Craigslist is a centralized network of online urban communities, featuring free classified advertisements (with jobs, housing, personals, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs and resumes categories) and forums sorted by various topics. You can also advertise your work at home business opportunity, but only in the Small Biz ad category.

It was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark for the San Francisco Bay Area. After incorporation in 1999, Craigslist expanded into nine more cities in 2000 (all of them in the U.S.), four each in 2001 and 2002, and 14 in 2003. As of June 2006, Craigslist had established itself in approximately 310 cities all over the world.

As of 2006, Craigslist operates with a staff of 22 people. [1] Its sole source of revenue is paid job ads in select cities ($75 per ad for the San Francisco Bay Area; $25 per ad for New York and Los Angeles), and paid broker apartment listings in New York City ($10 per ad).

It serves over 4 billion page views per month, putting it in 30th place overall among Internet companies world wide, 7th place overall among Internet companies in the United States (per Alexa.com on July 8, 2006), to 10 million unique visitors. With over 10 million new classified ads each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives over 500,000 new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. [2] The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements, to personal ads and even “erotic services”.

Craigslist received a ton of traffic, so if you don’t spam your opportunity, it can be a very helpful free home business marketing tool.

“It is one thing to eliminate ways in which you have blocked yourself, but another to develop the skills to complete things you begin.” - Kenneth Christian

In the world of a network marketing home business we are often faced with the challenge of doing the things others are unwilling to do. In fact, if you desire to become a great leader of leaders in network marketing you must do the things others are unwilling to do.

Many of these things from prospecting to recruiting to leading a team to duplicate your efforts can be a challenge in and of itself. Most people fail miserably at these tasks. They fail not because they can’t complete the task but they fail because they have underdeveloped skills needed to complete the task.

Too often these same people will continue to search for the magical tool or secret formula to help them dramatically take a failing effort to multi-millions in an overnight adventure. Only they find that there really is no magical tool or secret formula. But they continue to search.

It takes 12 years of school plus 4 years of college to get educated to start a $30k to $50k a year job in the traditional workplace. Yet, in network marketing, people will join a business and expect to be earning $10k a month within the first few months. If they don’t earn it, they are off to the next best business opportunity.

Why does this happen? In network marketing, the cost of entry is minimal and most people have a misguided belief that it also requires a low skill level. No wonder 95%+ of those who enter into the network marketing industry fail so miserably.

If you truly want to succeed in your network marketing home business, you must treat it not only as a business but as one would in any profession. This means you start with getting your education. This education begins at Leaders Club. Tap into the training. get coaching. Most importantly, make a commitment to yourself
and the industry to invest in mastering the skills necessary in becoming the success you have always dreamed about becoming.

TIP - Do NOT just eliminate the things standing in your way. You MUST also develop and master the skills necessary to face the challenges and complete the task at hand.

Business success isn’t just about getting new customers–it’s about holding onto the ones you’ve got. Technology can help.
“Entrepreneur.com”

Many entrepreneurs spend a lot of time and money trying to land new customers, an extremely important goal if you’re trying to grow your work at home business. But what are you doing to keep the customers you already have?

Customer retention is vital to a company of any size, for several reasons. First, it’s generally more expensive to land a new customer than to keep an existing one. That’s because wooing new customers often entails a higher level of costly marketing and advertising efforts and sales promotions to create awareness of–and desire for–a product or service. In contrast, existing customers already know who you are and what you offer (unless you’re introducing a new product or service, of course).

Second, existing customers who are satisfied with your product or service are likely to become repeat customers. And they’re apt to recommend your home business to friends and colleagues. In our global, extremely competitive business environment, holding onto your customers has never been more critical.

So how do you inspire customer loyalty? One way is through customer relationship management technology, or CRM. Technology may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you consider ways to ingratiate your business to your customers, but in fact, CRM technology provides small businesses with a wealth of innovative, effective tools that can help you build better relationships with your customers.

