topseos.com evaluates and ranks the best integrated search companies in the industry. An integrated search vendor is essentially a one-stop shop for internet marketing services. As the independent authority on search vendors, we complete an in-depth analysis of every vendor on the list by looking into their processes. Often times we also contact clients to obtain more information about the vendor. The companies that are recognized by topseos as the best integrated search companies have excelled in needs analysis, keyword selection, coordination, cost per acquisition minimization, and reporting.
We first evaluate the needs analysis of the client by the vendor. What information is obtained in order to better understand the needs of the client? What analysis processes are in place to identify the competitive edges that can be obtained by a client through an internet marketing avenue?
Once this information has been evaluated, we then assess the keyword selection completed by the vendor. What keywords were selected for which types of campaigns and how competitive were the keywords.
A key aspect of evaluation for an integrated search company is the overall integration of the internet marketing campaign. How effective is a vendor's ability to combine the use of different internet marketing strategies to make a more effective campaign?
The fourth criteria that is reviewed is the cost per acquisition minimization by a vendor. Are the integrated search campaigns, created by a vendor, efficient? Do the combined efforts of the campaign help to produce higher quality results and reduce the marketing costs?
Lastly, an important area identified by topseos in the integrated search process is reporting. What reports are provided to clients to identify the effectiveness of the integrated search campaign? How does the company use the reports to produce the next steps for the clients to take?
A few questions that we may ask clients of an integrated search firm to gauge their level of expertise are:
General Queries:
What type of needs analysis was conducted before work initiated?
What type of a ROI were you anticipating, what was achieved and in what time frame?
What would be 3 things you would change about your experience?
What was your total investment?
Rate your overall experience (1-10; 10 being the highest).
Project Specific Queries:
What analysis processes are in place to identify the competitive edges that can be obtained by a client through an internet marketing avenue?
What is the level of competitiveness of the keywords ranked?
How effectively can the vendor combine the use of different internet marketing strategies to make a more effective campaign?
Did the combined efforts of the campaign help to produce higher quality results and reduce the marketing costs?
How effectively do the reports communicate the progress of the campaign?
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
4 Simple Steps To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
4 Simple Steps To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.
The purpose of optimizing your web pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely ready to make a purchase.
The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That's what search engine optimization is all about.
But the things you have to do to optimize your site may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue.
Well whether you like it or not, I have to tell you - the time has come for you to face your website!
The fact is that if your business is going to succeed online, your site has to be search engine optimized.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings,or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly.
The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage. The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page.
Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your home page's title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.
Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from that particular page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.
The next item to put under your microscope is your web site's content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics.
The text on your site must contain the most important keywords - the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential.
However, don't forget the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML.
If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic format. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.
Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds like something out of a science fiction book, but it is really just simple code.
Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect.
Still, it's worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, right click your mouse and a box will pop up. Click "view page source".
This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window.
For example,a meta tag would read: meta name="keywords" content=.
If you do not find code that reads like this, again ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings.
Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.
Do a Google search and type in "free link popularity check", or "free website link checker" and you will see free sites where you can type in your URL and that will show you what sites are linked to your site. You can even provide some competitors' URLs to compare your site to theirs.
In case there aren't many sites linked up to yours, or the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign.
Essentially what you do is contact quality sites and request that they exchange links with your site. Of course, you'll want to do your homework and check out the rankings of the websites you are interested in linking up with. If you're hesitant about contacting them you can do a Google search and find sites that tell you exactly what to say and how to approach them.
Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website. Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing website.
Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself.
Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way. XAKBGP3WYXHM
At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.
The purpose of optimizing your web pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely ready to make a purchase.
The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That's what search engine optimization is all about.
But the things you have to do to optimize your site may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue.
Well whether you like it or not, I have to tell you - the time has come for you to face your website!
The fact is that if your business is going to succeed online, your site has to be search engine optimized.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings,or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly.
The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage. The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page.
Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your home page's title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.
Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from that particular page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.
The next item to put under your microscope is your web site's content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics.
The text on your site must contain the most important keywords - the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential.
However, don't forget the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML.
If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic format. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.
Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds like something out of a science fiction book, but it is really just simple code.
Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect.
Still, it's worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, right click your mouse and a box will pop up. Click "view page source".
This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window.
For example,a meta tag would read: meta name="keywords" content=.
If you do not find code that reads like this, again ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings.
Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.
Do a Google search and type in "free link popularity check", or "free website link checker" and you will see free sites where you can type in your URL and that will show you what sites are linked to your site. You can even provide some competitors' URLs to compare your site to theirs.
In case there aren't many sites linked up to yours, or the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign.
Essentially what you do is contact quality sites and request that they exchange links with your site. Of course, you'll want to do your homework and check out the rankings of the websites you are interested in linking up with. If you're hesitant about contacting them you can do a Google search and find sites that tell you exactly what to say and how to approach them.
Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website. Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing website.
Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself.
Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way. XAKBGP3WYXHM
Thursday, July 1, 2010
PTC Business Part 2
Business Online with other PTC methods
**For free registration please click on the image
wordlink
WordLinx is a paid-to-click site (PTC) and link share combined. Earn $0.01+ per click and earn $5.00+ per referral. cash out $10.00 USD with payPal
tmBux
Earn per click up to $0.02
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16 ads per 24 hours
Unlimited Dir. Rif.
Our payout minimum is at $1 via AlertPay
2goodBux
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• Earn $ 1.00 per click
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BuxGlobal
Earn up to $30 per click
Earn up to $10 per referral click
payout minimum is at $350. via AlertPay
Registration payPal click here
Registration AlertPay click here
**For free registration please click on the image
wordlink
WordLinx is a paid-to-click site (PTC) and link share combined. Earn $0.01+ per click and earn $5.00+ per referral. cash out $10.00 USD with payPal
tmBux
Earn per click up to $0.02
Earn per Ref.click up to $0.015
16 ads per 24 hours
Unlimited Dir. Rif.
Our payout minimum is at $1 via AlertPay
2goodBux
Earn Real Cash,our payout minimum is at $250. via AlertPay
• Earn $ 1.00 per click
• Earn $ 0.50 per referral click
BuxGlobal
Earn up to $30 per click
Earn up to $10 per referral click
payout minimum is at $350. via AlertPay
Registration payPal click here
Registration AlertPay click here
Sunday, June 27, 2010
PTC Business Part 1
** registratation CLICK PICTURE
Various ways of doing business on the internet businessman, one of which is the Pay To Click (PTC), ie they will pay a certain price if we do click.
888 Bux
Earn up to $0.02 (2 cents) per click.
Earn up to $0.02 (2 cents) for every ad your referrals click.
You can see detailed statistics of your clicks, earnings and
of your referral's clicks and activities.
pay and receive
Gaga Bux
The minimum cashout is $2
You can earn up to $0.02 per click and $0.015 for every referral click.
pay and receive
NeoBux
Earn up to $0.01 (1 cents) per click.
Earn up to $0.02 to $0.05
pay and receive
WaterBux
Earn up to $0.02 per click
Earn up to $0.02 per referrals click
Receive your payments via PayPal
Payout $1.00 pay and receive
Bux.To
You click 10 ads per day = $0.10
20 referrals click 10 ads per day = $2.00
pay and receive
Buxims
Earn up to $0.01 per click
cashout $0.1
pay and receive
Various ways of doing business on the internet businessman, one of which is the Pay To Click (PTC), ie they will pay a certain price if we do click.
888 Bux
Earn up to $0.02 (2 cents) per click.
Earn up to $0.02 (2 cents) for every ad your referrals click.
You can see detailed statistics of your clicks, earnings and
of your referral's clicks and activities.
pay and receive
Gaga Bux
The minimum cashout is $2
You can earn up to $0.02 per click and $0.015 for every referral click.
pay and receive
NeoBux
Earn up to $0.01 (1 cents) per click.
Earn up to $0.02 to $0.05
pay and receive
WaterBux
Earn up to $0.02 per click
Earn up to $0.02 per referrals click
Receive your payments via PayPal
Payout $1.00 pay and receive
Bux.To
You click 10 ads per day = $0.10
20 referrals click 10 ads per day = $2.00
pay and receive
Buxims
Earn up to $0.01 per click
cashout $0.1
pay and receive
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Affiliate marketing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network, the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate') and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors.
Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.
Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. [1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.[2]
[edit]Origin
The concept of revenue sharing—paying commission for referred business—predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commerce happened almost four years after the origination of the World Wide Web in November 1994.[citation needed]
The consensus of marketers and adult industry insiders is that Cybererotica was either the first or among the early innovators in affiliate marketing with a cost per click program.[3]
During November 1994, CDNOW launched its BuyWeb program. With this program CDNOW was the first non-adult website to introduce the concept of an affiliate or associate program with its idea of click-through purchasing. CDNOW had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors may be interested in purchasing. These websites could also offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNOW to purchase the albums. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose because of conversations with music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists' CDs directly from its website, but did not want to implement this capability itself. Geffen asked CDNOW if it could design a program where CDNOW would handle the order fulfillment. Geffen realized that CDNOW could link directly from the artist on its website to Geffen's website, bypassing the CDNOW home page and going directly to an artist's music page.[4]
Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate program in July 1996. Amazon associates could place banner or text links on their site for individual books, or link directly to the Amazon home page.[citation needed]
When visitors clicked from the associate's website through to Amazon and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to become widely known and serve as a model for subsequent programs.[5][6]
In February 2000, Amazon announced that it had been granted a patent[7] on all the essential components of an affiliate program. The patent application was submitted in June 1997, which predates most affiliate programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com (October 1994), AutoWeb.com (October 1995), Kbkids.com/BrainPlay.com (January 1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others.[3]
[edit]Historic development
Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005.[8] MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs.[9]
Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, and retail industries.[10] The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors.[10] Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix.[10]
[edit]Web 2.0
Websites and services based on Web 2.0 concepts—blogging and interactive online communities, for example—have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. The new media allowed merchants to become closer to their affiliates and improved the communication between them.[11][12]
[edit]Compensation methods
Main article: Compensation methods
[edit]Predominant compensation methods
Eighty percent of affiliate programs today use revenue sharing or cost per sale (CPS) as a compensation method, nineteen percent use cost per action (CPA), and the remaining programs use other methods such as cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (CPM).[13]
[edit]Diminished compensation methods
Within more mature markets, less than one percent of traditional affiliate marketing programs today use cost per click and cost per mille. However, these compensation methods are used heavily in display advertising and paid search.
Cost per mille requires only that the publisher make the advertising available on his website and display it to his visitors in order to receive a commission. Pay per click requires one additional step in the conversion process to generate revenue for the publisher: A visitor must not only be made aware of the advertisement, but must also click on the advertisement to visit the advertiser's website.
