Make Your Viral Marketing Campaign “Spread Like a Virus” – 3 Simple Methods

If you own an internet business, one of two things are going to happen. You’re going to make your business work for you, or you are going to end up working for your business. It’s inevitable. Sooner or later, one of these two scenarios is going to happen.

In the next few minutes, we’re going to look at a method of making your business work for you. We’re going to take a look at Viral Marketing. To be more specific, we’re going to look at three different ways that you can make it happen. We’ll look at writing a report, creating a video, and blogging.

Read More by Follow Link Below:-

Make Your Viral Marketing Campaign “Spread Like a Virus” – 3 Simple Methods

Affiliate Marketing – The Advantages of Affiliate Marketing

Although there are many advantages of Affiliate Marketing, as well as disadvantages, this article is going to focus on some of the best advantages of Affiliate Marketing. After all, why dwell on the negative when there are so many positives to think about? So, what follows is a discussion of some of the advantages of Affiliate Marketing.

The first of the advantages of Affiliate Marketing, and perhaps the biggest, since without this advantage, there would be no advantages of affiliate marketing to discuss, since there would be no affiliate marketing, is that merchants gain access to many more customers, and therefore many more sales, than if they have just done their own marketing by themselves.

The second of the advantages of affiliate marketing ties itself into the first in that, while the merchants can get more customers and more sales, they can do so without spending their own time looking for more customers and more sales. This is done for them by the affiliates.

READ MORE HERE
Affiliate Marketing – The Advantages of Affiliate Marketing

WILL ARTICLES MAKE YOU RICH?

Greetings,

Before you read on this post, please read this post first STILL STRUGGLING TO WRITE ARTICLES, SUBMITTING THEM TO GET TRAFFIC, AND MAKE MONEY?. Ok, welcome back.

Will articles make you rich? They might! Let me explain...I have make money so far this year with email marketing. I bet you are thinking, ya ya so what's that got to do with me? Here's the thing, my absolute hands down #1 method for building my email list is with article marketing. And we all know the #1 rule of Internet marketing is that the money is in the list!

Read more here : http://www.bingkisandarineo.com/2009/07/will-articles-make-you-rich.html

The Three Key Ways to Make Your Website a Success

Your company website can stand out and attract visitors in three simple ways. It must draw visitors in, keep visitors on the website long enough to understand what you can offer and keep visitors coming back for more.

If you feel that your current website is under-performing and the subject of online marketing brings you out in a cold sweat then check out our simple guide below to help you understand what you need to do…

1) Entice visitors

Your website has around three seconds to catch your visitors' attention or they're likely to click away. In order to keep your visitors interested you need a website which has an original design and layout and an enticing headline on every page.

Take a look at your website - are you happy with your design? Do you feel your headlines will compel your visitors to keep reading? If the answer to either of these questions is a no then it's time to make sure your website is reaching its potential.

Be honest about what your strengths are, if you have a great business brain but writing isn't your forte then contact a website copywriter to help you with the content on your website. Website copywriters are paid to write headlines that draw visitors in and make sales.

Also, contact a selection of web designers who have a good knowledge of marketing and communicating your message to your visitors. Ask them for ideas and a quote to see what they would do differently in terms of the overall look and feel of your site. It's never too late for a re-brand; if your site has been up for some time and isn't attracting visitors then you need to start to make changes.

2) Hold your visitors' attention

You should constantly be monitoring how long your visitors stay on your website for. If the average visitor sticks around for thirty seconds or less then it probably means that they've taken a look your website and then clicked away.

You need to be aiming to keep the visitor on your website for at least a few minutes so that they can read three or four of your main website pages otherwise they won't have a true understanding of what you can offer them.

Informative and enticing website copy is one way to hold your visitors' attention. Your website copy needs to be written to appeal to your target audience. It needs to be interesting, compelling and persuasive and you need strong calls to action on your website pages so that your visitors can easily contact you or buy from you.

If you don't have a dedicated marketing department or someone who specialises in online marketing then consider contacting a website copywriter. Website copywriters specialise in writing persuasive and targeted content for the web to help businesses generate enquiries and make sales.

3) Keep visitors coming back

Not all of your visitors will buy your products or contact you to make an enquiry the first time they visit your website. The majority of online customers will either compare your service and products to your competitors or take some time to consider their purchase before making an investment.

You need to make sure that your website has enough compelling, informative and interesting content to make visitors return. Weekly updates to your website via blogs and articles can provide a human element to the business and they are also a great way to share company news and advertise promotions.