Read More…

“I doubt that we (or future generations) will ever again witness the revolutionary change in the MLM work at home industry that has transpired over the past five years. Today, there are so many companies, so many products, so much information and so many opportunities worthy of our efforts. There has been an increasing number of successful and street-smart MLM distributors as our industry matures. But there are still huge numbers of distributors who struggle to make MLM work.

Many distributors feel overwhelmed by the details that surround the business. They have trouble understanding and managing the various sales tools, marketing systems and compensation plans. And with the technology-driven information and support systems thrust on them by progressive MLM companies, it’s no wonder so many people become confused and disillusioned, and drop out way too soon. Since you’re just getting started, here are a few words of advice:

You can’t do it all or learn it all in a few weeks or even a few months. Think about this: We go to school for 12 years and college for four years to get a job that pays us $30,000 to $50,000 a year. But when we join MLM, if we aren’t making $10,000 per month in short order, we’re ready to quit. My evaluation of the most successful MLM distributors has shown me that they view growing their MLM business knowledge and earning that subsequent success as a lifelong process.

That doesn’t mean that as a newcomer you can’t be relatively successful right away. Same for an old hand at the game who is still trying to find the right formula to make it work. Keep in mind that a lot of the legwork has already been done by others. The problem for most people new to MLM is picking the right company with the right product and the right system that suits their personal style, interest and skills.”

Read Full Article

Here area 20 profit-producing network building tips from GDI’s newsletters that will make your network marketing business a fast success!

1) Write down your goals. They’re your road map to success. Be specific and refer to them every day.

2) Commitment is the key to attaining your goals. Commit yourself to enrolling five first-level leaders within two weeks of starting your business. Commit yourself to enrolling a minimum of two new distributors per week for the next year. Teach your marketing team to duplicate your efforts.

3) Ask yourself “Why am I in this business?” The answers will help you define your goals.

4) Ask yourself “What do I want to achieve from my network marketing business?” How fast do I want to achieve it? Be specific and write it down.

5) Develop a marketing strategy that fits your personality. Consider all the techniques of lead generation: on-line advertising, off-line advertising, trade/consumer shows, fairs, fund raising, etc. Whatever method you choose, do it consistently. Persistence pays. Never go to bed at night without taking a minimum of five active steps to promote your business.

6) Always assume that a person WILL BE INTERESTED. To do otherwise will end up costing you a fortune. Remember that everyone is a viable prospect for either the retail product or the work from home business opportunity, or both.

7) Be prepared to present the product or business opportunity to anyone at anytime. Always have promotional materials close at hand. Make sure that you have a minimum of three complete sets of literature in your briefcase, your purse, in your car, at your desk at work.

Read the rest: Network Markeing Business Tips

Why There’s Never Been a Better Time to Start Your Home Business… and the Top 5 Strategies and Cool Tools You Need to Know About.

I was surprised to hear at a recent seminar how many people think that the Internet is just too saturated for new online home business owners to be successful — and that if you didn’t get in on the ground floor, you’re out of luck.

Well, we did get in on the ground floor, and we’ve seen all the changes, so I can tell you this: Nothing could be further from the truth! That’s why I wanted to write this article to show you why NOW is probably the best time in Internet history to start a wildly profitable online business.

Sure, there’s more competition on the ‘Net these days. When we first opened our doors in 1998, there were only 130 million web pages in existence… now there are well over 313 billion (eMarketer)! But there are also a LOT more potential customers online, too — 1,022,863,307 of them in fact! (Neilson/Net ratings March 2006.)

And if online sales are any indication, the number of people who are actively shopping online is also on the rise. According to Forrester Research, online sales reached a staggering $172 billion in 2005 — a number they predict will rise to $329 billion by 2010!

Read More….

10 Marketing Tactics Under $10 - Entrepreneur.com

Sometimes it only takes a few dollars to make a marketing idea go a long way. If you’re looking for some new ideas, here are a few to consider. If one of these works, do it again. If it works a little, fix it or adjust it, and then do it again. If it doesn’t work, just try another one of these low-cost ideas. What do you have to lose when your tactic costs just $10?