Cost per click was more common in the early days of affiliate marketing, but has diminished in use over time due to click fraud issues very similar to the click fraud issues modern search engines are facing today. Contextual advertising programs are not considered in the statistic pertaining to diminished use of cost per click, as it is uncertain if contextual advertising can be considered affiliate marketing.
While these models have diminished in mature e-commerce and online advertising markets they are still prevalent in some more nascent industries. China is one example where Affiliate Marketing does not overtly resemble the same model in the West. With many affiliates being paid a flat "Cost Per Day" with some networks offering Cost Per Click or CPM.
[edit]Performance marketing
In the case of cost per mille/click, the publisher is not concerned about a visitor being a member of the audience that the advertiser tries to attract and is able to convert, because at this point the publisher has already earned his commission. This leaves the greater, and, in case of cost per mille, the full risk and loss (if the visitor can not be converted) to the advertiser.
Cost per action/sale methods require that referred visitors do more than visit the advertiser's website before the affiliate receives commission. The advertiser must convert that visitor first. It is in the best interest for the affiliate to send the most closely targeted traffic to the advertiser as possible to increase the chance of a conversion. The risk and loss is shared between the affiliate and the advertiser.
Affiliate marketing is also called "performance marketing", in reference to how sales employees are typically being compensated. Such employees are typically paid a commission for each sale they close, and sometimes are paid performance incentives for exceeding targeted baselines.[14] Affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose products or services they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers' internal sales department.
The phrase, "Affiliates are an extended sales force for your business", which is often used to explain affiliate marketing, is not completely accurate. The primary difference between the two is that affiliate marketers provide little if any influence on a possible prospect in the conversion process once that prospect is directed to the advertiser's website. The sales team of the advertiser, however, does have the control and influence up to the point where the prospect signs the contract or completes the purchase.
[edit]Multi-tier programs
Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms, publisher "A" signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher "A" attracts publishers "B" and "C" to sign up for the same program using his sign-up code, all future activities performed by publishers "B" and "C" will result in additional commission (at a lower rate) for publisher "A".
Two-tier programs exist in the minority of affiliate programs; most are simply one-tier. Referral programs beyond two-tier resemble multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing but are different. Multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing have more requirements/qualifications to get paid a commission. Whereas affiliate programs do not.
[edit]From the advertiser perspective
[edit]Pros and cons
Merchants favor affiliate marketing because in most cases it uses a "pay for performance" model, meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are accrued (excluding any initial setup cost).[15] Some businesses owe much of their success to this marketing technique, a notable example being Amazon.com. Unlike display advertising, however, affiliate marketing is not easily scalable.[16]
[edit]Implementation options
Some merchants run their own (i.e., in-house) affiliate programs using popular software while others use third-party services provided by intermediaries to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates (see outsourced program management). Merchants can choose from two different types of affiliate management solutions: standalone software or hosted services, typically called affiliate networks. Payouts to affiliates or publishers are either made by the networks on behalf of the merchant, by the network, consolidated across all merchants where the publisher has a relationship with and earned commissions or directly by the merchant itself.
[edit]Affiliate management and program management outsourcing
Main article: Affiliate manager
Successful affiliate programs require significant work and maintenance. Having a successful affiliate program is more difficult than when such programs were just emerging. With the exception of some vertical markets, it is rare for an affiliate program to generate considerable revenue with poor management or no management (i.e., "auto-drive").
Uncontrolled affiliate programs did—and continue to do so today—aid rogue affiliates, who use spamming,[17] trademark infringement, false advertising, "cookie cutting"[citation needed], typosquatting,[18] and other unethical methods that have given affiliate marketing a negative reputation.
The increased number of Internet businesses and the increased number of people that trust the current technology enough to shop and do business online allows further maturation of affiliate marketing. The opportunity to generate a considerable amount of profit combined with a crowded marketplace filled with competitors of equal quality and size makes it more difficult for merchants to be noticed. In this environment, however, being noticed can yield greater rewards.
Recently, the Internet marketing industry has become more advanced. In some areas online media has been rising to the sophistication of offline media, in which advertising has been largely professional and competitive. There are significantly more requirements that merchants must meet to be successful, and those requirements are becoming too burdensome for the merchant to manage successfully in-house. An increasing number of merchants are seeking alternative options found in relatively new outsourced (affiliate) program management (OPM) companies, which are often founded by veteran affiliate managers and network program managers.[19] OPM companies perform affiliate program management for the merchants as a service, similar to advertising agencies promoting a brand or product as done in offline marketing.
[edit]Types of affiliate websites
Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (i.e., advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers.
Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers' offers (i.e., search arbitrage)
Comparison shopping websites and directories
Loyalty websites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back
CRM sites that offer charitable donations
Coupon and rebate websites that focus on sales promotions
Content and niche market websites, including product review sites
Personal websites
Weblogs and website syndication feeds
E-mail list affiliates (i.e., owners of large opt-in -mail lists that typically employ e-mail drip marketing) and newsletter list affiliates, which are typically more content-heavy
Registration path or co-registration affiliates who include offers from other merchants during the registration process on their own website
Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparisons, or other features based on information that changes frequently, thus requiring continual updates
Cost per action networks (i.e., top-tier affiliates) that expose offers from the advertiser with which they are affiliated to their own network of affiliates
Websites using adbars (e.g. Adsense) to display context-sensitive, highly relevant ads for products on the site
Virtual Currency: a new type of publisher that utilizes the social media space to couple an advertiser's offer with a handout of "virtual currency" in a game or virtual platform.
Video Blog: Video content which allows viewers to click on and purchase products related to the video's subject.
[edit]Publisher recruitment
Affiliate networks that already have several advertisers typically also have a large pool of publishers. These publishers could be potentially recruited, and there is also an increased chance that publishers in the network apply to the program on their own, without the need for recruitment efforts by the advertiser.
Relevant websites that attract the same target audiences as the advertiser but without competing with it are potential affiliate partners as well. Vendors or existing customers can also become recruits if doing so makes sense and does not violate any laws or regulations.
Almost any website could be recruited as an affiliate publisher, although high-traffic websites are more likely interested in (for their own sake) low-risk cost per mille or medium-risk cost per click deals rather than higher-risk cost per action or revenue share deals.[20]
[edit]Locating affiliate programs
There are three primary ways to locate affiliate programs for a target website:
Affiliate program directories,
Large affiliate networks that provide the platform for dozens or even hundreds of advertisers, and
The target website itself. (Websites that offer an affiliate program often have a link titled "affiliate program", "affiliates", "referral program", or "webmasters"—usually in the footer or "About" section of the website.)
If the above locations do not yield information pertaining to affiliates, it may be the case that there exists a non-public affiliate program. The most definitive method for finding this information is to contact the website owner directly.
[edit]Past and current issues
Since the emergence of affiliate marketing, there has been little control over affiliate activity. Unscrupulous affiliates have used spam, false advertising, forced clicks (to get tracking cookies set on users' computers), adware, and other methods to drive traffic to their sponsors. Although many affiliate programs have terms of service that contain rules against spam, this marketing method has historically proven to attract abuse from spammers.
[edit]E-mail spam
In the infancy of affiliate marketing, many Internet users held negative opinions due to the tendency of affiliates to use spam to promote the programs in which they were enrolled.[21] As affiliate marketing matured, many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming.
[edit]Search engine spam
As search engines have become more prominent, some affiliate marketers have shifted from sending e-mail spam to creating automatically generated webpages that often contain product data feeds provided by merchants. The goal of such webpages is to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, also known as spamdexing. Each page can be targeted to a different niche market through the use of specific keywords, with the result being a skewed form of search engine optimization.
Spam is the biggest threat to organic search engines, whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users. Google's PageRank algorithm update ("BigDaddy") in February 2006—the final stage of Google's major update ("Jagger") that began in mid-summer 2005—specifically targeted spamdexing with great success. This update thus enabled Google to remove a large amount of mostly computer-generated duplicate content from its index.[22]
Websites consisting mostly of affiliate links have previously held a negative reputation for underdelivering quality content. In 2005 there were active changes made by Google, where certain websites were labeled as "thin affiliates".[23] Such websites were either removed from Google's index or were relocated within the results page (i.e., moved from the top-most results to a lower position). To avoid this categorization, affiliate marketer webmasters must create quality content on their websites that distinguishes their work from the work of spammers or banner farms, which only contain links leading to merchant sites.
Some commentators originally suggested that Affiliate links work best in the context of the information contained within the website itself. For instance, if a website contains information pertaining to publishing a website, an affiliate link leading to a merchant's Internet service provider (ISP) within that website's content would be appropriate. If a website contains information pertaining to sports, an affiliate link leading to a sporting goods website may work well within the context of the articles and information about sports. The goal in this case is to publish quality information within the website and provide context-oriented links to related merchant's websites.
However, more recent examples exist of "thin" Affiliate sites which are using the Affiliate Marketing model to create value for Consumers by offering them a service. These thin content service Affiliate fall into three categories:
Price comparison
Cause related marketing
Time saving
[edit]Adware
Although it differs from spyware, adware often uses the same methods and technologies. Merchants initially were uninformed about adware, what impact it had, and how it could damage their brands. Affiliate marketers became aware of the issue much more quickly, especially because they noticed that adware often overwrites tracking cookies, thus resulting in a decline of commissions. Affiliates not employing adware felt that it was stealing commission from them. Adware often has no valuable purpose and rarely provides any useful content to the user, who is typically unaware that such software is installed on his/her computer.
Affiliates discussed the issues in Internet forums and began to organize their efforts. They believed that the best way to address the problem was to discourage merchants from advertising via adware. Merchants that were either indifferent to or supportive of adware were exposed by affiliates, thus damaging those merchants' reputations and tarnishing their affiliate marketing efforts. Many affiliates either terminated the use of such merchants or switched to a competitor's affiliate program. Eventually, affiliate networks were also forced by merchants and affiliates to take a stand and ban certain adware publishers from their network. The result was Code of Conduct by Commission Junction/beFree and Performics,[24] LinkShare's Anti-Predatory Advertising Addendum,[25] and ShareASale's complete ban of software applications as a medium for affiliates to promote advertiser offers.[26] Regardless of the progress made, adware continues to be an issue, as demonstrated by the class action lawsuit against ValueClick and its daughter company Commission Junction filed on April 20, 2007.[27]
[edit]Trademark bidding
Affiliates were among the earliest adopters of pay per click advertising when the first pay-per-click search engines emerged during the end of the 1990s. Later in 2000 Google launched its pay per click service, Google AdWords, which is responsible for the widespread use and acceptance of pay per click as an advertising channel. An increasing number of merchants engaged in pay per click advertising, either directly or via a search marketing agency, and realized that this space was already well-occupied by their affiliates. Although this situation alone created advertising channel conflicts and debates between advertisers and affiliates, the largest issue concerned affiliates bidding on advertisers names, brands, and trademarks. Several advertisers began to adjust their affiliate program terms to prohibit their affiliates from bidding on those type of keywords. Some advertisers, however, did and still do embrace this behavior, going so far as to allow, or even encourage, affiliates to bid on any term, including the advertiser's trademarks.
