for your website.

In order to meet these goals, you may use a combination of SEO and paid advertising on search engines. In addition, you will have to build high quality web pages that meet your target audience’s needs, address any technical issues that may keep search engines from indexing your site and set up programs to measure the success of your marketing campaign.

Algorithms used by search engines can and will change and even if you are lucky enough to achieve a high ranking today that is not a guarantee of success. Your site must be prepared to handle the increased traffic.

If it is not, your visitors will be dissatisfied with the information available and the desired conversions will not occur. In addition, your visitors will not return to your site and may keep others from doing so via word of mouth.

How To Choose A Good Search Engine Optimizer For Your Business

As mentioned previously, most of the major search engines provide information regarding search engine optimization on their websites.

The following are tips from Google that will help you determine the difference between search engine optimizers that will be an asset to your business and those that will only increase your chances of being banned from search engine results.

• Be wary of SEO firms that send email out of the blue.
• No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. (There is no such thing as a company with a “special relationship” with Google or one that claims it will use “priority submission”.)
• Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.
• You should never have to link to an SEO company’s site.
• Some SEO firms may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar. (This requires extra software.)
• Choose wisely. (Find out how long an SEO has been in business, how many employees they have and if they religiously report spam abuse.)
• Be sure to understand where the money goes. (Are you paying for permanent inclusion or temporary advertising?)
• Talk to many SEO firms and ask other SEO firms if they’d recommend the firm you’re considering.
• Make sure you’re protected legally. (Insist on a full and unconditional money-back guarantee and don’t be afraid to request a refund if you’re unsatisfied for any reason or if your SEO firm’s actions cause your domain to be removed from a search engine’s index. Make sure you have a contract in writing that includes pricing and requires the SEO firm to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine for site inclusion.)

Step 1: Determine your advertising budget and the level of risk you are willing to take.

• Larger search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo) are less risky as they already have excellent market coverage and typically offer excellent customer service.
• On the other hand, the larger search engines cost more to achieve a top ranking.

Step 2: Decide which search engines you wish to advertise on.

• Find out which search engines your competition is advertising on.
• Do your homework – research each option carefully.

Step 3: Decide which keywords you want to bid on.

• There are plenty of free tools available on the internet to help you research keywords and tell you what the current bid price for certain words and phrases are currently running on different search engines.
• Pick your keywords wisely as they can range in bid prices from $.10 to over $10.
• Don’t limit yourself to one keyword or phrase. Large corporations often have thousands of keywords.

Step 4: Design your landing page.

• Your landing page must be clear on what products you are selling, the products’ benefits, how to make a purchase and why your product is better than your competition.
• Your website’s homepage is usually not a good choice for a landing page. If visitors want to learn more about your company, they will do so on their own initiative.
• The fewer clicks that a visitor has to make to purchase your product, the higher the sales.

Step 5: Begin the bidding process.

• Most search engines have automated the bidding process so that you do not have to actively participate in the process. They will stop when they reach your maximum bid.
• Personal involvement is always a good idea, at least at first.
• Read the search engine’s terms of use carefully. Look for minimum bids required, deposits required and what happens if you have to cancel your campaign.
• Usually, PPC search engines will only allow less than 10 ads to show up on a search results page. Research has shown that unless your ad is among the first 3 or 4, you are much less likely to have visitors to your landing page.

What You Need To Know About Pay Per Click Fraud

According to various reports, up to 20% of all pay per click traffic delivered to advertisers originates from false sources, not from actual potential customers. The majority of click fraud originates from two sources – competitors and website owners. Competitors want to drain your advertising budget by producing false clicks that you have to pay for, even though they were not viable leads.

Website owners sometimes work in tandem with search engines by agreeing to feature their ads and provide their customers with more exposure in return for receiving part of the revenue generated by each click. Thus, some of these website owners will try to generate as many clicks as possible to increase the profitability of their agreement.

Click fraud has become enough of an issue to attract the attention of major publications, such as the Washington Post and BusinessWeekonline. According to Endofclickfraud.com, if an organization spends $15,000 on PPC advertising distributed among the top tier search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, and is paying between .50 and $1 per click, they could be losing $2220.00 to fraud.

What Role Should PPC Advertising Play in Your Marketing Strategy?

Your business cannot afford to rely on PPC advertising alone. It is too expensive to keep up with the ever rising bid amounts for profitable keywords. However, there are certain instances in which PPC advertising can be invaluable.

1. If you are starting a new campaign to draw attention to a new product or service, PPC advertising is a great way to create a buzz.
2. If you sell a product or offer a service that consumers can purchase immediately upon arriving at your website, PPC advertising is very effective.
3. If you are able to find keywords that create a market niche for your organization, PPC advertising can be cost effective. For instance, if you can generate traffic with a highly specific keyword, such as “PerfectPoint Pencils” instead of just “Pencils”, PPC advertising may be a good option.