It can take time to write the content for these so if you don't have someone in house who can provide the copy for blog posts and articles then consider contacting a website copywriter. Experienced website copywriters can produce compelling blog posts and articles for a variety of businesses in different industries, some even offer discounts for multiple articles or blog posts.

About the Author: Pure Ink Creative are experienced website copywriters who can transform your website into a profitable success. These three simple steps can completely alter the performance of your website and turn it into a money-making resource.

Search Engine Optimization and the Three-way Benefit

Who benefits from using Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Everyone.

Let me explain.

It can be easy for business owners to look at SEO as an attractive means of improving their position with search engines. This can be a great long-term strategy that really works well for online business, but the benefits don't stop there.

Your diligence in SEO also benefits the search engines. That's right. The search engines place a lot of stock in the best websites available. They want consumers relying on search engine results.

If you are not diligent in SEO techniques you run the risk of placing the search engines at a disadvantage by passing on higher rankings to sites that may be inferior to yours.

When you concentrate on learning the skills of SEO you are also improving your position with customers who can benefit from your site. When you focus on SEO you are fine tuning your site to assist the consumer in locating the best content, products and services related to their original search query.

Some may think that SEO provides an unfair advantage, but the truth is it actually provides the best direction signs allowing consumers to find what they are looking for.

Look at virtually any large retailer. They will place strategic signs around their store to allow customers the best chance of finding the products they are looking for. They delineate the store into aisle numbers that allow customers to make return visits in comfort knowing they can find what they need every time they visit.

This is the thinking behind SEO. It becomes a store map and directory all in one. Customers can easily find you and the attention to detail can help consumers locate exactly what they need.

Search Engine Optimization shouldn't be thought of simply in terms of a novel approach to advertising - it is by far the least expensive way to develop ecommerce. Even if the personal motive for SEO is selfish the result is a three-way benefit that goes beyond your personal motivation.

You should know that the role of SEO is dependent on fresh content. The growth of your site will be assisted by new articles that adhere to your SEO strategies. This content is what consumers look for in sites they plan to visit more than once.

Let's face it, if your website looks like a billboard it is entirely likely you won't find people intentionally surfing the information superhighway to rediscover your billboard. They want to know more and they will place more trust in sites that provide that 'something extra' even if the consumer has no immediate intention of buying.

SEO is not some magical formula that automatically places your site at the top of the pack; it is simply the best way to gain an ally in companies that can help you the most in driving consumers to your site.

Search engines want you to succeed, but they can't force you to learn the skills. They can simply make it advantageous for you to do so.

About the Author: Scott Lindsay - Now you can make a website incredibly fast at HighPowerSites.com. Start a home business and be an Ebook Reseller at BooksWealth.com.

Using Keywords as Part of Your Internet Marketing Strategy

Whether your internet marketing strategy utilizes websites, blogs, article marketing or press releases correctly using keywords is an absolute must.

Anyone involved in an online business will tell you their marketing efforts are dramatically reduced if they haven't optimized their published content correctly with the right keywords.

Keyword optimization is a very integral component of an effective online marketing strategy.

The proper keyword optimization of content helps anyone searching for information like yours to easily find it. Done correctly and you'll be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results. The manner in which you use keywords within your content will make or break you in the search engine rankings. A low search engine ranking will make you virtually invisible to anyone searching for content like yours.

Search engines rely heavily on keywords to accurately identify and rank sites found on the internet for people searching for the content that these sites contain. Under or over utilizing keywords will only hurt the ranking of the site giving it a very weak showing in any search results.

There are 3 areas of focus you'll need to be concerned with to correctly utilize keywords within your content. By doing so you'll gain the favor of the search engines and also quite a bit more traffic to your site.

Let's discuss these 3 important areas of keyword optimization below:

ACCURACY

Any keywords you select to use should be relevant to the content itself. Search engines are very strict about this and will bury you in the search results if they feel your keyword selection doesn't reflect the content. When people search keywords on the internet they're expecting to find information directly related to the words they are searching on. Search engines for their part want to insure that people using their search engine find what it is they're looking for.

POSITIONING

Another factor to be considered when using keywords is the placement of these words within the content itself. For instance it is recommended to use keywords in the title of your content when you can. Even within the title it is better to place the selected word or phrase at the title beginning if at all possible. Again you must remember that these keywords must accurately describe, reflect, or relate to the content within.

Another consideration is to place your primary keyword at the beginning and the end of the body of content you're performing the keyword optimization on. Additional theme keywords should be used conservatively thru out the content when their use makes grammatical sense.