[edit]Lack of self-regulation and collaboration
This section's tone or style may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (August 2009)
Affiliate marketing is driven by entrepreneurs who are working at the edge of Internet marketing. Affiliates are often the first to take advantage of emerging trends and technologies. The "trial and error" approach is probably the best way to describe the operation methods for affiliate marketers. This risky approach is one of the reasons why most affiliates fail or give up before they become successful "super affiliates", capable of generating US$10,000 or more per month in commission. This "frontier" life combined with the attitude found in such communities is likely the main reason why the affiliate marketing industry is unable to self-regulate beyond individual contracts between advertisers and affiliates. Affiliate marketing has experienced numerous failed attempts to create an industry organization or association of some kind that could be the initiator of regulations, standards, and guidelines for the industry.[28] Some examples of failed regulation efforts are the Affiliate Union and iAfma.
Online forums and industry trade shows are the only means for the different members from the industry—affiliates/publishers, merchants/advertisers, affiliate networks, third-party vendors, and service providers such as outsourced program managers—to congregate at one location. Online forums are free, enable small affiliates to have a larger say, and provide anonymity. Trade shows are cost-prohibitive to small affiliates because of the high price for event passes. Larger affiliates may even be sponsored by an advertiser they promote.
Because of the anonymity of online forums, the quantitative majority of industry members are unable to create any form of legally binding rule or regulation that must be followed throughout the industry. Online forums have had very few successes as representing the majority of the affiliate marketing industry. The most recent example of such a success was the halt of the "Commission Junction Link Management Initiative" (CJ LMI) in June/July 2006, when a single network tried to impose the use of a Javascript tracking code as a replacement for common HTML links on its affiliates.[29]
[edit]Lack of industry standards
[edit]Certification and training
Affiliate marketing currently lacks industry standards for training and certification. There are some training courses and seminars that result in certifications; however, the acceptance of such certifications is mostly due to the reputation of the individual or company issuing the certification. Affiliate marketing is not commonly taught in universities, and only a few college instructors work with Internet marketers to introduce the subject to students majoring in marketing.[30]
Education occurs most often in "real life" by becoming involved and learning the details as time progresses. Although there are several books on the topic, some so-called "how-to" or "silver bullet" books instruct readers to manipulate holes in the Google algorithm, which can quickly become out of date,[30] or suggest strategies no longer endorsed or permitted by advertisers.[31]
Outsourced Program Management companies typically combine formal and informal training, providing much of their training through group collaboration and brainstorming. Such companies also try to send each marketing employee to the industry conference of their choice.[32]
Other training resources used include online forums, weblogs, podcasts, video seminars, and specialty websites.
Affiliate Summit is the largest conference in the industry, and many other affiliate networks host their own annual events.
[edit]Code of conduct
A code of conduct was released by affiliate networks Commission Junction/beFree and Performics in December 2002 to guide practices and adherence to ethical standards for online advertising.
[edit]Threat to traditional affiliate networks
Cost per action networks can be viewed as a threat to "classic" affiliate marketing networks. Traditional affiliate marketing is resource-intensive and requires continual maintenance. Most of the maintenance includes managing, monitoring, and supporting affiliates. The goal of affiliate marketing is directed toward long-term and mutual beneficial partnerships between advertisers and affiliates. Cost per action networks, however, eliminate the need for the advertiser to build and maintain relationships to affiliates, as that task is performed for the advertiser by the cost per action network. The advertiser makes an offer, almost always CPA-based, and the cost per action networks handle the remainder of the process by mobilizing their affiliates to promote that offer. Cost per sale and revenue sharing are the primary compensation models for classic affiliate marketing, and are rarely found in cost per action networks. Affiliate marketers typically avoid the topic of cost per action networks; however, if it is being discussed, the debates can become heated and explosive.[33][34][35]
[edit]Marketing term
Members of the marketing industry are recommending that "affiliate marketing" be substituted with an alternative name.[36] Affiliate marketing is often confused with either network marketing or multi-level marketing. Performance marketing is a common alternative, but other recommendations have been made as well.[citation needed]
[edit]Sales tax vulnerability
In April 2008 the State of New York inserted an item in the state budget asserting sales tax jurisdiction over Amazon.com sales to residents of New York, based on the existence of affiliate links from New York–based websites to Amazon.[37] The state asserts that even one such affiliate constitutes Amazon having a business presence in the state, and is sufficient to allow New York to tax all Amazon sales to state residents. Amazon challenged the amendment and lost at the trial level in January, 2009. The case is currently making its way through the New York appeals courts.
[edit]Cookie stuffing
Cookie stuffing involves placing an affiliate tracking cookie on a website visitor's computer without their knowledge, which will then generate revenue for the person doing the cookie stuffing. This not only generates fraudulent affiliate sales, but also has the potential to overwrite other affiliates' cookies, essentially stealing their legitimately earned commissions.
[edit]Click to Reveal
Many voucher code web sites use a click to reveal format, which required the web site user to click to reveal the voucher code. The action of clicking places the cookie on the website visitor's computer. The IAB [38] have stated that "Affiliates must not use a mechanism whereby users are encouraged to click to interact with content where it is unclear or confusing what the outcome will be.",
[edit]Affiliate services
Affiliate tracking software
Affiliate programs directories
Affiliate networks (see also Category:Internet advertising services and affiliate networks)
Affiliate manager and Outsourced Program Management (OPM or APM) (manages affiliates)
Category:Internet marketing trade shows
[edit]See also
Broad: Internet marketing, online marketing, online advertising, Website monetizing, Post-click marketing
Advertising methods: Web banner, ad filtering, ad serving, central ad server, pop-up ad, contextual advertising
E-Mail advertising: E-mail spam, e-mail marketing, spamming
Marketing tactics: Guerilla marketing, marketing strategy and guerrilla marketing warfare strategies, evangelism marketing, word of mouth marketing
Search engines: Search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click, click fraud, paid inclusion
Industry calculations: Click through rate (CTR), cost per action (CPA), cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPI), cost per mille (CPM), effective cost per mille (eCPM)
Compensation/Pricing: Compensation methods, Category:Compensation, Category:Pricing
Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network, the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate') and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors.
Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.
Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. [1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.[2]
[edit]Origin
The concept of revenue sharing—paying commission for referred business—predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commerce happened almost four years after the origination of the World Wide Web in November 1994.[citation needed]
The consensus of marketers and adult industry insiders is that Cybererotica was either the first or among the early innovators in affiliate marketing with a cost per click program.[3]
During November 1994, CDNOW launched its BuyWeb program. With this program CDNOW was the first non-adult website to introduce the concept of an affiliate or associate program with its idea of click-through purchasing. CDNOW had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors may be interested in purchasing. These websites could also offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNOW to purchase the albums. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose because of conversations with music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists' CDs directly from its website, but did not want to implement this capability itself. Geffen asked CDNOW if it could design a program where CDNOW would handle the order fulfillment. Geffen realized that CDNOW could link directly from the artist on its website to Geffen's website, bypassing the CDNOW home page and going directly to an artist's music page.[4]
Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate program in July 1996. Amazon associates could place banner or text links on their site for individual books, or link directly to the Amazon home page.[citation needed]
When visitors clicked from the associate's website through to Amazon and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to become widely known and serve as a model for subsequent programs.[5][6]
In February 2000, Amazon announced that it had been granted a patent[7] on all the essential components of an affiliate program. The patent application was submitted in June 1997, which predates most affiliate programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com (October 1994), AutoWeb.com (October 1995), Kbkids.com/BrainPlay.com (January 1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others.[3]
[edit]Historic development
Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005.[8] MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs.[9]
Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, and retail industries.[10] The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors.[10] Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix.[10]
[edit]Web 2.0
Websites and services based on Web 2.0 concepts—blogging and interactive online communities, for example—have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. The new media allowed merchants to become closer to their affiliates and improved the communication between them.[11][12]
[edit]Compensation methods
Main article: Compensation methods
[edit]Predominant compensation methods
Eighty percent of affiliate programs today use revenue sharing or cost per sale (CPS) as a compensation method, nineteen percent use cost per action (CPA), and the remaining programs use other methods such as cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (CPM).[13]
[edit]Diminished compensation methods
Within more mature markets, less than one percent of traditional affiliate marketing programs today use cost per click and cost per mille. However, these compensation methods are used heavily in display advertising and paid search.
Cost per mille requires only that the publisher make the advertising available on his website and display it to his visitors in order to receive a commission. Pay per click requires one additional step in the conversion process to generate revenue for the publisher: A visitor must not only be made aware of the advertisement, but must also click on the advertisement to visit the advertiser's website.
Cost per click was more common in the early days of affiliate marketing, but has diminished in use over time due to click fraud issues very similar to the click fraud issues modern search engines are facing today. Contextual advertising programs are not considered in the statistic pertaining to diminished use of cost per click, as it is uncertain if contextual advertising can be considered affiliate marketing.
While these models have diminished in mature e-commerce and online advertising markets they are still prevalent in some more nascent industries. China is one example where Affiliate Marketing does not overtly resemble the same model in the West. With many affiliates being paid a flat "Cost Per Day" with some networks offering Cost Per Click or CPM.
[edit]Performance marketing
In the case of cost per mille/click, the publisher is not concerned about a visitor being a member of the audience that the advertiser tries to attract and is able to convert, because at this point the publisher has already earned his commission. This leaves the greater, and, in case of cost per mille, the full risk and loss (if the visitor can not be converted) to the advertiser.
Cost per action/sale methods require that referred visitors do more than visit the advertiser's website before the affiliate receives commission. The advertiser must convert that visitor first. It is in the best interest for the affiliate to send the most closely targeted traffic to the advertiser as possible to increase the chance of a conversion. The risk and loss is shared between the affiliate and the advertiser.
Affiliate marketing is also called "performance marketing", in reference to how sales employees are typically being compensated. Such employees are typically paid a commission for each sale they close, and sometimes are paid performance incentives for exceeding targeted baselines.[14] Affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose products or services they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers' internal sales department.