1. Instead of putting a 39-cent stamp on an envelope, put 39 1-cent stamps on the front of an envelope. One of the principles of direct mail is to stand out to get the attention of the receiver so your mail isn’t thrown away or ignored. Attention, interest, desire and action lead to a successful direct-mail program. And anything you can do to get attention increases the probability of action being taken. Best of all, in this case, you won’t even rack up any additional costs.

Read the Rest…

Entrepreneur.com

8 Ways to Improve Your Visibility
Your home business may be on a budget, but you can still pump up your visibility. These 8 proven tactics will get you noticed on the cheap.

Do you have ambitious growth plans for your work at home business, but a limited marketing budget? There’s no need to compromise your goals. There are lots of great, budget-smart tactics that will put your home business on the fast track–even if you don’t have deep pockets. Here’s a list of eight proven marketing tools and tactics specially created for the budget-conscious entrepreneur.

1. Customer rewards: Since it may cost as much as five times more to win a new customer than to retain an old one, customer reward programs are a lower-cost alternative to acquisition marketing. Create and actively promote a loyalty program that rewards on enrollment and then provides graduated incentives to your best customers. To keep customers coming back, provide in-kind rewards rather than gifts from other vendors.

2. Opt-in e-mail: E-mail is a low-cost, high-return way to enhance customer relationships and increase sales. E-mail campaigns can be conducted for a fraction of the cost of other tactics and can be executed in weeks, not months. The key is to e-mail as often as twice monthly, but only to an in-house list of members who have agreed to receive e-mail from you. Keep the content extremely relevant, and you’ll see response rates climb.

Read the remaining five ways here.

Now YOU Can Quickly Learn How-To Work At Home On Your Computer – Publishing Professional Websites — And Earn BIG Money By Offering Brand Name Products And Services For Major Companies Seeking Online Affiliates!

Ask yourself this; Are you stuck in a job that limits your income potential, frustrates or bores you, or do you just want to earn an honest living working at home on your own computer — in the safety and security of your family and your own home?

Well All you need is a computer and some very basic software and Internet skills, then you may find the information presented here quite interesting and potentially very profitable.

Amazing things are happening on the Internet as HUGE companies, such as Apple, American Express, Dell, Denver Broncos, DIRECTV, Discovery Channel, MasterCard, National Geographic, and Wal-Mart, and countless others have begun setting up distribution networks that employ the talents of webmasters and publishers (big and small, home-based or not) through exciting and lucrative Affiliate Programs. This means that even us “little guys” can easily compete and earn big bucks!

Read More….

Starting Your Business

Options for starting a cart or kiosk business include opening a permanent location in a mall and leasing a cart; buying a cart to use for outdoor events or on street corners; or renting a cart short-term.

“The least expensive option is to rent [a cart] for a short time and see how it goes,” says Bruce Stockberger, owner of Stockberger Marketing Associates, a North Palm Beach, Florida, small-business marketing firm specializing in cart, kiosk and Internet marketing. He says you’ll spend at least $600 per week for rent.

Whether you lease or buy a cart depends on your product and location. In malls, you generally lease a cart from mall management. The cost of leasing depends on the season and mall traffic volume but is usually at least $800 per month for space and a cart, and can get very high in a good location. Some malls charge a percentage of your sales in addition to monthly rent. Wally Rizza, owner of several carts in high-profile locations like the Irvine Spectrum Entertainment Center in Irvine, California, pays more than $2,000 per month for rent on each of his five carts.

“Kiosks start higher than carts, usually $9,000 or $10,000,” says Denise Clark, author of From Dogs . . . To Riches: A Step-by-Step Guide to Start & Operate Your Own Mobile Cart Vending Business. Additional start-up costs depend on your merchandise. Items such as jewelry and crystal require a greater investment than, say, hot dogs.

Read Full Article from Entrepreneur

If there has ever been a network marketing business with a larger potential customer base than GDI, we sure don’t know what it is. Perhaps this is the reason why the Network Marketing Business Journal recently said:

“Global Domains International has the potential to become the largest direct sales/network marketing company in the world in terms of number of distributors and customers!”