FREQUENCY

Here's an area where some people may have a tendency to get carried away. In an attempt to gain the attention of search engines some may overuse their selected keywords throughout the content. Keyword 'stuffing' as this is known is frowned upon by search engines as a deliberate attempt to gain higher search rankings. Search engines discourage this by penalizing you with a lower search engine ranking.

Opinions vary on what is the right percentage of keywords to use within the content that will maximize your optimization efforts while avoiding penalties. Generally any keyword usage between 2 and 5 percent of the total body of content is considered safe. A free keyword density tool you can use online to check your content can be found at live-keyword-analysis.

Always remember to use your selected words in a natural way within the body of your content since you're writing for the reader and not the search engine. So before you hit the 'submit' bottom proof-read your work to ensure it reads like a human wrote it and not some cyborg.

Proper keyword placement and utilization is almost always at the core of any successful internet marketing strategy. Thru the correct implementation of this online marketing technique you will increase your search rankings thereby boosting the awareness of your online presence. Whatever your reasons for being online may be, if you're looking to boost your traffic this is one of the most effective and fundamental ways to achieve that!

About the Author
TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For additional online success tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://blogbrawn.com.

How To Use Copywriting To Boost Your Online Business

Copywriting, which is the most fundamental skill in any online business, is an important part of Internet advertising. It is the art of writing sales and marketing materials, which can promote your business on the Web. Being able to learn and master this art can help your business stand out from all the other online businesses of the same type.

The Effect Of Copywriting On Your Online Business

Copywriting can either boost your business into success, or it can run it into the ground, and it can depend greatly on how good your sales copies are. Learning how to use words to properly promote your product or service can generate a great amount of sales for your online business and bring you thousands of members to your mailing list. It can even boost your web site traffic through word of mouth if you write a copy that is intriguing or buzz-worthy.

Effective Copywriting For Your Web Site

Copywriting is effective in online marketing because the words or phrases that you use to entice your targeted audience can be placed on any web site and can be viewed by potential online customers, anywhere, anytime and all the time, as long as they are placed on proper portals that will attract possible customers for a specific product or service.

Keep in mind that internet users are constantly looking for information and solutions for their problems, so you should learn how to communicate directly to your target audience and give them the information that they are looking for.

Know how to captivate them by knowing your visitors' needs and desires. Talk to your customers, and address their concerns. Remember that you are irrelevant when it comes to enticing people availing of your product or service, so make sure that you focus on them and not on you.

You could have the best product or service in the world, but if you cannot make your audience feel that their life would be better if they owned what you are selling, then, it is of no use. Pull the visitor into the copy, so you can present your product and make your offer.

Make sure that you write from the perspective of your target audience, and not on yours. You can only do this if you understand your target customer, so learn what their motivation is, and apply that to your copy. You can also create a sense of urgency in them, to make them feel the need to click on your link as soon as possible. Create an impression of scarcity through your words, and explain why they need to act now.

However you may choose to approach your target audience, remember that what you need to do is get their attention, so you can make your offer, and you can do this with a good and direct headline. You usually have pre-headlines that set-up your main headlines to attract the attention of the category of prospects that you want to rein in. Let them know what you have so they will know exactly, if you carry what they need. Tell them what your product is by giving them details. And if you think they don't need it, make them feel so with powerful copy.

Use paragraphs that are friendly by using short sentences and simple words. It is highly suggestible to itemize the benefits of the product, so you can give your visitors a better view of what they are getting. Have plenty of possibilities to make sure that you have at least one unbeatable and unique benefit that can convince a prospect to buy your product or service.

You can also include something extra as a bonus. Make sure that it has value, so people would be more enticed to buy your product or service just to get it.

Aside from the extras, you can also focus on your product or service for enticing your visitors by building-up your product, telling them that the price of the product or service is a good value. Tell them what makes your product unique, and what sets you apart from your competition. You can prove your claims by adding testimonials or sales statistics to your copy.

Making your words sell through your sales letters is guaranteed to increase your conversion rate.

Powerful Copywriting And Search Engines

Since there are over billions of individual pages on the Internet, getting your potential customer to find you in cyberspace is not easy; but with the help of search engines, they are provided a means of doing just that. Learn how to manage search engines to boost your web site's traffic, and increase the rate of conversion of your online business.

Effective and concise search engine copywriting can dramatically increase your web site's targeted traffic, and you can do this by optimizing its use. When using search engines, you need to make sure that you are using keyword phrases that will bring specific traffic to your web site.

Analyze your competition and check what type of keyword phrases are being used most often, to give yourself a better chance of increasing your web site hits. Make sure that your targeted keywords are found in your filenames, title, headline, and description tags, as well as your web site content.