The phrase, "Affiliates are an extended sales force for your business", which is often used to explain affiliate marketing, is not completely accurate. The primary difference between the two is that affiliate marketers provide little if any influence on a possible prospect in the conversion process once that prospect is directed to the advertiser's website. The sales team of the advertiser, however, does have the control and influence up to the point where the prospect signs the contract or completes the purchase.
[edit]Multi-tier programs
Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms, publisher "A" signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher "A" attracts publishers "B" and "C" to sign up for the same program using his sign-up code, all future activities performed by publishers "B" and "C" will result in additional commission (at a lower rate) for publisher "A".
Two-tier programs exist in the minority of affiliate programs; most are simply one-tier. Referral programs beyond two-tier resemble multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing but are different. Multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing have more requirements/qualifications to get paid a commission. Whereas affiliate programs do not.
[edit]From the advertiser perspective
[edit]Pros and cons
Merchants favor affiliate marketing because in most cases it uses a "pay for performance" model, meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are accrued (excluding any initial setup cost).[15] Some businesses owe much of their success to this marketing technique, a notable example being Amazon.com. Unlike display advertising, however, affiliate marketing is not easily scalable.[16]
[edit]Implementation options
Some merchants run their own (i.e., in-house) affiliate programs using popular software while others use third-party services provided by intermediaries to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates (see outsourced program management). Merchants can choose from two different types of affiliate management solutions: standalone software or hosted services, typically called affiliate networks. Payouts to affiliates or publishers are either made by the networks on behalf of the merchant, by the network, consolidated across all merchants where the publisher has a relationship with and earned commissions or directly by the merchant itself.
[edit]Affiliate management and program management outsourcing
Main article: Affiliate manager
Successful affiliate programs require significant work and maintenance. Having a successful affiliate program is more difficult than when such programs were just emerging. With the exception of some vertical markets, it is rare for an affiliate program to generate considerable revenue with poor management or no management (i.e., "auto-drive").
Uncontrolled affiliate programs did—and continue to do so today—aid rogue affiliates, who use spamming,[17] trademark infringement, false advertising, "cookie cutting"[citation needed], typosquatting,[18] and other unethical methods that have given affiliate marketing a negative reputation.
The increased number of Internet businesses and the increased number of people that trust the current technology enough to shop and do business online allows further maturation of affiliate marketing. The opportunity to generate a considerable amount of profit combined with a crowded marketplace filled with competitors of equal quality and size makes it more difficult for merchants to be noticed. In this environment, however, being noticed can yield greater rewards.
Recently, the Internet marketing industry has become more advanced. In some areas online media has been rising to the sophistication of offline media, in which advertising has been largely professional and competitive. There are significantly more requirements that merchants must meet to be successful, and those requirements are becoming too burdensome for the merchant to manage successfully in-house. An increasing number of merchants are seeking alternative options found in relatively new outsourced (affiliate) program management (OPM) companies, which are often founded by veteran affiliate managers and network program managers.[19] OPM companies perform affiliate program management for the merchants as a service, similar to advertising agencies promoting a brand or product as done in offline marketing.
[edit]Types of affiliate websites
Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (i.e., advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers.
Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers' offers (i.e., search arbitrage)
Comparison shopping websites and directories
Loyalty websites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back
CRM sites that offer charitable donations
Coupon and rebate websites that focus on sales promotions
Content and niche market websites, including product review sites
Personal websites
Weblogs and website syndication feeds
E-mail list affiliates (i.e., owners of large opt-in -mail lists that typically employ e-mail drip marketing) and newsletter list affiliates, which are typically more content-heavy
Registration path or co-registration affiliates who include offers from other merchants during the registration process on their own website
Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparisons, or other features based on information that changes frequently, thus requiring continual updates
Cost per action networks (i.e., top-tier affiliates) that expose offers from the advertiser with which they are affiliated to their own network of affiliates
Websites using adbars (e.g. Adsense) to display context-sensitive, highly relevant ads for products on the site
Virtual Currency: a new type of publisher that utilizes the social media space to couple an advertiser's offer with a handout of "virtual currency" in a game or virtual platform.
Video Blog: Video content which allows viewers to click on and purchase products related to the video's subject.
[edit]Publisher recruitment
Affiliate networks that already have several advertisers typically also have a large pool of publishers. These publishers could be potentially recruited, and there is also an increased chance that publishers in the network apply to the program on their own, without the need for recruitment efforts by the advertiser.
Relevant websites that attract the same target audiences as the advertiser but without competing with it are potential affiliate partners as well. Vendors or existing customers can also become recruits if doing so makes sense and does not violate any laws or regulations.
Almost any website could be recruited as an affiliate publisher, although high-traffic websites are more likely interested in (for their own sake) low-risk cost per mille or medium-risk cost per click deals rather than higher-risk cost per action or revenue share deals.[20]
[edit]Locating affiliate programs
There are three primary ways to locate affiliate programs for a target website:
Affiliate program directories,
Large affiliate networks that provide the platform for dozens or even hundreds of advertisers, and
The target website itself. (Websites that offer an affiliate program often have a link titled "affiliate program", "affiliates", "referral program", or "webmasters"—usually in the footer or "About" section of the website.)
If the above locations do not yield information pertaining to affiliates, it may be the case that there exists a non-public affiliate program. The most definitive method for finding this information is to contact the website owner directly.
[edit]Past and current issues
Since the emergence of affiliate marketing, there has been little control over affiliate activity. Unscrupulous affiliates have used spam, false advertising, forced clicks (to get tracking cookies set on users' computers), adware, and other methods to drive traffic to their sponsors. Although many affiliate programs have terms of service that contain rules against spam, this marketing method has historically proven to attract abuse from spammers.
[edit]E-mail spam
In the infancy of affiliate marketing, many Internet users held negative opinions due to the tendency of affiliates to use spam to promote the programs in which they were enrolled.[21] As affiliate marketing matured, many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming.
[edit]Search engine spam
As search engines have become more prominent, some affiliate marketers have shifted from sending e-mail spam to creating automatically generated webpages that often contain product data feeds provided by merchants. The goal of such webpages is to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, also known as spamdexing. Each page can be targeted to a different niche market through the use of specific keywords, with the result being a skewed form of search engine optimization.
Spam is the biggest threat to organic search engines, whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users. Google's PageRank algorithm update ("BigDaddy") in February 2006—the final stage of Google's major update ("Jagger") that began in mid-summer 2005—specifically targeted spamdexing with great success. This update thus enabled Google to remove a large amount of mostly computer-generated duplicate content from its index.[22]
Websites consisting mostly of affiliate links have previously held a negative reputation for underdelivering quality content. In 2005 there were active changes made by Google, where certain websites were labeled as "thin affiliates".[23] Such websites were either removed from Google's index or were relocated within the results page (i.e., moved from the top-most results to a lower position). To avoid this categorization, affiliate marketer webmasters must create quality content on their websites that distinguishes their work from the work of spammers or banner farms, which only contain links leading to merchant sites.
Some commentators originally suggested that Affiliate links work best in the context of the information contained within the website itself. For instance, if a website contains information pertaining to publishing a website, an affiliate link leading to a merchant's Internet service provider (ISP) within that website's content would be appropriate. If a website contains information pertaining to sports, an affiliate link leading to a sporting goods website may work well within the context of the articles and information about sports. The goal in this case is to publish quality information within the website and provide context-oriented links to related merchant's websites.
However, more recent examples exist of "thin" Affiliate sites which are using the Affiliate Marketing model to create value for Consumers by offering them a service. These thin content service Affiliate fall into three categories:
Price comparison
Cause related marketing
Time saving
[edit]Adware
Although it differs from spyware, adware often uses the same methods and technologies. Merchants initially were uninformed about adware, what impact it had, and how it could damage their brands. Affiliate marketers became aware of the issue much more quickly, especially because they noticed that adware often overwrites tracking cookies, thus resulting in a decline of commissions. Affiliates not employing adware felt that it was stealing commission from them. Adware often has no valuable purpose and rarely provides any useful content to the user, who is typically unaware that such software is installed on his/her computer.
Affiliates discussed the issues in Internet forums and began to organize their efforts. They believed that the best way to address the problem was to discourage merchants from advertising via adware. Merchants that were either indifferent to or supportive of adware were exposed by affiliates, thus damaging those merchants' reputations and tarnishing their affiliate marketing efforts. Many affiliates either terminated the use of such merchants or switched to a competitor's affiliate program. Eventually, affiliate networks were also forced by merchants and affiliates to take a stand and ban certain adware publishers from their network. The result was Code of Conduct by Commission Junction/beFree and Performics,[24] LinkShare's Anti-Predatory Advertising Addendum,[25] and ShareASale's complete ban of software applications as a medium for affiliates to promote advertiser offers.[26] Regardless of the progress made, adware continues to be an issue, as demonstrated by the class action lawsuit against ValueClick and its daughter company Commission Junction filed on April 20, 2007.[27]
[edit]Trademark bidding
Affiliates were among the earliest adopters of pay per click advertising when the first pay-per-click search engines emerged during the end of the 1990s. Later in 2000 Google launched its pay per click service, Google AdWords, which is responsible for the widespread use and acceptance of pay per click as an advertising channel. An increasing number of merchants engaged in pay per click advertising, either directly or via a search marketing agency, and realized that this space was already well-occupied by their affiliates. Although this situation alone created advertising channel conflicts and debates between advertisers and affiliates, the largest issue concerned affiliates bidding on advertisers names, brands, and trademarks. Several advertisers began to adjust their affiliate program terms to prohibit their affiliates from bidding on those type of keywords. Some advertisers, however, did and still do embrace this behavior, going so far as to allow, or even encourage, affiliates to bid on any term, including the advertiser's trademarks.
[edit]Lack of self-regulation and collaboration
This section's tone or style may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (August 2009)
Affiliate marketing is driven by entrepreneurs who are working at the edge of Internet marketing. Affiliates are often the first to take advantage of emerging trends and technologies. The "trial and error" approach is probably the best way to describe the operation methods for affiliate marketers. This risky approach is one of the reasons why most affiliates fail or give up before they become successful "super affiliates", capable of generating US$10,000 or more per month in commission. This "frontier" life combined with the attitude found in such communities is likely the main reason why the affiliate marketing industry is unable to self-regulate beyond individual contracts between advertisers and affiliates. Affiliate marketing has experienced numerous failed attempts to create an industry organization or association of some kind that could be the initiator of regulations, standards, and guidelines for the industry.[28] Some examples of failed regulation efforts are the Affiliate Union and iAfma.