One of the keys to being an effective promoter/recruiter in GDI is to know how the products and services will benefit others that you have contact with.

read more | digg story

To be a truly effective network marketing sponsor, you must also be effective at prospecting. To be effective at prospecting, you must first understand the definition of prospecting.

Let’s look at some dictionary definitions of “prospecting” and see how they relate to your work at home business.

“In the broad sense, prospecting refers to exploration.”

Can network marketing prospecting be considered “exploration”? Sure it can. When you’re finding and interviewing prospective customers or affiliates, what you’re really doing is exploring the possibility of working with them or having them as a customer.

Exploration goes both ways. You should be asking questions of your prospects, as well as answering their questions and providing information about your home business. In other words, you and your prospect should be communicating with each other to see if a business relationship between the two of you makes good sense.


read more | digg story

The ultimate goal of any marketing campaign is to put products or services in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible. Where the public leads, marketers, by necessity, must follow and if those eyeballs begin to congregate over there as well as over here, many marketers feel the need to move. Tens of millions of registered members populate dozens of social networks. People appear to enjoy the ability to form communities and inform each other. Online marketers looking for another winning venue are therefore turning to social media spaces as social marketing tools.

For the past five years, the number of high-traffic venues for search marketers remained fairly constant, consisting primarily of Google. More recently, the space has been supplemented by Yahoo, Ask and MSN. For the most part, five years of consistency has benefited the search engines, their users, online merchants and the SEO/webmaster communities. Nothing stays static very long on the Internet though. The online marketing metaverse has expanded yet again.

Read Full Article | Work at Home Squidoo | Del.icio.us Workathome

Here are 20 profit-producing network building tips from GDI’s newsletters that will make your network marketing business a fast success.

1) Write down your goals. They’re your road map to success. Be specific and refer to them every day.

2) Commitment is the key to attaining your goals. Commit yourself to enrolling five first-level leaders within two weeks of starting your business. Commit yourself to enrolling a minimum of two new distributors per week for the next year. Teach your marketing team to duplicate your efforts.

3) Ask yourself “Why am I in this business?” The answers will help you define your goals.

4) Ask yourself “What do I want to achieve from my network marketing business?” How fast do I want to achieve it? Be specific and write it down.

5) Develop a marketing strategy that fits your personality. Consider all the techniques of lead generation: on-line advertising, off-line advertising, trade/consumer shows, fairs, fund raising, etc. Whatever method you choose, do it consistently. Persistence pays. Never go to bed at night without taking a minimum of five active steps to promote your business.

read more | digg story

Is your web site still not listed on search engines although you submitted it weeks ago? There are several reasons why search engines might ignore your web pages.

1. Check if search engines can read your web page content

Search engines use very simply software programs to index your web pages. A web page that looks great to the human eye can be totally meaningless to search engines.

If you have a great looking web site that is meaningless to search engines, you won’t be able to achieve high search engine rankings with that web site - no matter how good and interesting your web site content is.

In general, search engines cannot see content that is presented in images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.), Flash elements, JavaScript and other script languages or other multimedia file formats.

To find out how search engines see your web page, use a search engine spider simulator. The free IBP trial has a fully functional spider simulator that allows you to see your web pages through the eyes of a search engine.

read more | digg story

Hands-on Training Helps Students Increase Skills and Build Home-Based Note Trading Businesses

WESTMINSTER, Colo., June 13 /PRNewswire/ — Home-based business owners got a novel taste of “classroom meets office” this week when Russ Dalbey, CEO and founder of The Dalbey Wealth Institute, hosted a “boot camp” for 25 entrepreneurs. The unique approach to hands on education engaged the group in live business situations directly from their Westminster classroom.The Dalbey Wealth Institute provides educational services and access to capital for home-based entrepreneurs interested in building a business in the cash flow note industry. By helping to match buyers and sellers of cash flow notes — much in the same way financial institutions buy and sell mortgages — Dalbey Wealth Institute students are able to profit from commissions on these sales. No personal financial investment in cash flow notes is required.

