Using Google Image Search to Drive Traffic to Your Site
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
In the search to find the best ways to promote or drive traffic to your site, Google Image Search is often overlooked. While ranking for terms in Google Image Search is unlikely to ever bring you massive amounts of traffic a la Digg or StumbleUpon, the steps to optimize your images for Google Image Search are extremely simple, and the traffic gains you do make more than make up for the effort.
The first two steps are more SEO 'common sense' than anything else--they should always be performed in order to include extra keywords in your content so that you'll provide more context for your pages. In addition to being common sense for general SEO, they are an absolute necessity for good results in the Google Image Search.
Steps to Optimize Your Images for Google Image Search
1. Use Descriptive Filenames
A filename can present you with your first chance to include keywords in your images. Title the image with a word or short phrase which describes what is in the image. For example, rather than using a camera-assigned filename such as DSC05993.jpg, use a filename like make-money-online.jpg. Notice the way that I have used a dash (-) between the words in the title - this is commonly interpreted by Google as a space in the filename. This is the most search engine friendly way of labeling images.
2. Use the alt tag!
The alt tag in your image link code will allow you to include some more keywords describing your image. Additionally, the alt tag text will be displayed by Google Image Search in place of the filename in each search result. Therefore, use that as well when linking your code. Here is an example for the example image we are using:
<img src="/images/make-money-online.jpg" alt="Make Money Online" />
3. Get Included in Google Image Labeler
The Google Image Labeler is a game in which you and a partner collaborate to write tags for images presented. You receive points when you both submit matching tags. The matching tags are then assigned to the images, and taken into consideration for the Google Image Search search results. In order to ensure that your images are included, access your Google Webmaster Central account, and go to the management page for your site. In the left hand bar, you will see an link which says ‘Enhanced Image Search’. Clicking this link will present you with the option to opt-in to the Enhanced Image Search features. This option signifies to Google that you are allowing them to use tools such as the Image Labeler to assist in the indexing of the images on your site.
These steps will help ensure that you can get your images ranking in the Google Image Search. As I said above, GIS is not likely to drive nearly as much traffic as many other means; at the same time, the steps to optimize for GIS are quite simple.
The first two steps are more SEO 'common sense' than anything else--they should always be performed in order to include extra keywords in your content so that you'll provide more context for your pages. In addition to being common sense for general SEO, they are an absolute necessity for good results in the Google Image Search.
Steps to Optimize Your Images for Google Image Search
1. Use Descriptive Filenames
A filename can present you with your first chance to include keywords in your images. Title the image with a word or short phrase which describes what is in the image. For example, rather than using a camera-assigned filename such as DSC05993.jpg, use a filename like make-money-online.jpg. Notice the way that I have used a dash (-) between the words in the title - this is commonly interpreted by Google as a space in the filename. This is the most search engine friendly way of labeling images.
2. Use the alt tag!
The alt tag in your image link code will allow you to include some more keywords describing your image. Additionally, the alt tag text will be displayed by Google Image Search in place of the filename in each search result. Therefore, use that as well when linking your code. Here is an example for the example image we are using:
<img src="/images/make-money-online.jpg" alt="Make Money Online" />
3. Get Included in Google Image Labeler
The Google Image Labeler is a game in which you and a partner collaborate to write tags for images presented. You receive points when you both submit matching tags. The matching tags are then assigned to the images, and taken into consideration for the Google Image Search search results. In order to ensure that your images are included, access your Google Webmaster Central account, and go to the management page for your site. In the left hand bar, you will see an link which says ‘Enhanced Image Search’. Clicking this link will present you with the option to opt-in to the Enhanced Image Search features. This option signifies to Google that you are allowing them to use tools such as the Image Labeler to assist in the indexing of the images on your site.
These steps will help ensure that you can get your images ranking in the Google Image Search. As I said above, GIS is not likely to drive nearly as much traffic as many other means; at the same time, the steps to optimize for GIS are quite simple.