Online forums and industry trade shows are the only means for the different members from the industry—affiliates/publishers, merchants/advertisers, affiliate networks, third-party vendors, and service providers such as outsourced program managers—to congregate at one location. Online forums are free, enable small affiliates to have a larger say, and provide anonymity. Trade shows are cost-prohibitive to small affiliates because of the high price for event passes. Larger affiliates may even be sponsored by an advertiser they promote.
Because of the anonymity of online forums, the quantitative majority of industry members are unable to create any form of legally binding rule or regulation that must be followed throughout the industry. Online forums have had very few successes as representing the majority of the affiliate marketing industry. The most recent example of such a success was the halt of the "Commission Junction Link Management Initiative" (CJ LMI) in June/July 2006, when a single network tried to impose the use of a Javascript tracking code as a replacement for common HTML links on its affiliates.[29]
[edit]Lack of industry standards
[edit]Certification and training
Affiliate marketing currently lacks industry standards for training and certification. There are some training courses and seminars that result in certifications; however, the acceptance of such certifications is mostly due to the reputation of the individual or company issuing the certification. Affiliate marketing is not commonly taught in universities, and only a few college instructors work with Internet marketers to introduce the subject to students majoring in marketing.[30]
Education occurs most often in "real life" by becoming involved and learning the details as time progresses. Although there are several books on the topic, some so-called "how-to" or "silver bullet" books instruct readers to manipulate holes in the Google algorithm, which can quickly become out of date,[30] or suggest strategies no longer endorsed or permitted by advertisers.[31]
Outsourced Program Management companies typically combine formal and informal training, providing much of their training through group collaboration and brainstorming. Such companies also try to send each marketing employee to the industry conference of their choice.[32]
Other training resources used include online forums, weblogs, podcasts, video seminars, and specialty websites.
Affiliate Summit is the largest conference in the industry, and many other affiliate networks host their own annual events.
[edit]Code of conduct
A code of conduct was released by affiliate networks Commission Junction/beFree and Performics in December 2002 to guide practices and adherence to ethical standards for online advertising.
[edit]Threat to traditional affiliate networks
Cost per action networks can be viewed as a threat to "classic" affiliate marketing networks. Traditional affiliate marketing is resource-intensive and requires continual maintenance. Most of the maintenance includes managing, monitoring, and supporting affiliates. The goal of affiliate marketing is directed toward long-term and mutual beneficial partnerships between advertisers and affiliates. Cost per action networks, however, eliminate the need for the advertiser to build and maintain relationships to affiliates, as that task is performed for the advertiser by the cost per action network. The advertiser makes an offer, almost always CPA-based, and the cost per action networks handle the remainder of the process by mobilizing their affiliates to promote that offer. Cost per sale and revenue sharing are the primary compensation models for classic affiliate marketing, and are rarely found in cost per action networks. Affiliate marketers typically avoid the topic of cost per action networks; however, if it is being discussed, the debates can become heated and explosive.[33][34][35]
[edit]Marketing term
Members of the marketing industry are recommending that "affiliate marketing" be substituted with an alternative name.[36] Affiliate marketing is often confused with either network marketing or multi-level marketing. Performance marketing is a common alternative, but other recommendations have been made as well.[citation needed]
[edit]Sales tax vulnerability
In April 2008 the State of New York inserted an item in the state budget asserting sales tax jurisdiction over Amazon.com sales to residents of New York, based on the existence of affiliate links from New York–based websites to Amazon.[37] The state asserts that even one such affiliate constitutes Amazon having a business presence in the state, and is sufficient to allow New York to tax all Amazon sales to state residents. Amazon challenged the amendment and lost at the trial level in January, 2009. The case is currently making its way through the New York appeals courts.
[edit]Cookie stuffing
Cookie stuffing involves placing an affiliate tracking cookie on a website visitor's computer without their knowledge, which will then generate revenue for the person doing the cookie stuffing. This not only generates fraudulent affiliate sales, but also has the potential to overwrite other affiliates' cookies, essentially stealing their legitimately earned commissions.
[edit]Click to Reveal
Many voucher code web sites use a click to reveal format, which required the web site user to click to reveal the voucher code. The action of clicking places the cookie on the website visitor's computer. The IAB [38] have stated that "Affiliates must not use a mechanism whereby users are encouraged to click to interact with content where it is unclear or confusing what the outcome will be.",
[edit]Affiliate services
Affiliate tracking software
Affiliate programs directories
Affiliate networks (see also Category:Internet advertising services and affiliate networks)
Affiliate manager and Outsourced Program Management (OPM or APM) (manages affiliates)
Category:Internet marketing trade shows
[edit]See also
Broad: Internet marketing, online marketing, online advertising, Website monetizing, Post-click marketing
Advertising methods: Web banner, ad filtering, ad serving, central ad server, pop-up ad, contextual advertising
E-Mail advertising: E-mail spam, e-mail marketing, spamming
Marketing tactics: Guerilla marketing, marketing strategy and guerrilla marketing warfare strategies, evangelism marketing, word of mouth marketing
Search engines: Search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click, click fraud, paid inclusion
Industry calculations: Click through rate (CTR), cost per action (CPA), cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPI), cost per mille (CPM), effective cost per mille (eCPM)
Compensation/Pricing: Compensation methods, Category:Compensation, Category:Pricing
SEO II
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing ("SEM") which may deal with paid inclusion. The theory is that the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
The acronym "SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.
Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.[1] The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.
Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, creating an opportunity for both white hat and black hat SEO practitioners. According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase "search engine optimization" probably came into use in 1997.[2]
Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.[3] Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.[4]
By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.
Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed "backrub," a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.[5] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.
Page and Brin founded Google in 1998. Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[6] Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, meta tags, headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings. Although PageRank was more difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. Some of these schemes, or link farms, involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of link spamming.[7]
By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.[8] The leading search engines, Google and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Notable SEOs, such as Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Aaron Wall and Jill Whalen, have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have published their opinions in online forums and blogs.[9][10] SEO practitioners may also study patents held by various search engines to gain insight into the algorithms.[11]
In 2005 Google began personalizing search results for each user. Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users.[12] In 2008, Bruce Clay said that "ranking is dead" because of personalized search. It would become meaningless to discuss how a website ranked, because its rank would potentially be different for each user and each search.[13]
In 2007 Google announced a campaign against paid links that transfer PageRank.[14] On June 15, 2009, Google disclosed that they had taken measures to mitigate the effects of PageRank sculpting by use of the nofollow attribute on links. Matt Cutts, a well-known software engineer at Google, announced that Google Bot would no longer treat nofollowed links in the same way, in order to prevent SEOs from using nofollow for PageRank sculpting[15]. As a result of this change the usage of nofollow leads to evaporation of pagerank. In order to avoid the above, SEOs developed alternative techniques that replace nofollowed tags with obfuscated Javascript and thus permit PageRank sculpting. Additionally several solutions have been suggested that include the usage of iframes, Flash and Javascript. [16]
In December 2009 Google announced it would be using the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results [17].
Real-time-search was introduced in late 2009 in an attempt to make search results more timely and relevant. Historically site administrators have spent months or even years optimizing a website to increase search rankings. With the growth in popularity of social media sites and blogs the leading engines made changes to their algorithms to allow fresh content to rank quickly within the search results.[18] This new approach to search places importance on current, fresh and unique content.
[edit]Relationship with search engines
By 1997 search engines recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms in an effort to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.[19]
Due to the high marketing value of targeted search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web,[20] was created to discuss and minimize the damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.
SEO companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[21] Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.[22] Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[23]
Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, chats, and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization.[24][25][26] Google has a Sitemaps program[dead link][27] to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Google guidelines are a list of suggested practices Google has provided as guidance to webmasters. Yahoo! Site Explorer provides a way for webmasters to submit URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information.[28]
[edit]Methods
Main article: search engine optimization methods
[edit]Getting indexed
The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. Some search engines, notably Yahoo!, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click.[29] Such programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but do not guarantee specific ranking within the search results.[dead link][30] Two major directories, the Yahoo Directory and the Open Directory Project both require manual submission and human editorial review.[31] Google offers Google Webmaster Tools, for which an XML Sitemap feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that aren't discoverable by automatically following links.[32]
Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.[33]
[edit]Preventing crawling
Main article: Robots Exclusion Standard
To avoid undesirable content in the search indexes, webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard robots.txt file in the root directory of the domain. Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine's database by using a meta tag specific to robots. When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the root directory is the first file crawled. The robots.txt file is then parsed, and will instruct the robot as to which pages are not to be crawled. As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a webmaster does not wish crawled. Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches. In March 2007, Google warned webmasters that they should prevent indexing of internal search results because those pages are considered search spam.[34]
[edit]Increasing prominence
A variety of methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results. Cross linking between pages of the same website to provide more links to most important pages may improve its visibility.[35] Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrase, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries will tend to increase traffic.[35] Adding relevant keywords to a web page's meta data, including the title tag and meta description, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site's search listings, thus increasing traffic. URL normalization of web pages accessible via multiple urls, using the "canonical" meta tag[36] or via 301 redirects can help make sure links to different versions of the url all count towards the page's link popularity score.
[edit]White hat versus black hat
SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.[37] White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites will eventually be banned once the search engines discover what they are doing.[38]
A SEO tactic, technique or method is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines[24][25][26][39] are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.
White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to game the algorithm. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,[40] although the two are not identical.
White Hat SEO is merely effective marketing, making efforts to deliver quality content to an audience that has requested the quality content. Traditional marketing means have allowed this through transparency and exposure. A search engine's algorithm takes this into account, such as Google's PageRank.
Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.
Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual site review. One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices.[41] Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's list.[42]
[edit]As a marketing strategy
SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator's goals.[43] A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic traffic, achieved through optimization techniques and not paid advertising, to web pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.[44]
SEO may generate a return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. (Some trading sites such as eBay can be a special case for this, it will announce how and when the ranking algorithm will change a few months before changing the algorithm). Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.[45] It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.[46] A top-ranked SEO blog Seomoz.org[47] has suggested, "Search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines.." Instead, their main sources of traffic are links from other websites.[48]
[edit]International markets
Optimization techniques are highly tuned to the dominant search engines in the target market. The search engines' market shares vary from market to market, as does competition. In 2003, Danny Sullivan stated that Google represented about 75% of all searches.[49] In markets outside the United States, Google's share is often larger, and Google remains the dominant search engine worldwide as of 2007.[50] As of 2006, Google had an 85-90% market share in Germany.[51] While there were hundreds of SEO firms in the US at that time, there were only about five in Germany.[51] As of June 2008, the marketshare of Google in the UK was close to 90% according to Hitwise.[52] That market share is achieved in a number of countries.[53]
As of 2009, there are only a few large markets where Google is not the leading search engine. In most cases, when Google is not leading in a given market, it is lagging behind a local player. The most notable markets where this is the case are China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the Czech Republic where respectively Baidu, Yahoo! Japan, Naver, Yandex and Seznam are market leaders.