During the Boot Camps, which are held at The Dalbey Wealth Institute in Colorado, students are given the opportunity to make calls to note holders while Dalbey staff members help them hone their communication skills as well as provide on-the-spot financing options, so students can make immediate offers to note holders.

“I had a deal close while I was there,” said Curtis Zilliot, a recent Boot Camp attendee from Escondido, Calif. “I’m still in touch with a few of the other attendees and we bounce ideas off each other on a regular basis. It’s good knowing these other people for motivation,” he added.

read more | Learn More About Winning the Cash Flow Game | digg story

Blogging is going corporate.

When the idea of blogs - short for “weblog” - came onto the radar screen a couple years ago, it was mostly relegated to individuals.

No longer.

Businesses are jumping on the blogging bandwagon, with executives trying to figure out the rules of the road to get the most out of open discussion, but at the same time, treading carefully.

There are more than 50 million blogs in cyberspace, according to blog search engine Technorati. About 75,000 new ones pop up every day.

Professionals in the technology, marketing and advertising sectors are leading the way, but there are blogs for almost every subject imaginable.

Topics on company blogs tend to focus on the business of the organization, such as development of a new software program. But they can also be entertaining for a general audience, such as Sun Microsystem’s CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog post about a recent lunch with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“I had lunch with Tony Blair today. (And yes, I have been waiting all afternoon to type that),” wrote Schwartz in a July 30 post.

Metzger Associates blogger Doyle Albee said blogs provide a more conversational forum for a company.

“There are thoughts and conversations that are not a formal announcement, but just open dialogue with people in that industry or customers,” said Albee, an account director with the Boulder-based communications firm.

Albee started the Metzger Associates blog last October, and makes a majority of the entries. He also counsels clients on the dos and don’ts when starting a blog.

There’s a pure, honest component of blogging, Albee said, as people can immediately tell if a blog is just a mouthpiece or spin machine for a company.

Russ Dalbey, founder of the Dalbey Wealth Institute in Westminster, began blogging six months ago. The former professional cyclist said he’s the only one within the 285-person company allowed to post, to ensure the company’s message is always consistent.

“I’ve found it’s a great way for me to communicate my passion in life, to customers and employees,” Dalbey said. “I don’t have any plans to have an employee blog. Internally, we have a great communication system.”

Read more

If you are looking for new ways to market your work at home business, then it is time to start socializing online by getting active on social media web sites like MySpace and Digg. These sites are extremely popular web sites with high Google Page Rank numbers — and if you can get links on these, it will help your web site generate more traffic and improve your search engine rankings.

Before I tell you how to use these sites for improved search engine placement and traffic generation, let me explain more about social media web sites. Social media sites make up 5 of the top 10 fastest growing web brands on the Internet, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. They are simply online gathering places where people share online information with each other. This information can take many different forms, but the following are the best ways to help your home business:


read more | digg story

Google uses two indexes for its search results. The normal index and the supplemental results index.

What are Google’s supplemental results and what’s the problem?

Google defines supplemental results as follows:

“A supplemental result is just like a regular web result, except that it’s pulled from our supplemental index. We’re able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index. For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and added to our supplemental index.

If you’re a webmaster, please note that the index in which a site is included is completely automated; there’s no way to select or change the index in which a site appears. Please also be assured that the index in which a site is included doesn’t affect its PageRank.”

If your web pages are listed in the supplemental results then it is likely that your web pages could not be parsed correctly by Google’s standard crawler.

The problem with Google’s supplemental results are that they are only supplemental. If your web pages are listed in the supplemental results then they won’t be returned very often for regular search queries.

How to find out if your web pages are in the supplemental results

An easy way to find out how many of your pages are listed in Google’s supplemental results is to search for the following on Google.com:

site:www.domain.com ***

Search for that phrase and then proceed to the last result pages to find the supplemental results. Of course, you have to replace www.domain.com with your own domain name.

How to get out of Google’s supplemental results

Most web sites have pages in Google’s supplemental results. It means that Google had difficulty to index these pages or that Google had other problems with these pages.