Labels: Blogging Tips, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
posted by Ville @ 4:39 AM,
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Google Launches 'Google Checkout Referrals'
Google AdSense adds Google Checkout referral program
Google has added - not surprisingly - a new referral product to the lineup in AdSense, this time for Google Checkout. This is one program that I have long-suspected would be the next Google product added to the referral program.
Unfortunately this refferal program is only for U.S. Publisher only.
Checkout gives your users a faster, safer, and more convenient way to shop online. OK, that sounds great for them, but what do you get out of it? Well, every time you refer a user to Google Checkout, you make a little money. It's a simple process that includes all of three steps:
Google hopes to make both Checkout and Checkout Referrals available in more countries soon. Click here to open Google Checkout account.
Google has added - not surprisingly - a new referral product to the lineup in AdSense, this time for Google Checkout. This is one program that I have long-suspected would be the next Google product added to the referral program.
Unfortunately this refferal program is only for U.S. Publisher only.
Checkout gives your users a faster, safer, and more convenient way to shop online. OK, that sounds great for them, but what do you get out of it? Well, every time you refer a user to Google Checkout, you make a little money. It's a simple process that includes all of three steps:
- You place the Checkout referral button on your site.
- Someone clicks on the button, signs up as a buyer with Google Checkout using a valid U.S. credit card, and completes a purchase of at least $10 before shipping and tax through Checkout within 90 days. (The current $10 minimum purchase corresponds to our existing $10 promotion for new buyers, so this amount may change in the future.)
- You earn $1.
Google hopes to make both Checkout and Checkout Referrals available in more countries soon. Click here to open Google Checkout account.
Labels: Affiliate Marketing, News
posted by Ville @ 4:20 AM,
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SEO Tips
Monday, July 2, 2007
NO ONE knows exactly what the SE's look for when they show a site at the top of their results. There are, however, many optimization techniques used that have proven to provide great results.
Some of the techniques I will tell you about here are techniques that I have personally gotten great results with. I will also tell you about some small things that many SEO experts say are a good thing to do. SEO is something that is frequently changing but if you learn at least the basics you wont go wrong.
There are many different opinions on exactly what SEO is so I will tell you mine. SEO means you are optimizing your website in order to gain top SE placement, this means link building, obtaining the right key word density on pages, creating allot of content and having good clean html code to give a very basic explanation.
So lets get started. I will use this website as an example when going through techniques.
Domains - Many say having your keyword in the URL of your site is very important. In my opinion it is not as important as it was in the past but it definitely would not hurt to go ahead and do so. My main keyword is 'make money online' so i have money and online in the URL. Keyword density is important on page so I figure it is important in the URL as well. Too much of any keyword is bad so I try to have about 60-75 percent keyword density in my URL.
META Tags - Probably the two most important parts of Optimizing your code that really need to be right are the title tag and description tag. Here is an example of what i'm talking about:
<title>SEO Optimization</title>
<META NAME="description" content="Obtain top Search Engine results with SEO Optimization">
Title - Make sure your title is TO THE POINT. Do not add anything extra. Whatever the main keyword for the page is, is what the title should be, no more no less. That brings me to another point, having different titles for each individual page. I have come across many sites that either do not have title and description tags at all or have the exact same ones for every page on their site. It is very important to establish a main keyword for each individual page and place the exact keyword in the title tag. You should not have the same title in any two pages.
Description - Use the same advise I gave for the title tag when creating the description but you can add a little more than the keyword in here. Do not make the description too long. I recommend somewhere around 6-10 words. The description should be on every page as well. The description should be different for every page and unique to that individual page.
Keyword Saturation - The number of times your keyword shows up on each page is very important. The phrase keyword saturation refers to the number of times your keyword shows up on any given page. Each page on your site should have a different main keyword. You need to use this main keyword so many times in your page. I have seen that the best results occur using your keyword approximately 6 times for every 400 words. Of course you can do a a little more or a little less just don't get carried away.