Copywriting is a fundamental skill in online businesses. Because the Internet is primarily a visual medium, you need to come up with copy that makes your page stand out over the millions of similar pages online. Keep your copy short, concise, and meaningul. Most of all, make it hypnotic.

Remember that having the best product in the market is not enough since you also need to learn how to motivate your audience to buy it. Fifty percent of successful sales depends on powerful copywriting. Make yours count.

About the Author
Jeremy Gislason - Want to launch, reinvent & grow your online biz dramatically? Discover a breakthrough membership site considered as the #1 source of supply for most hot-selling digital information products on the web. Go to http://www.surefirewealth.com and skyrocket your profits now!

Do you need a brand identity?

Do you really need a brand?
Do you need to develop a brand identity?

If you want sustainable growth in your business and if you want to earn more than what you do today, you must develop a brand identity for you or your business. There is no alternative to this proposition.

At this point, many business owners will step back saying that branding means advertising and thus it would require huge investment. This is a very common situation as a beginner: The business owner do not have much idea about the actual rate of advertising in different media.

What is the basic relationship between advertisement and branding?

For effective branding of your product or company, you must hit the target market with your brand identity, repeatedly. You must make sure that they remember your face (business face) at least when they need you the most. Thus, to achieve this, marketers use advertisement in different formats, such as audio, audio visual or only visual.

Does it mean that you need to invest a huge amount of money in advertising?

It is not necessarily so. To put it simply, advertising cost depends on the size of your target market and the best medium to reach them. You do not necessarily need to invest in expensive billboards or in a full-page newspaper advertisement to reach the target market.

You can easily find some alternatives to reach it. For example, think about branded office stationary gifts, email advertising, mobile advertising or even social media networking. If you think, you can also use your existing subscribers or clients to promote your business and your brand. For example, think about shopping bags and packaging. These advertising media will cost much less than traditional advertisement and may prove more effective if you can use them properly.

Branding is all about giving a relevant face to your business. More importantly, if you do not add a face to your business, the target market will soon develop one for you and you will have almost nothing to do about that. Once an impression is created, it is very tough to replace it with a new one. Thus, you need to consider developing a brand image from the very first day of launching your product.

How to do that?

The first thing you need to do is to create a diagram or flow chart of how you want your product to be perceived by the target market. At the same time, you need to find out other elements like your target market, where they live, how they want your product to be, how your product is different from your competitors'.

You will also need to find out the best way to reach the target market - evaluate different options such as radio or TV advertisement, POS advertisement, newspaper or magazine advertisement, email advertisement etc.

Once you have developed a flow chart of what you want or how you want to develop your brand, draft a branding strategy accordingly. For example, develop an appropriate logo, color scheme (maintain the same color scheme across the product), a tag line to attract your target market etc.

Do not forget to evaluate how people perceive your brand.

About the Author
Steve McMains is a media professional and writes for different online publications on media and advertising industry. For more information on corporate branding or integrated marketing, he recommends you to visit http://www.brandweek.com.

Discover The Answers To The Top 10 SEO Questions

Owning any type of online business will strongly benefit from a few SEO techniques. However, everyone and their brother has advice on how to do it. All this 'expert' advice can make the simple task of optimizing your site incredibly confusing.

Here are some straightforward answers to the most common SEO questions.

1. What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine is a tool many internet users use to find sites that are relevant to their needs. The three biggies when it comes to search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are however, hundreds of search engines available to internet users. Search engines work by sending out spiders to crawl through the World Wide Web and gather information. If you have the information they're looking for, in the places they are looking, they'll find you and place you in their results when a person is looking for your information.

The task of understanding what search engines are looking for and putting it in the right places on your website and in your content, is the essence of search engine optimization. So now you might be asking…what do search engines look for and where do they look for it? The answer is keywords and links. Keywords in your html coding, keywords on your webpage content, keywords in your content, and the number of incoming links you have to your website.

2. How important is SEO?

Let's just put it this way. What's better a few visitors who stumble upon your website or hundreds of visitors that go to your website with the direct intention of learning more or making a purchase?

With more and more people searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job and becoming an internet millionaire.

3. What are text links?

Links are just one of the tools you can use to increase your search engine optimization. The more quality links you have, the better your search engine ranking will be. Text links are links that contain only text. Wikipedia is a great place to examine internal text links. The links are contained within a sentence and when a reader clicks on them they are taken to a different page on the same website. The kind of text links you're looking for will be text links that will take readers from your article, ebook, or web copy to your website.