Make sure that your web pages don’t contain any spam elements and that you don’t use any spam techniques to promote your web site. Using spam techniques to promote your web site is often the reason why a web site doesn’t get good rankings. Better focus on ethical search engine optimization methods.

Make it easy for search engines to index your web pages. If possible don’t use web page URLs that contain question marks or the & symbol. Make sure that the HTML code of your web pages offers what search engines need. Use IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer to prepare your web pages.

Make these pages easy to find for Google’s web crawler. The more links point to your web pages, the more likely it is that search engine crawlers fill find your web pages. Use ARELIS to get good inbound links to your site.
Most web sites have pages in Google’s supplemental results. The easier you make it Google to index your web pages the more pages of your site will be listed in Google’s normal results.

Want to work from home on your spare time? Then network marketing may be the looking business you’re for.

There are no perfect or right type of people for a network marketing home business. There’s a common myth that network marketing is all about selling, so many people who don’t see themselves as “salespeople” shy away from it. The truth is, most of the people who are a huge success in network marketing aren’t sales types, and tend to be more introverted. I’m a good example, since I built my business almost entirely through the internet. I’ve done only a handful of personal presentations, and I hate selling people things. In my travels and my interviews of top network marketing income earners, I find that most of them hate selling. They build their business by listening for people’s needs and wants, and then providing an answer. I ask questions to uncover problems.

People aren’t looking for products, services–or even business opportunities; they’re looking for solutions to life’s problems. Now, I can’t solve them all with network marketing, but for many I can. So, I’m not in a sales business; rather, I’m in a problem-solving and dream-building business.

In fact, the biggest reasons why people are flocking to network marketing are time leverage, residual income, and tax benefits. Network marketing is one of the few businesses that doesn’t require employees, yet enables the owner to leverage his or her time by building a network of independent businesspeople. This network, which purchases and sells products or services, generates a residual income for the owner. Unlike the income earned at a job, which stops when the work stops, residual income continues on long after the work is completed. As exciting as leverage and residual income are, boomers love the tax benefits of network marketing. Tax expert Sanford Botkin says that a network marketing home business can result in tax savings of $3,000 to $9,000 per year.”

Read Full Article

Google recently started to include a set of links below some results to pages within the site. These new additional links are called Sitelinks.

It seems that Google displays Sitelinks if a web site is an authority site for the search term. The following screenshot shows the first results for a “cnn” search:

What are Google Sitelinks?

Google explains the new links on its webmaster pages:

How do you compile the list of links shown below some search results?

The links shown below some sites in our search results, called Sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.

We only show Sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good Sitelinks, or we don’t think that the Sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.

At the moment, Sitelinks are completely automated. We’re always working to improve our Sitelinks algorithms, and we may incorporate webmaster input in the future.

How does Google calculate Sitelinks?

Google claims that the Sitelinks are created automatically. If Google uses an algorithm to calculate Sitelinks, there must be a way to influence that algorithm.

There are several theories on how Sitelinks are calculated:

Google might track the number of clicks for different results. If a web site gets a lot of traffic for a special keyword then the web site will get Sitelinks on Google’s result page.

For example, if you use a special trademark term on your web pages that cannot be found on other web sites then many people will click on your web site in Google’s results when they search for that search term. It’s likely that your web site will get Sitelinks for such a search term.

The link architecture of a web site might help. Links at the top of the HTML source of a web site seem to have a better chance to be included as Sitelinks.

Google might use the Google toolbar to determine Sitelinks. The more often a page is bookmarked the more likely it is that these pages will be used as Sitelinks. Google’s toolbar can collect a lot of information about a web site.
At the moment, it’s hard to tell how Google calculates the new Sitelinks. It’s probably a combination of click data, toolbar data and other factors. If you see Sitelinks for your web site, then Google has probably classified your web site as an authority site for the search term.

How does this affect your web site?

It seems that Sitelinks are only used for trademark searches or searches that are similar to trademark queries. Most search engine result pages on Google don’t show these additional links.

That means that it’s better to invest some time in getting listed in Google’s regular result pages than trying to get listed with additional Sitelinks.