Keywords - In the old days of Internet Marketing a webmaster could obtain top SE ranking just by stuffing their keyword meta tags full of their keyword without any SEO optimization. Those days are gone along with the importance of the keyword meta tag. Many webmasters continue to use this tag like myself, just in case but I have not noticed any kind of an effect nor have I heard others talk about one. This is what the keywords meta tag should look like:
<META NAME="keywords" content="SEO, optimization, search results, website">
HTML Format and then the Meta Tags. - The basic format of any html page should begin with then , followed by closes the initial one and then , after this tag the main body text should be in there taking up most of the contents of the page, at the end there should be a tag and the very last thing that should be on every page is There are allot of other tags and code that can be put into the code but make sure all the mentioned tags are in the order above.
Underlining and Bold Tags - These tags show the SE spiders that the text inside them deserves a little more attention as you are emphasizing them to your viewers. You can place these tags around any important words in your page. Do not use them too excessively but try to get them in there every now and then. The bold tag looks like this: <b>keyword</b> and the underline tag looks like this <u>keyword</u>
Some of the techniques I will tell you about here are techniques that I have personally gotten great results with. I will also tell you about some small things that many SEO experts say are a good thing to do. SEO is something that is frequently changing but if you learn at least the basics you wont go wrong.
There are many different opinions on exactly what SEO is so I will tell you mine. SEO means you are optimizing your website in order to gain top SE placement, this means link building, obtaining the right key word density on pages, creating allot of content and having good clean html code to give a very basic explanation.
So lets get started. I will use this website as an example when going through techniques.
Domains - Many say having your keyword in the URL of your site is very important. In my opinion it is not as important as it was in the past but it definitely would not hurt to go ahead and do so. My main keyword is 'make money online' so i have money and online in the URL. Keyword density is important on page so I figure it is important in the URL as well. Too much of any keyword is bad so I try to have about 60-75 percent keyword density in my URL.
META Tags - Probably the two most important parts of Optimizing your code that really need to be right are the title tag and description tag. Here is an example of what i'm talking about:
<title>SEO Optimization</title>
<META NAME="description" content="Obtain top Search Engine results with SEO Optimization">
Title - Make sure your title is TO THE POINT. Do not add anything extra. Whatever the main keyword for the page is, is what the title should be, no more no less. That brings me to another point, having different titles for each individual page. I have come across many sites that either do not have title and description tags at all or have the exact same ones for every page on their site. It is very important to establish a main keyword for each individual page and place the exact keyword in the title tag. You should not have the same title in any two pages.
Description - Use the same advise I gave for the title tag when creating the description but you can add a little more than the keyword in here. Do not make the description too long. I recommend somewhere around 6-10 words. The description should be on every page as well. The description should be different for every page and unique to that individual page.
Keyword Saturation - The number of times your keyword shows up on each page is very important. The phrase keyword saturation refers to the number of times your keyword shows up on any given page. Each page on your site should have a different main keyword. You need to use this main keyword so many times in your page. I have seen that the best results occur using your keyword approximately 6 times for every 400 words. Of course you can do a a little more or a little less just don't get carried away.
Keywords - In the old days of Internet Marketing a webmaster could obtain top SE ranking just by stuffing their keyword meta tags full of their keyword without any SEO optimization. Those days are gone along with the importance of the keyword meta tag. Many webmasters continue to use this tag like myself, just in case but I have not noticed any kind of an effect nor have I heard others talk about one. This is what the keywords meta tag should look like:
<META NAME="keywords" content="SEO, optimization, search results, website">
HTML Format
Underlining and Bold Tags - These tags show the SE spiders that the text inside them deserves a little more attention as you are emphasizing them to your viewers. You can place these tags around any important words in your page. Do not use them too excessively but try to get them in there every now and then. The bold tag looks like this: <b>keyword</b> and the underline tag looks like this <u>keyword</u>
Labels: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
posted by Ville @ 2:39 AM,
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Sell Photos Online
If you're looking for an easy way to make money from home, you may want to take a look at some of the sites that will allow you to sell photos online.
Some sites, like ShutterStock.com, will pay you everytime someone downloads your photo(s). While others, like PhotoStockPlus.com will pay you a portion of the profits when they sell the photo.
The way you go is totally up to you. Both 'pay per download' and 'pay per sell' provide a great opportunity to earn money online.