Successful search optimization for international markets may require professional translation of web pages, registration of a domain name with a top level domain in the target market, and web hosting that provides a local IP address. Otherwise, the fundamental elements of search optimization are essentially the same, regardless of language.[51]
[edit]Legal precedents
On October 17, 2002, SearchKing filed suit in the United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma, against the search engine Google. SearchKing's claim was that Google's tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted a tortious interference with contractual relations. On May 27, 2003, the court granted Google's motion to dismiss the complaint because SearchKing "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted."[54][55]
In March 2006, KinderStart filed a lawsuit against Google over search engine rankings. Kinderstart's web site was removed from Google's index prior to the lawsuit and the amount of traffic to the site dropped by 70%. On March 16, 2007 the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose Division) dismissed KinderStart's complaint without leave to amend, and partially granted Google's motion for Rule 11 sanctions against KinderStart's attorney, requiring him to pay part of Google's legal expenses.[56][57]
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
The acronym "SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.
Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.[1] The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.
Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, creating an opportunity for both white hat and black hat SEO practitioners. According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase "search engine optimization" probably came into use in 1997.[2]
Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.[3] Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.[4]
By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.
Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed "backrub," a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.[5] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.
Page and Brin founded Google in 1998. Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[6] Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, meta tags, headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings. Although PageRank was more difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. Some of these schemes, or link farms, involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of link spamming.[7]
By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.[8] The leading search engines, Google and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Notable SEOs, such as Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Aaron Wall and Jill Whalen, have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have published their opinions in online forums and blogs.[9][10] SEO practitioners may also study patents held by various search engines to gain insight into the algorithms.[11]
In 2005 Google began personalizing search results for each user. Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users.[12] In 2008, Bruce Clay said that "ranking is dead" because of personalized search. It would become meaningless to discuss how a website ranked, because its rank would potentially be different for each user and each search.[13]
In 2007 Google announced a campaign against paid links that transfer PageRank.[14] On June 15, 2009, Google disclosed that they had taken measures to mitigate the effects of PageRank sculpting by use of the nofollow attribute on links. Matt Cutts, a well-known software engineer at Google, announced that Google Bot would no longer treat nofollowed links in the same way, in order to prevent SEOs from using nofollow for PageRank sculpting[15]. As a result of this change the usage of nofollow leads to evaporation of pagerank. In order to avoid the above, SEOs developed alternative techniques that replace nofollowed tags with obfuscated Javascript and thus permit PageRank sculpting. Additionally several solutions have been suggested that include the usage of iframes, Flash and Javascript. [16]
In December 2009 Google announced it would be using the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results [17].
Real-time-search was introduced in late 2009 in an attempt to make search results more timely and relevant. Historically site administrators have spent months or even years optimizing a website to increase search rankings. With the growth in popularity of social media sites and blogs the leading engines made changes to their algorithms to allow fresh content to rank quickly within the search results.[18] This new approach to search places importance on current, fresh and unique content.
[edit]Relationship with search engines
By 1997 search engines recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms in an effort to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.[19]
Due to the high marketing value of targeted search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web,[20] was created to discuss and minimize the damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.
SEO companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[21] Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.[22] Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[23]
Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, chats, and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization.[24][25][26] Google has a Sitemaps program[dead link][27] to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Google guidelines are a list of suggested practices Google has provided as guidance to webmasters. Yahoo! Site Explorer provides a way for webmasters to submit URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information.[28]
[edit]Methods
Main article: search engine optimization methods
[edit]Getting indexed
The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. Some search engines, notably Yahoo!, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click.[29] Such programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but do not guarantee specific ranking within the search results.[dead link][30] Two major directories, the Yahoo Directory and the Open Directory Project both require manual submission and human editorial review.[31] Google offers Google Webmaster Tools, for which an XML Sitemap feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that aren't discoverable by automatically following links.[32]
Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.[33]
[edit]Preventing crawling
Main article: Robots Exclusion Standard
To avoid undesirable content in the search indexes, webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard robots.txt file in the root directory of the domain. Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine's database by using a meta tag specific to robots. When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the root directory is the first file crawled. The robots.txt file is then parsed, and will instruct the robot as to which pages are not to be crawled. As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a webmaster does not wish crawled. Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches. In March 2007, Google warned webmasters that they should prevent indexing of internal search results because those pages are considered search spam.[34]
[edit]Increasing prominence
A variety of methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results. Cross linking between pages of the same website to provide more links to most important pages may improve its visibility.[35] Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrase, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries will tend to increase traffic.[35] Adding relevant keywords to a web page's meta data, including the title tag and meta description, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site's search listings, thus increasing traffic. URL normalization of web pages accessible via multiple urls, using the "canonical" meta tag[36] or via 301 redirects can help make sure links to different versions of the url all count towards the page's link popularity score.
[edit]White hat versus black hat
SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.[37] White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites will eventually be banned once the search engines discover what they are doing.[38]
A SEO tactic, technique or method is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines[24][25][26][39] are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.
White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to game the algorithm. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,[40] although the two are not identical.
White Hat SEO is merely effective marketing, making efforts to deliver quality content to an audience that has requested the quality content. Traditional marketing means have allowed this through transparency and exposure. A search engine's algorithm takes this into account, such as Google's PageRank.
Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.
Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual site review. One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices.[41] Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's list.[42]
[edit]As a marketing strategy
SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator's goals.[43] A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic traffic, achieved through optimization techniques and not paid advertising, to web pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.[44]
SEO may generate a return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. (Some trading sites such as eBay can be a special case for this, it will announce how and when the ranking algorithm will change a few months before changing the algorithm). Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.[45] It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.[46] A top-ranked SEO blog Seomoz.org[47] has suggested, "Search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines.." Instead, their main sources of traffic are links from other websites.[48]
[edit]International markets
Optimization techniques are highly tuned to the dominant search engines in the target market. The search engines' market shares vary from market to market, as does competition. In 2003, Danny Sullivan stated that Google represented about 75% of all searches.[49] In markets outside the United States, Google's share is often larger, and Google remains the dominant search engine worldwide as of 2007.[50] As of 2006, Google had an 85-90% market share in Germany.[51] While there were hundreds of SEO firms in the US at that time, there were only about five in Germany.[51] As of June 2008, the marketshare of Google in the UK was close to 90% according to Hitwise.[52] That market share is achieved in a number of countries.[53]
As of 2009, there are only a few large markets where Google is not the leading search engine. In most cases, when Google is not leading in a given market, it is lagging behind a local player. The most notable markets where this is the case are China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the Czech Republic where respectively Baidu, Yahoo! Japan, Naver, Yandex and Seznam are market leaders.
Successful search optimization for international markets may require professional translation of web pages, registration of a domain name with a top level domain in the target market, and web hosting that provides a local IP address. Otherwise, the fundamental elements of search optimization are essentially the same, regardless of language.[51]
[edit]Legal precedents
On October 17, 2002, SearchKing filed suit in the United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma, against the search engine Google. SearchKing's claim was that Google's tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted a tortious interference with contractual relations. On May 27, 2003, the court granted Google's motion to dismiss the complaint because SearchKing "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted."[54][55]
In March 2006, KinderStart filed a lawsuit against Google over search engine rankings. Kinderstart's web site was removed from Google's index prior to the lawsuit and the amount of traffic to the site dropped by 70%. On March 16, 2007 the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose Division) dismissed KinderStart's complaint without leave to amend, and partially granted Google's motion for Rule 11 sanctions against KinderStart's attorney, requiring him to pay part of Google's legal expenses.[56][57]
Search engine optimization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A typical search engine results page
Internet marketing
Display advertising
E-mail marketing
E-mail marketing software
Interactive advertising
Social media optimization
Web analytics
Cost per impression
Affiliate marketing
Cost per action
Contextual advertising
Revenue sharing
Search engine marketing
Search engine optimization
Pay per click advertising
Paid inclusion
Search analytics
Mobile advertising
This box: view • talk • edit
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing ("SEM") which may deal with paid inclusion. The theory is that the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
The acronym "SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.
Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
A typical search engine results page
Internet marketing
Display advertising
E-mail marketing
E-mail marketing software
Interactive advertising
Social media optimization
Web analytics
Cost per impression
Affiliate marketing
Cost per action
Contextual advertising
Revenue sharing
Search engine marketing
Search engine optimization
Pay per click advertising
Paid inclusion
Search analytics
Mobile advertising
This box: view • talk • edit
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing ("SEM") which may deal with paid inclusion. The theory is that the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
The acronym "SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.
Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
Busby SEO Test
Seo contest Busby SEO Test which has been underway since October will soon be over. Many things happen in this contest lately that quite surprising. And also a lot of remorse and apology which I wrote in widarta.com to my good friends who are struggling in the contest Busby SEO Test.
There are several important notes that I have noticed during this contest took place.
enticegh [The Reticent]
First. This is the team that I support. Dubbed as quiet as not too much turbulence experienced by the position and very rarely post on their blogs. Considering at least a master-master that supports them, I think it needs an injection of support from readers here, so that they at least secure his position now that more difficult to compete with the master and the master seo Indonesia ..
Pinayspeak [Old Man]
Pinay, who led the race during the course of this contest took place, was thrown from the position of the contest. Very surprising considering Pinay as the record holder for the highest quantity of backlinks along this race. For business quality I do not have time to notice, because when speaking of quality are too many aspects that influence, PageRank, anchor text, relevance, IP address, the link popularity of the support site, etc. .. too much if I mentioned. Clearly there may be something wrong, and I will not pretend to understand the google algorithm that could explain this. I call the old man, because his experience in the first contest and get off at the moment when the final contest.
Kabon [Dark Horse]
Kabon I refer to as the holder of the sequence number 2 in the quantity of backlinks even before Pinay crash with almost two-fold the number of all participants other than Pinay .. But then, instead kabon around 5th position. Then they started naek like a black horse, around the beginning of january. Accompanied with their new strategy that has been used by the team used enticegh namely holding a contest. Team led by masters like simon and also supported by brokencode is very likely the greatest champion.
umpcinfo [debutant]
Umpcinfo is a participant of the most surprising for me, with the number of backlinks is very little, their teams could be in big five. And even in my opinion is the best team "clean". I see from a forum of their supporters is very solid. Although my team told me they had the surprise debutant given in this contest, there is no doubting their kemasteran. This team would enter the top five large, a very hard effort needed to become No. 1 ..
