Archive for June, 2010

These days we hear a whole lot about backlinks, but do you really know what they are, how to get them and where they come from? Understanding the nature and utility of backlinks is crucial knowledge for anyone who has or is considering having a website that will stand the test of time. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing all use backlinks to determine how they ought to rank your site so if you want to be up near the top where people are going to see you and have a chance to come check your site out then you really will need to grasp the concept of link building and how to go about it.

Let’s cover three handy tips for building relevant backlinks that will serve your site’s best interest for many years to come. If you have never built a single backlink then do not worry, this is going to give you an excellent start on your first campaign.

Make Friends with Blogs – As you already know, blogs are one of the most popular forms of websites today and they are where a growing number of people turn for news, information and entertainment. In other words, they are right where you want to be if you want to grab the attention of visitors. Their fresh content draws people in constantly so you won’t have any struggle trying to reach folks on the prowl for more good stuff. What you need to do is find blogs that are related to the subject matter of your site. You can use Google to do this through their Blog Search feature or you could search Google News for subjects related to your site. Leave some comments that are relevant, polite and interesting. Then, wait a few days, go back to see if they have new content and do it all again. Consistent, intelligent comments on the right blogs can give you great traffic.

Find Where Your Competitors Get Their Links – You might think it would be difficult to determine where exactly your competitors are getting their links, but this is actually not true. The fact of the matter is, you can use Yahoo Site Explorer and check any site for backlinks. Once you discover where these links are coming from, you can go and get them yourself. You might find the site gets links from directories, article sites, blog comments or other little techniques and if you emulate them, then you have a great chance of getting near them in terms of search engine rankings and traffic levels. If the site is being linked to be a site that you aren’t sure how to get included on, look for an email address on that site. Then, email the site owner and simply ask them if they would like to link to your site. Chances are good they might just be willing to do that for you if you are friendly and polite.

Give Stuff Away – That’s right, one of the best ways to get people to link to your site is to give things away. You do not necessarily need to give out prizes; you can actually write blog posts or articles for other sites and simply ask if they would link to your site in return. This can work wonders for helping you get many more visitors to your site in a very short amount of time. First, propose the article or blog post you plan to write to the site’s owner and then write the best content you can. This is often more than get enough to get a link from even the most coveted of sites.

Popularity: 3% [?]

One thing is for sure if you run a website and that is that you are going to need to fill it with video content, the best content that you can find, in fact. More and more people are online looking for videos to enjoy or to learn from, so if you can provide this kind of content then you are definitely going to see a lot more traffic than those sites that you might be competing with. The key to bringing in a ton of traffic to your site is making sure that the content you serve is that which users are already looking for. If you have what they want already then you are not going to have to try and sell them on why they should visit your site. They will arrive naturally through the search engines because you provide precisely what they were on a quest to find for themselves. This is the number one philosophy followed by people who know how to get traffic to their sites.

FFMpeg is one of the most powerful ways to create and serve videos because it is far easier to use than many other methods out there today. The name itself stands for ‘Fast Forward’ MPEG and MPEG is the file format for video that has been an internet standard for a number of years. Since this is an open source set of tools it is free to use provided one’s web hosting service has the ability to run the needed coding that allows the serving of the videos. FFMpeg itself is actually a sweet of tools and many people will use the tools to create their own videos along the style of those seen on YouTube. Because the files are served so much faster, it is often possible to have a speedy site that still offers a huge range of content that your users are going to love so much you have no problem bringing them back for more. There are also programs online that will allow you to literally take the video from other tube sites and place it on your own site. Of course, you will want to pay attention to any copyright concerns so that you are not abusing the FFMpeg privileges, but there are many copyright free or creative commons videos online that can make excellent content for your own site.

When used properly, this is a terrific tool to help you get the visitors to your site that really will boost your regular crowd and raise your site’s performance in the search engines by giving them more content to catalog and making sure that your site becomes a major hub for those who are seeking videos of the type that you have chosen to offer. Videos are all about answering an enormous demand online, especially since the arrival of widespread surfing for content via mobile devices. This particular crowd has given a major boost to the video traffic and if you use FFMpeg to serve them then they will definitely remain loyal.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Google has reported that when it comes to PPC (Pay Per Click) ads, they are now selling more than $1 billion per year in advertising. That is an enormous amount of money, but guess who gets the lion’s share of that? Webmasters just like you, that’s who! If you are not signed up with Google’s Adsense program then today is definitely a very good time to start. While many people feel that Adsense barely earns them enough to buy a cheeseburger each month, there are others who make hundreds or even thousands of dollars each month just by putting these unobtrusive little ads on their sites. If you want to play with the big boys in the Adsense game then you need to know how it works.

Here are five tips you can put to work today:

Blend In – Contrary to popular thought, ads that blend in to your site are not only better at getting clicks, they are recommended by Google. Their own staff will tell you that those ads that barely catch the eye perform better. Google has done the work for you by grabbing the right types of ads that will interest your readers with their text so having colors that pop out from the rest of your site is not only distracting to readers, it is also not as effective as blending them in.

Top is Better – When you are placing your ads, try to stick them right on the top of the page, underneath the header image or text of your site. This is the spot that human eyes go to first on any webpage so you need your ads to be there and not buried along the side where visitors have to scroll down. Most folks who click ads are ready to leave your site, so there is no reason to expect them to scroll down to find ads when they could just as easily hit the back button on their browser.