The submission process is actually pretty easy and once your photos are up and running, you could start making money right away.
You can take pictures of just about anything and submit, but remember the better the photos are the more interest they will generate.
Really try to sharpen up your photography skills. If you can create some awesome looking pictures, you will start getting paid for selling your photos online.
If you take photos of people, you will have to submit a release form signed by them. This is the only draw back when it comes to selling your photos. If you can get past that and concentrate of creating excellent photos that people will like, your bank account will start getting fatter in the very near future.
You may want to think about investing is a high quality digital camera and a copy of Adobe photoshop. The high quality digital camera is a given but photoshop can do some amazing things to your photos and there is no rule saying you can't edit the photos before submitting.
There are a couple precautions you should be aware of though. Most of these photo sites recquire that any person that appears in the photo(s) sign a release form, which allows you (legally) to sell the photos that they appear in. Also, you cannot sell photos that include Company names.
Just read each sites Terms of Service thouroughly before submitting your photos and you'll be good to go!
Some sites, like ShutterStock.com, will pay you everytime someone downloads your photo(s). While others, like PhotoStockPlus.com will pay you a portion of the profits when they sell the photo.
The way you go is totally up to you. Both 'pay per download' and 'pay per sell' provide a great opportunity to earn money online.
The submission process is actually pretty easy and once your photos are up and running, you could start making money right away.
You can take pictures of just about anything and submit, but remember the better the photos are the more interest they will generate.
Really try to sharpen up your photography skills. If you can create some awesome looking pictures, you will start getting paid for selling your photos online.
If you take photos of people, you will have to submit a release form signed by them. This is the only draw back when it comes to selling your photos. If you can get past that and concentrate of creating excellent photos that people will like, your bank account will start getting fatter in the very near future.
You may want to think about investing is a high quality digital camera and a copy of Adobe photoshop. The high quality digital camera is a given but photoshop can do some amazing things to your photos and there is no rule saying you can't edit the photos before submitting.
There are a couple precautions you should be aware of though. Most of these photo sites recquire that any person that appears in the photo(s) sign a release form, which allows you (legally) to sell the photos that they appear in. Also, you cannot sell photos that include Company names.
Just read each sites Terms of Service thouroughly before submitting your photos and you'll be good to go!
Labels: Make Money Online
posted by Ville @ 2:20 AM,
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Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Affiliates make money by referring customers to their merchants. There are many companies and webmasters offer affiliate programs to promote their online sales. When you sign up for an affiliate program, you will be given an affiliate link with an unique affiliate ID which will be used to market the product. When someone makes a purchase through your affiliate link, you make money (earn affiliate commission). Below are the steps to starting an affiliate marketing business:
Step 1 - Join an Affiliate Program
Clickbank.com is one of the best places to find an affiliate program that interests you as there are a ton of sellers looking for people to promote their e-books and info products. Before you join any affiliate programs, do a little research. Find out which products are most popular, the conversion rate of the products and visit the sellers’ websites to see whether their sales letters are convinced enough to generate sales. A conversion rate of 5% is reasonably good. This means that for every 100 visitors to the website, 5 visitors will buy.
Step 2 – Promote an affiliate program through a website
You need to have a website to promote your affiliate programs. Creating a website isn’t difficult nowadays. You can use an easy website builder to create a website with little or no technical knowledge. To learn more about how to set up a site with website builder, you can go to Google and enter the search term 'website builder' to find a site builder that is right for you.
Step 3 – Decide the Content on Your Website
As you are promoting e-books, you can write a review on each e-book with an affiliate link to the sales website of each e-book. If you do not wish to write reviews, you can create a product recommendation list on your website (e.g., ‘Top 5 SEO e-books,’ ‘Top 3 MP3 music download,’ etc.).