Imfreakz [The Master]
Imfreakz is a team where the master assembly. No one doubted their kemasteran. Who thinks this is less coordination team I think is not true. See that so many of their supporters, especially from the other masters who also entered the contest. Another master like dstudiobali, reviewkoe, baliinc fully support this team.
dstudio [The Analyst]
Although as part of the team and fully supports imfreakz, dstudio is a frequent participant provides analysis of this contest. Even giving the stress test for the other participants of stress because of this contest .. Household work as Papa may be a bit disturbing in this contest .. But thankfully, not used as Housewife. ) And Baclinknya even more from imfreakz.
Last .. Hopefully the participants from Indonesia who won this contest ..
There are several important notes that I have noticed during this contest took place.
enticegh [The Reticent]
First. This is the team that I support. Dubbed as quiet as not too much turbulence experienced by the position and very rarely post on their blogs. Considering at least a master-master that supports them, I think it needs an injection of support from readers here, so that they at least secure his position now that more difficult to compete with the master and the master seo Indonesia ..
Pinayspeak [Old Man]
Pinay, who led the race during the course of this contest took place, was thrown from the position of the contest. Very surprising considering Pinay as the record holder for the highest quantity of backlinks along this race. For business quality I do not have time to notice, because when speaking of quality are too many aspects that influence, PageRank, anchor text, relevance, IP address, the link popularity of the support site, etc. .. too much if I mentioned. Clearly there may be something wrong, and I will not pretend to understand the google algorithm that could explain this. I call the old man, because his experience in the first contest and get off at the moment when the final contest.
Kabon [Dark Horse]
Kabon I refer to as the holder of the sequence number 2 in the quantity of backlinks even before Pinay crash with almost two-fold the number of all participants other than Pinay .. But then, instead kabon around 5th position. Then they started naek like a black horse, around the beginning of january. Accompanied with their new strategy that has been used by the team used enticegh namely holding a contest. Team led by masters like simon and also supported by brokencode is very likely the greatest champion.
umpcinfo [debutant]
Umpcinfo is a participant of the most surprising for me, with the number of backlinks is very little, their teams could be in big five. And even in my opinion is the best team "clean". I see from a forum of their supporters is very solid. Although my team told me they had the surprise debutant given in this contest, there is no doubting their kemasteran. This team would enter the top five large, a very hard effort needed to become No. 1 ..
Imfreakz [The Master]
Imfreakz is a team where the master assembly. No one doubted their kemasteran. Who thinks this is less coordination team I think is not true. See that so many of their supporters, especially from the other masters who also entered the contest. Another master like dstudiobali, reviewkoe, baliinc fully support this team.
dstudio [The Analyst]
Although as part of the team and fully supports imfreakz, dstudio is a frequent participant provides analysis of this contest. Even giving the stress test for the other participants of stress because of this contest .. Household work as Papa may be a bit disturbing in this contest .. But thankfully, not used as Housewife. ) And Baclinknya even more from imfreakz.
Last .. Hopefully the participants from Indonesia who won this contest ..
2 Free Internet Advertising Techniques That Squash Paid Techniques
Is there a way to get the word out about your business without all the expensive advertising that so many marketers say you have to take part in? The answer is yes and many of these techniques totally blow the paid techniques out of the water.
What would you rather do? Pay $200 on a pay per click campaign that might bring you 500 visitors (if you're lucky) or bring in 1000 visitors to your new website without spending a single dime?
Looks like the answer is pretty obvious unless you don't understand business basics and you simply want to throw money out the window.
You're about to find out two very simple techniques that anyone can use no matter what you're experience. These free techniques have been proven to blow the paid methods out of the water when it comes to generating free website traffic.
Traffic Trading
Most marketers baulk at the idea of having to link to another website because they think that all of their visitors are going to go to their site without making the website owner any money. The truth is that 80% of your visitors are going to leave your website anyway without ever making you any money.
So why not link to someone else and have them link to you? This isn't about link building where you trade links with each other on a link page. This is about putting a link to another website right on the frontpage of your website for everyone to see?
Why? Because that other high trafficked website is going to do the same thing. You probably didn't realize that this is the number one technique use by adult website webmasters did you?
All you need to do is find in the same or similar niche as your website and contact them and ask them to do some type of banner exchange. Most webmasters won't bite because they are afraid of losing traffic but if you explain what was mentioned above you will get a bite and you both will see the power of traffic trading.
Social Bookmarking
Most internet marketers don't know the first thing about social bookmarking or how it can really benefit their business but social bookmarking is a gold mine when it comes to generating free website traffic.
The number one benefit of social bookmarking is link building. As a website owner you need to get high powered links from popular websites and that's exactly what social bookmarking can do for you. Simply setup accounts at the popular social bookmarking websites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Propeller and others (do a search on Google for more) and bookmark your websites. Now don't only bookmark your own websites, you also want to be sure to bookmark other high quality websites as well or your account will get shut down for only marking your sites.
The second major benefit of social bookmarking is what is called link baiting. When someone finds a website that has something they really like they bookmark it and if the information is really good then many other people will start to bookmark it which brings more and more visitors to your website and it just starts to have a snowball effect.
These two free traffic generation techniques can be very powerful if you stick with them and don't give up. Free traffic really is that simple.
By: Mike Row
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
What would you rather do? Pay $200 on a pay per click campaign that might bring you 500 visitors (if you're lucky) or bring in 1000 visitors to your new website without spending a single dime?
Looks like the answer is pretty obvious unless you don't understand business basics and you simply want to throw money out the window.
You're about to find out two very simple techniques that anyone can use no matter what you're experience. These free techniques have been proven to blow the paid methods out of the water when it comes to generating free website traffic.
Traffic Trading
Most marketers baulk at the idea of having to link to another website because they think that all of their visitors are going to go to their site without making the website owner any money. The truth is that 80% of your visitors are going to leave your website anyway without ever making you any money.
So why not link to someone else and have them link to you? This isn't about link building where you trade links with each other on a link page. This is about putting a link to another website right on the frontpage of your website for everyone to see?
Why? Because that other high trafficked website is going to do the same thing. You probably didn't realize that this is the number one technique use by adult website webmasters did you?
All you need to do is find in the same or similar niche as your website and contact them and ask them to do some type of banner exchange. Most webmasters won't bite because they are afraid of losing traffic but if you explain what was mentioned above you will get a bite and you both will see the power of traffic trading.
Social Bookmarking
Most internet marketers don't know the first thing about social bookmarking or how it can really benefit their business but social bookmarking is a gold mine when it comes to generating free website traffic.
The number one benefit of social bookmarking is link building. As a website owner you need to get high powered links from popular websites and that's exactly what social bookmarking can do for you. Simply setup accounts at the popular social bookmarking websites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Propeller and others (do a search on Google for more) and bookmark your websites. Now don't only bookmark your own websites, you also want to be sure to bookmark other high quality websites as well or your account will get shut down for only marking your sites.
The second major benefit of social bookmarking is what is called link baiting. When someone finds a website that has something they really like they bookmark it and if the information is really good then many other people will start to bookmark it which brings more and more visitors to your website and it just starts to have a snowball effect.
These two free traffic generation techniques can be very powerful if you stick with them and don't give up. Free traffic really is that simple.
By: Mike Row
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Get Paid to Fill Out Surveys - How to Maximize Your Earnings
If you want to get paid to fill out surveys available on the net, all you have to do is join and fill out the information form to be included in the programs. Some folks have made part-time profits, while others enjoyed higher earnings. It is possible to get paid to fill out surveys and earning higher is doable especially when you employ certain techniques.
Maximizing your earnings can be done in two ways- internally and externally. You can do both if you have more time and additional memberships from various survey providers. Search the net and compare the offers before you join just to ensure that you won't end up joining an unscrupulous website.
Here are some tips if you want to get paid to fill out surveys at a max:
Internal techniques
Your initial move should be listing down as much paid surveys as you can. Most of the time, survey providers only invite members who are highly-qualified for a particular survey; so it is advisable that you join many sites to increase your possible earnings.
Try to sign up with other paid surveys in order for you to have a copy of their lists. Duplication may be common, but getting 2 to 4 unique surveys from your new membership can help your earnings improve. Also, don't forget to check your email updates daily as well as responding to them quickly. These are factors that can boost your membership since survey providers may review their members' regular participation. The more you participate and respond, the better for your membership and earnings.
External techniques
You can maximize your earning by participate in other activities offered by your survey provider; such as volunteering for focus groups and product testing.
Other programs that may be available from your survey provider, so it's a good way to earn extra cash on top of the usual get paid to fill out surveys:
Survey providers may offer various programs such as those that involve product testing and service evaluation. When you encounter these testing programs, the survey provider may send you specific tests that you can choose from based on your profile and preferences.
Mystery shopping is another program under this category where you can go to specific shops to purchase items that are up for sale. The idea here is to get real-life and real-time feedback from consumers regarding the products and services of the shops.
Get paid to eat at a restaurant, test a computer game or accessories, or drive a car may also be offered to you in accordance to your profile and preferences. Some companies even give away the items to their members.
Other similar programs may involve writing reviews, photo submissions, drawing or painting, and many others. If you think you can participate, then join or upgrade your membership to avail other programs.
Getting the most out of survey programs is possible and profitable. If some folks can do it on a part-time basis, you too can get paid to fill out surveys without spending most of your time as well. You can increase your earnings by joining more survey programs and getting more memberships.
If you are one of many folks who want to earn from surveys on the net, you can start your search and look into the offers from various providers. You don't always need to pay anything since there are free and legitimate survey programs to choose from, so you can enjoy more earnings over time.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trey_Laudren
Maximizing your earnings can be done in two ways- internally and externally. You can do both if you have more time and additional memberships from various survey providers. Search the net and compare the offers before you join just to ensure that you won't end up joining an unscrupulous website.
Here are some tips if you want to get paid to fill out surveys at a max:
Internal techniques
Your initial move should be listing down as much paid surveys as you can. Most of the time, survey providers only invite members who are highly-qualified for a particular survey; so it is advisable that you join many sites to increase your possible earnings.
Try to sign up with other paid surveys in order for you to have a copy of their lists. Duplication may be common, but getting 2 to 4 unique surveys from your new membership can help your earnings improve. Also, don't forget to check your email updates daily as well as responding to them quickly. These are factors that can boost your membership since survey providers may review their members' regular participation. The more you participate and respond, the better for your membership and earnings.
External techniques
You can maximize your earning by participate in other activities offered by your survey provider; such as volunteering for focus groups and product testing.