Filter for Greater Effect – Have you seen ads on your site that have nothing at all to do with your content? You might not have heard, but you can actually go into the dashboard of your Adsense account and filter out ads from sites that you do not want to link to. This can help narrow the focus of the ads on your site to give your readers what they need and you more money in your pockets.

Get Smart About Keywords – The Adsense program serves ads to fit the content of your website. Google can tell what that content is by scanning the text and creating a “picture” of your site through the words used on it. Do yourself a favor and use the keywords that describe the content best instead of trying to be overly wordy. This will give you ads that are relevant to the content every time. Warning: do not over use a word hoping it will help. This can damage your rankings in the search engine and looks like spam.

Less Gloss Means More Clicks – Here is an ultra secret tip that has been proven time and again: less fancy websites get more Adsense clicks. Ever wonder why a lot of sites from important bloggers or other tech experts are not crammed with pictures and stunning graphics? Simple, these people understand that online everyone is in a hurry. People don’t like waiting for pages to load and photos slow everything down. They also visually detract from your ads. Go plain and it will rain cash for your site.

This is all it takes to be truly successful using Google’s own billion dollar baby!

Popularity: 2% [?]

The battle for the time and attention of the web visitor has reached a frenzied pace in our current era. Gone are the days when it would have been enough to simply slap a site up onto the web and let it draw people in simply due to its novelty. Now visitors want enough novelty to catch their eye and enough of the real features to keep them interested no matter what. They want real functionality and if you look at the web in its current form, why shouldn’t they? Sites today have big brand names to contend with. Sites like Facebook, YouTube and dozens of other globally branded web destinations that have changed the world. Whether you call it Web 2.0 or simply brilliant web business, the idea of having a site that offers something better than any other form of media can offer your visitors is definitely where the visitor loyalty lies.

So how do you compete with this kind of power? Simple, you need the right tools. A script like Rayzz can go a very long way towards bringing nearly any site into the current era. With this software, you can transform your ordinary website into a community that is going to keep a nice high percentage of your visitors coming back for more. Users love being able to share visitors and they already understand the concept of social networking sites so why not make it easy on yourself and weave that level of functionality into your site? With Rayzz you have a script that has been tested by a quarter of a million users and found to be bug free, stable and dependable. There are several strong web brands already putting the product to use, doing everything from offering video how to guides to flat out entertainment sites. By offering quality video content, these up and coming websites are guaranteeing themselves a future they can be proud of.

When you decide on Rayzz for your site, you’ll be able to integrate with any other open source software your site already uses, from Joomla to WordPress and nearly every software package in between. What makes Rayzz so innovative and feature rich is not the fact that it builds a great framework for a more interactive site that hooks your visitors by offering video broadcasting capabilities, but rather the fact that it makes that ability easy for you to offer. As a webmaster, you probably do not have time to spend hours coding or troubleshooting each day so you need a solution that is going to offer your visitors the highest amount of good for the least amount of hassle for yourself. That way you can do what you do best, get involved and play the host on the best site you are capable of making. That is precisely what Rayzz gives you the tool set to do: make your site more fun with minimum struggle. Those who are truly looking to stay competitive in the aeon of Web 2.0 will definitely want to make a move towards adopting this script because it is the first step towards a site users crave visiting every single day.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The popularity of websites just keeps growing as more and more people learn how to make their own site from scratch or how to use blog software to build something simple very quickly. If you are willing to give this a shot then you should know a few things about how to get the right kinds of content for your site. For one thing, stealing photos and music from the web in order to put them on your page is not only juvenile, it is now allowed by law in many countries. It is called “copyright infringement” and is definitely not something you want to create with your website. Many website owners get away with it now, but just ask yourself where those sites will be when the copyright violation software gets more sophisticated?

Avoid all of this trouble by thinking ahead. All you need to do is follow these four simple suggestions that will help you avoid getting slapped with a lawsuit:

Public Domain Photos – A simple Google, Yahoo or Bing search will reveal plenty of public domain photo sites. Not only does the US federal government offer a host of free images for taxpayers, there are a huge number of other older photos whose copyright has expired. All of these images in the public domain can be downloaded and used free of charge. Don’t be shy about making use of them for your site because that is what they are there for.

Buy Some Photos From the Pros – This is nearly as easy as public domain, but it will cost you a little bit of money. Right now the prices are very low and they are only expected to get lower as more blog and website owners continue to switch to a smarter, more ethical way of obtaining the images they want to use on their websites. It makes sense to go after the best images so you can find sweet photos this way for much lower prices than you might expect. This is a smart way to go and a wise investment for those who don’t mind paying a fair price.

Just Ask! – This is another technique that can save you major hassle. If you know the photographer or the site that owns a certain photo, why not send them an email to see if they would allow you to use the image on your own site? This normally works out well and won’t cost you a dime.

Cite Your Sources Well – If you have found a photo that you have your heart set on and it is not for sale, the web site owner isn’t responding and you know it isn’t in the public domain then you should cite the website that the image came from. Give the address and a link to that site. You may get asked to remove the photo later, but for the time being you will be viewed as having been considerate and that should count in your defence.

As you can see, it isn’t that difficult to stick within the copyright guidelines. Play fair and be nice out there and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

Popularity: 3% [?]