Step 4 – Drive Targeted traffic/visitors to Your Website
To earn affiliate commission you need to drive targeted traffic to your website. The more traffic your website gets, the more likely you’ll generate more sales. There are several ways to drive targeted traffic to your site in short period of time (2 to 5 days). Here’s how……
Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
You can get a lot of targeted traffic using PPC advertising. The two most popular and effective PPC advertising programs are Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. So how PPC advertising program works? PPC advertising programs allow you to bid for top rankings on the keywords of your choice. When someone enters a search term matches your keyword in the PPC search engine and press the search button, your contextual ad will appear on the sidebar of the search result page. If the visitor clicks through your ad to your website, you’ll be charged base on your bid amount. To learn more about PPC advertising, please click here.
Article Marketing
Writing an article related to your affiliate products with a link to your website in the article’s resource box and submitting it to many article directories can bring some free targeted traffic to your site. To get more and continuous targeted traffic, you need to write more articles. Try to publish a new article every week. Doing this for a year can drive truckload of free traffic to your website.
Post Messages on Forums
Another way to get free traffic is by posting messages on community forums with a link to your site on the signature of each message posted by you. Here’s a technique I learned from an affiliate marketer.
1) Run a search on Google to find out forums and message boards that are related to your affiliate products and try to join as many forums as you can.
2) Make sure that each one of your forums profile is edited to include your website link within the signature option.
3) Spend a few hours navigating the pages of the forums. You can ask questions and post informative and helpful replies to other peoples’ questions or messages to build your status. The more people trust you, the more likely they will click your link.
Step 1 - Join an Affiliate Program
Clickbank.com is one of the best places to find an affiliate program that interests you as there are a ton of sellers looking for people to promote their e-books and info products. Before you join any affiliate programs, do a little research. Find out which products are most popular, the conversion rate of the products and visit the sellers’ websites to see whether their sales letters are convinced enough to generate sales. A conversion rate of 5% is reasonably good. This means that for every 100 visitors to the website, 5 visitors will buy.
Step 2 – Promote an affiliate program through a website
You need to have a website to promote your affiliate programs. Creating a website isn’t difficult nowadays. You can use an easy website builder to create a website with little or no technical knowledge. To learn more about how to set up a site with website builder, you can go to Google and enter the search term 'website builder' to find a site builder that is right for you.
Step 3 – Decide the Content on Your Website
As you are promoting e-books, you can write a review on each e-book with an affiliate link to the sales website of each e-book. If you do not wish to write reviews, you can create a product recommendation list on your website (e.g., ‘Top 5 SEO e-books,’ ‘Top 3 MP3 music download,’ etc.).
Step 4 – Drive Targeted traffic/visitors to Your Website
To earn affiliate commission you need to drive targeted traffic to your website. The more traffic your website gets, the more likely you’ll generate more sales. There are several ways to drive targeted traffic to your site in short period of time (2 to 5 days). Here’s how……
Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
You can get a lot of targeted traffic using PPC advertising. The two most popular and effective PPC advertising programs are Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. So how PPC advertising program works? PPC advertising programs allow you to bid for top rankings on the keywords of your choice. When someone enters a search term matches your keyword in the PPC search engine and press the search button, your contextual ad will appear on the sidebar of the search result page. If the visitor clicks through your ad to your website, you’ll be charged base on your bid amount. To learn more about PPC advertising, please click here.
Article Marketing
Writing an article related to your affiliate products with a link to your website in the article’s resource box and submitting it to many article directories can bring some free targeted traffic to your site. To get more and continuous targeted traffic, you need to write more articles. Try to publish a new article every week. Doing this for a year can drive truckload of free traffic to your website.
Post Messages on Forums
Another way to get free traffic is by posting messages on community forums with a link to your site on the signature of each message posted by you. Here’s a technique I learned from an affiliate marketer.
1) Run a search on Google to find out forums and message boards that are related to your affiliate products and try to join as many forums as you can.
2) Make sure that each one of your forums profile is edited to include your website link within the signature option.
3) Spend a few hours navigating the pages of the forums. You can ask questions and post informative and helpful replies to other peoples’ questions or messages to build your status. The more people trust you, the more likely they will click your link.
Labels: Affiliate Marketing, Make Money Online
posted by Ville @ 11:10 PM,
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Microsoft Affiliate Network Beta
Microsoft Affiliate Partner Network is the first affiliate program by Microsoft that opens for public registrations. As a member of Microsoft Affiliate Network, you are given marketing materials to promote Microsoft products and earn money from the affiliate programs. Currently, Microsoft accepts limited number of affiliates and opens to US and Canada residents only.