Other programs that may be available from your survey provider, so it's a good way to earn extra cash on top of the usual get paid to fill out surveys:
Survey providers may offer various programs such as those that involve product testing and service evaluation. When you encounter these testing programs, the survey provider may send you specific tests that you can choose from based on your profile and preferences.
Mystery shopping is another program under this category where you can go to specific shops to purchase items that are up for sale. The idea here is to get real-life and real-time feedback from consumers regarding the products and services of the shops.
Get paid to eat at a restaurant, test a computer game or accessories, or drive a car may also be offered to you in accordance to your profile and preferences. Some companies even give away the items to their members.
Other similar programs may involve writing reviews, photo submissions, drawing or painting, and many others. If you think you can participate, then join or upgrade your membership to avail other programs.
Getting the most out of survey programs is possible and profitable. If some folks can do it on a part-time basis, you too can get paid to fill out surveys without spending most of your time as well. You can increase your earnings by joining more survey programs and getting more memberships.
If you are one of many folks who want to earn from surveys on the net, you can start your search and look into the offers from various providers. You don't always need to pay anything since there are free and legitimate survey programs to choose from, so you can enjoy more earnings over time.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trey_Laudren
Methods and Tips So You Can Get Paid To Write Online
Did you know that as long as you can type a simple sentence that you can get paid to write online. Writing ezine articles is the perfect way to start a career with little or no investment. To get paid for writing, people need to just have the right resources and know how to hunt for freelance writing jobs. Here are 3 proven techniques for making money online writing:
Use Traditional Article Marketing- This method of earning money writing has been around for a long time. Basically, the concept derives around selling services and products using affiliate links or your own website to get paid to write online. So, if you are selling dog food, you would write an article about buying dog food. The theory is when people do a Google search for certain information, they will run across your article. They then will read your article and if the article helped them, they will click on your link in the resource box.
In order to get paid for writing, the writer must continue to write articles everyday. Sometimes, they may need to create multiple articles (10-40) per day for submission to get traffic. This is one indirect way of earning money as a writer. Many writers are able to make $50-$1000 a day using article marketing.
Use Internet Marketing Forums Where The Webmasters Hang- Website owners often hang out in Internet marketing forums to connect and network with other webmasters. These webmasters also have multiple websites that need content. Why not advertise your writing services to these potential clients to get freelance writing jobs? There are a ton of popular webmaster forums such as Digital Point and Warrior Forum. Most of the time though, writers will need to have 30-50 post before being able to advertise their services. (This is to weed out spammers). Some writers have claimed making thousands of dollars offering article and PLR packages to those looking for unique and quality content at affordable prices.
Write an Article and Package It- Web site owners know they need traffic, but they might not have the time or huge budget to go about buying unique content. Selling private label rights or full rights articles are a popular way for making money on the Internet as a writer. This is because the articles can be sold over and over again. Of course, the more articles you sell, the lesser value the articles may have.
The good thing about selling article packages is that you set the prices. Freelance writers can now have more control over how much they get paid. Some Internet marketers will pay up to $50 for a well written article (depending on the niche and the word count).
There are other sites that allow writers to earn money, however they don't pay a lot and most of the articles that sell go for less than $10/per article. Some popular third party sites to sell articles includes Constant-Content, DailyArticle and Associated Content. The competition on these websites are very high, so writers should use all the resources they can. All of these sites can help freelance writers get paid to write online.
Make a fortune out of writing articles on the Internet at Ezine Articles
This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1595664_50.html
Use Traditional Article Marketing- This method of earning money writing has been around for a long time. Basically, the concept derives around selling services and products using affiliate links or your own website to get paid to write online. So, if you are selling dog food, you would write an article about buying dog food. The theory is when people do a Google search for certain information, they will run across your article. They then will read your article and if the article helped them, they will click on your link in the resource box.
In order to get paid for writing, the writer must continue to write articles everyday. Sometimes, they may need to create multiple articles (10-40) per day for submission to get traffic. This is one indirect way of earning money as a writer. Many writers are able to make $50-$1000 a day using article marketing.
Use Internet Marketing Forums Where The Webmasters Hang- Website owners often hang out in Internet marketing forums to connect and network with other webmasters. These webmasters also have multiple websites that need content. Why not advertise your writing services to these potential clients to get freelance writing jobs? There are a ton of popular webmaster forums such as Digital Point and Warrior Forum. Most of the time though, writers will need to have 30-50 post before being able to advertise their services. (This is to weed out spammers). Some writers have claimed making thousands of dollars offering article and PLR packages to those looking for unique and quality content at affordable prices.
Write an Article and Package It- Web site owners know they need traffic, but they might not have the time or huge budget to go about buying unique content. Selling private label rights or full rights articles are a popular way for making money on the Internet as a writer. This is because the articles can be sold over and over again. Of course, the more articles you sell, the lesser value the articles may have.
The good thing about selling article packages is that you set the prices. Freelance writers can now have more control over how much they get paid. Some Internet marketers will pay up to $50 for a well written article (depending on the niche and the word count).
There are other sites that allow writers to earn money, however they don't pay a lot and most of the articles that sell go for less than $10/per article. Some popular third party sites to sell articles includes Constant-Content, DailyArticle and Associated Content. The competition on these websites are very high, so writers should use all the resources they can. All of these sites can help freelance writers get paid to write online.
Make a fortune out of writing articles on the Internet at Ezine Articles
This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1595664_50.html
Get Paid To Blog: Techniques To Make Money Blogging
Blogging is a fun way of sharing your opinions and views about anything under the sun. More and more people, however, do not only blog for fun -- they also make money blogging. If you want to get paid to blog, read on.
Some bloggers maintain their blogs because it is their way of expressing themselves as well as ranting or raving about what's going on in their lives. Some, particularly the business minded ones, regularly write on their blogs because of the fact that they get paid to blog. If you want to know how to blog for money, apply the techniques explained here:
1. Advertise products online.
If you have a blog and you get a lot of site visitors, you can transform your blog as one of the money making blogs by letting companies advertise on your blog. There are a certain number of advertising spaces per blog, and if a company sees that you have regular visitors browsing your site, and if your blog is made up of articles that fall under the product niche of that company, you can actually sell advertising space.
If your blog is not yet that popular, though, you can still get paid to blog. How? You can actually utilize Adsense, a service from Google, that enable you to place a couple of ads on your blog site, which are of course, related to your chosen niche, and once a certain number of your visitors click on those ads, you can expect payment.
2. Promote other people's products.
Many of the money making blogs today enroll in affiliate programs to make money. By becoming an affiliate, you get to be the bridge between the company that sells the products and the prospective buyers of those products. For example, if you are an affiliate of a company that sells dog food, and then, you mention that dog food in your blog, you have the chance to get paid to blog.
How? Well, when your readers become interested and click on the link you provided which takes them to the said dog food's website, and then those readers purchased the product, you get a commission.
3. Ask for reader contributions.
Another strategy on how to blog for money which are overlooked by many bloggers is to ask for your readers' support through their contributions. This does not mean that you'll have to make up stories just to appeal to your readers' generosity. For instance, if you are a firm supporter of a Colon Cancer foundation, you can mention in your blog how that foundation needs help, and how you are willing to accept donations or contributions that you'll be passing on to the foundation. Surely there are some loyal readers of yours who will show their loyalty to you by voluntarily giving contributions.
4. Use your blog to promote your services.
A good way to continue to make money blogging is to promote your services through your blog. This will not only entice new clients, but also attract your old clients to continue working with you. You can blog about your new services, any promotions that you may have, and so on. If you really want to get paid to blog, you should not only be good in marketing your clients' products and services -- you should also have excellent skills in marketing yours.
By keeping in mind and applying the tips on how to blog for money, you can expect your blog site to be part of the list of money making blogs online. Do not put your writing skills to waste. Get paid to blog as soon as possible and join the countless bloggers who have fun writing and earning all at the same time.
For more techniques on blogging for money, Earn1KaDay is the site you should become a member of. Created by Dennis Becker, the site will enable you to learn everything about money making blogs as well as other online money makers e.g. eBay for profit, selling online for money, and many more.
By Annita Brixen
Published: 4/16/2010
Some bloggers maintain their blogs because it is their way of expressing themselves as well as ranting or raving about what's going on in their lives. Some, particularly the business minded ones, regularly write on their blogs because of the fact that they get paid to blog. If you want to know how to blog for money, apply the techniques explained here:
1. Advertise products online.
If you have a blog and you get a lot of site visitors, you can transform your blog as one of the money making blogs by letting companies advertise on your blog. There are a certain number of advertising spaces per blog, and if a company sees that you have regular visitors browsing your site, and if your blog is made up of articles that fall under the product niche of that company, you can actually sell advertising space.
If your blog is not yet that popular, though, you can still get paid to blog. How? You can actually utilize Adsense, a service from Google, that enable you to place a couple of ads on your blog site, which are of course, related to your chosen niche, and once a certain number of your visitors click on those ads, you can expect payment.
2. Promote other people's products.
Many of the money making blogs today enroll in affiliate programs to make money. By becoming an affiliate, you get to be the bridge between the company that sells the products and the prospective buyers of those products. For example, if you are an affiliate of a company that sells dog food, and then, you mention that dog food in your blog, you have the chance to get paid to blog.
How? Well, when your readers become interested and click on the link you provided which takes them to the said dog food's website, and then those readers purchased the product, you get a commission.
3. Ask for reader contributions.
Another strategy on how to blog for money which are overlooked by many bloggers is to ask for your readers' support through their contributions. This does not mean that you'll have to make up stories just to appeal to your readers' generosity. For instance, if you are a firm supporter of a Colon Cancer foundation, you can mention in your blog how that foundation needs help, and how you are willing to accept donations or contributions that you'll be passing on to the foundation. Surely there are some loyal readers of yours who will show their loyalty to you by voluntarily giving contributions.
4. Use your blog to promote your services.
A good way to continue to make money blogging is to promote your services through your blog. This will not only entice new clients, but also attract your old clients to continue working with you. You can blog about your new services, any promotions that you may have, and so on. If you really want to get paid to blog, you should not only be good in marketing your clients' products and services -- you should also have excellent skills in marketing yours.
By keeping in mind and applying the tips on how to blog for money, you can expect your blog site to be part of the list of money making blogs online. Do not put your writing skills to waste. Get paid to blog as soon as possible and join the countless bloggers who have fun writing and earning all at the same time.
For more techniques on blogging for money, Earn1KaDay is the site you should become a member of. Created by Dennis Becker, the site will enable you to learn everything about money making blogs as well as other online money makers e.g. eBay for profit, selling online for money, and many more.
By Annita Brixen
Published: 4/16/2010
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