Details on how to get your web site in Google’s result pages can be found in our free SEO book. The free SEO book covers everything that is important for successful on-page optimization and inbound link optimization. If you want to get your web site to the top of the search results, take a look at the free ebook and try our popular website promotion tool IBP.

2005 was a busy year for the internet. Last year more than a billion people went online, more than 250 billion searches were done, and total online sales accounted for over $170 billion (Forrester). More people than ever are turning to the internet to find–and buy–the products they need.

This year, resolve to get your business off to a great start and make more money in 2006. To do that, here are the top three sure-fire strategies you need to boost your profits this year!

Strategy #1: Know How to Beat the Search Engines and Drive Free Traffic to Your Site
The key to getting your business name to pop up in search engines is to use sound online marketing principles, rather than trying to manipulate the search engines with tons of keywords and inflated link popularity. That means you should:………Entrepreneur.com

“Are the features of your Web site aimed at customer usability, or did you or your designer sneak in a few ego-satisfying features?

Not that satisfying one’s ego is necessarily a bad thing, but maybe your home business Web site is not the right place to do it.

After reviewing a range of Web sites — from personal to businesses’ of all kinds — I’m going to focus on 10 ways to successfully drive visitors away.

Splish splash. One sure-fire way to confuse and annoy visitors is to introduce your site with a splash page that contains no indication of what your company does and no navigational tools except a link that says, “Click to enter.”

If you could possibly add a Flash movie and a phrase such as “Page loading, please be patient” or “Click here to skip intro,” you could send visitors away even faster.

Keep secrets. Make sure the top third of your first page lacks a clear statement explaining what your company does. Put a vague but clever piece of prose there, a poem or a very large graphic or photograph, but don’t mention the purpose of your site.

If you work under the premise visitors will search for what they can’t find, you’ll get ‘em running from your site every time!”…..read the rest at Inc.com

Webmasters are always looking for ways to get inbound links from authority web sites. An authority web site is a web site that is important or authoritative in its sphere of expertise due to the quality of content and features that it possesses.

For improving search engine rankings, an incoming link from an authority site is worth more than an incoming link from an average site. Slashdot.org is such an authority web site. With a Google PageRank of 9 and an Alexa Traffic Rank of 200, Slashdot.org belongs to the most successful sites on the Internet.

How to get a link from Slashdot.org

A simple 5 step process allows you to put any link with any text from Slashdot to your web site:

Go to Slashdot’s story submission page.

Fill out the form and enter a link to your web site in the “The Scoop” edit field. Don’t forget to include your keywords in the link.

Use a tool like the Web Developer extension in Firefox to convert the form action from POST to GET. This can be done with one click with the Web Developer extension.

Click the “Preview story” button.

Copy the preview URL and link to the preview URL on one of your pages. If the search engine spiders follow the link they will find a link from Slashdot.org to your web site.
You can use any keyword and any URL to get links with this method.

Should you use this method for your web site?

It’s never a good idea to exploit the security holes of other web sites. While it’s possible to get links through these methods, it’s highly unethical and it’s likely that these links won’t work for very long.

You’ll get better results if you focus on getting real links to your web site. If you are serious about your business, you shouldn’t use dirty tricks to promote your web site. These will backfire to you. Better use ethical web site promotion tools that help you to get long term results.

A television commercial was once the biggest marketing coup for a small business. Today, getting your company listed in the first page of a search on Yahoo or Google can transform an also-ran into a front-runner.

For Baldwin/Welsh & Parker Insurance Agency in Wayland, Mass., the Web has become the firm’s best source of sales leads, outside of direct referrals, because a high listing in search results attracts quality prospects.

“There’s not a big downside if we’re not listed high, but there’s a big upside if we are,” says the firm’s principal, Dave D’Orlando.

Businesses can take some simple steps to improve the relevance of a Web site for search engines — and traffic and hopefully business — without spending lots of money on search-engine optimization. (StartupJournal will have tips on hiring a search-engine optimization consultant in a future article.)

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN send out spiders (also called bots or crawlers) to scour the Web and retrieve certain information from sites that is then analyzed using complex algorithms.”……

StartupJournal