Windows Live OneCare is the only product promoted now at Microsoft Affiliate Network. Microsoft pays for each free trial download of Windows Live OneCare. Text links and Banners are available.
Apply for Microsoft Affiliate Network
Labels: Affiliate Marketing, News
posted by Ville @ 10:56 PM,
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8 Tips to Make Your Website Profitable
1. Your website's template and design should relevant to your site’ title and content. You wouldn't want to use a dog graphic header on an e-commerce website that sells cell phones.
2. Whenever you have added new articles and content to your site let your visitors know immediately. You can do this by alerting your visitors using email. This will increase the numbers of people revisiting your web site.
3. Let your visitors know about your email address or even telephone number on your website. This offers a way to visitors to contact you to ask for more information and assistant which will enable you to build good relationship with your visitors. And those who are in the same niches may contact you requesting for potential joint venture for making more money online.
4. Provide an option to your visitors to view your website offline. You can offer it by autoresponder or printer friendly version.
5. Make sure your web content is original and targeted to your audience to avoid being seen as spamming by search engines. Search engines are good sources of high quality targeted traffic to your website in long term. So you don’t want to be blacklisted by them. You don’t need to make your content 100% original, 60% original or higher is safe enough.
6. Give your visitors a good reason to come back to your site. You may try to give incentives to encourage them revisiting your site like providing free games, adding entertaining videos frequently, allowing free downloads such as ebooks and software that are useful to your visitors.
7. Customize you website in logical and profitable sequence. You don't want people to see your freebies before they learn about what products you are offering. Identify what actions you want people to take when they are visiting your website that will make you profitable and then organize your site accordingly to entice people to take that action. If you main purpose is to earn money with cost-per-click ads programs such as AdSense, YPN, etc; you’ll want your visitors to click on your CPC ads to earn money. So you’ll need to place your CPC ads in the areas that will be easily seen by people when they first landed on your home page.
8. If you’re selling products or services or offering something free to use on your website. Don’t forget to add a FAQs section on your website that will answer your visitors and users questions immediately. This will simply make your visitors more happier visiting your site or using your free service as they are getting immediate assistance reading your FAQs.
2. Whenever you have added new articles and content to your site let your visitors know immediately. You can do this by alerting your visitors using email. This will increase the numbers of people revisiting your web site.
3. Let your visitors know about your email address or even telephone number on your website. This offers a way to visitors to contact you to ask for more information and assistant which will enable you to build good relationship with your visitors. And those who are in the same niches may contact you requesting for potential joint venture for making more money online.
4. Provide an option to your visitors to view your website offline. You can offer it by autoresponder or printer friendly version.
5. Make sure your web content is original and targeted to your audience to avoid being seen as spamming by search engines. Search engines are good sources of high quality targeted traffic to your website in long term. So you don’t want to be blacklisted by them. You don’t need to make your content 100% original, 60% original or higher is safe enough.
6. Give your visitors a good reason to come back to your site. You may try to give incentives to encourage them revisiting your site like providing free games, adding entertaining videos frequently, allowing free downloads such as ebooks and software that are useful to your visitors.
7. Customize you website in logical and profitable sequence. You don't want people to see your freebies before they learn about what products you are offering. Identify what actions you want people to take when they are visiting your website that will make you profitable and then organize your site accordingly to entice people to take that action. If you main purpose is to earn money with cost-per-click ads programs such as AdSense, YPN, etc; you’ll want your visitors to click on your CPC ads to earn money. So you’ll need to place your CPC ads in the areas that will be easily seen by people when they first landed on your home page.
8. If you’re selling products or services or offering something free to use on your website. Don’t forget to add a FAQs section on your website that will answer your visitors and users questions immediately. This will simply make your visitors more happier visiting your site or using your free service as they are getting immediate assistance reading your FAQs.
Labels: Blogging Tips
posted by Ville @ 10:46 PM,
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