An excellent tool to generate incoming links is to write copy for online audiences like article directories, blogs, and ezines and insert text links in the copy. Webmasters will link to the content and thus to your site. Additionally, when you allow free reprints of your copy provided the links are maintained, you're encouraging links to your website.

4. What are link farms and link exchanges?

Search engines don't accept just any old link. The link has to be from a relevant and quality company. This means you don't want to participate in link farming. If a search engine suspects your links to be lacking, they'll actually penalize you. Link farming or link exchanging is essentially the process of exchanging reciprocal links with Web sites in order to increase your search engine ranking. A link farm is a Web page that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites. Stay away from link farms. When you generate a link from another site, it had better be relevant and coming from a real web site.

5. What is duplicate content?

The definition of duplicate content is web pages that contain substantially the same content. Search engines will penalize you for this. How do you avoid duplicate content? Don't publish the same article in several locations. There are many tools available online to help you re-write your content so that it is 30%, 40%, and even 50% different. However, the best way to avoid duplicate content is to simply write new content.

6. How do I find the right keywords?

There are several steps to finding the most profitable keywords. The first step is to generally do a bit of brainstorming and come up with a list of keywords you think people will use to find your products. The next step is to research supply and demand for those particular keywords. Supply means how many other websites are using those same keywords and demand is how many people are looking for those particular keywords.

The key is to find keywords with high demand and relatively low supply. There are many effective and useful keyword tools to help you find this information and to generate keyword ideas. Once you decide on a few keywords, it may be useful to do a bit of testing before you commit to them.

7. How do I optimize my web pages?

Placing your keywords in the right location is a good start to optimizing your web pages. Search engines look to the headings, subheadings, domain name, and title of your website. They also look in the content on your page and primarily focus on the first paragraph.

Try to get a domain name with your primary keyword included. When you include your keyword in your URL it tells the search engine spiders immediately what your site is about.

Title Tag. Your title tag is the line of text that appears on search engine results pages that acts as a link to your site. This is a crucial element of your webpage as it describes to your visitors what your page is about.

If you view your source code, your title tag will look something like this:

Keep your title tags brief, descriptive, up to date, and keyword rich will help to increase the relevance of your site in the eyes of the search engines, as well as giving your potential visitors a good idea of what they can expect from your site.

Meta Tags have lost their importance to the search engines however it is still helpful to place your keywords in your meta tags. In your source code they look something like this:

8. Do I need to submit my site to the search engines?

The simple answer is - no. Search engine spiders are always out there doing their job and collecting information. Every time you update your website, add content, or change your keywords, the search engines capture the information and record it. However, if you want to be listed on a directory, like the DMOZ Open directory project, then you will need to submit to those.

9. What are spiders?

Search engine spiders are also called web crawlers or bot. They're basically automated programs which scan websites to provide information to search engines often for the purpose of indexing or ranking them.

10. How does content help my SEO?

Content is one of the best tools to improve your search engine ranking. It is a great place to emphasize keywords, encourage linking to your site, and increase traffic. The key to content is to make sure you're offering quality content and you're updating your website and your content frequently. Content can be provided in many forms including:

* Blogs
* Forums and chat rooms
* Articles
* Reviews
* Case studies
* Reports
* How to guides
* Tutorials
* e-books and much more.

About the Author
Jeremy Gislason - Want to know proven ways to dramatically increase membership sales? Want to take membership marketing to a whole new level of overflowing profits? Build high-earning membership sites like a pro by going to http://www.membershipmillionaire.com.

Debunking the Top 10 Search Engine Myths

We've all done it at some point in our professional lives. We search a keyword that describes our business only to scratch our head as to how our competitor's website shows up on the top of the list instead of ours. If you've gone one step further and read about Search Engine Optimization, then surely you have come across the conflicting information online.

One article tells you to do one thing while another tells you to do the opposite. Which one should you believe?

This gray area of what you should or should not do is much like the modern day "Bat Cave." If you are lucky enough to stumble upon it, chances are you don't quite know how you got there and if you had to go back one day you would probably just find yourself lost in the woods.

So what should you believe? The general rule is to combine what you read or heard with what you have experienced and somewhere in there lies the truth. To get you started, let's debunk some of the more commonly used myths floating around.

1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name:

It is widely believed that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.professional-website-design-in-nj.com it will greatly increase your rankings. This is not true. It is best to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name.

2) Google Partnership:

If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, run in the opposite direction. There is no such thing as a "preferred" relationship with Google and in fact on Google's website it even states: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google.

3) Meta Keyword Tag:

It used to be that the Meta Keyword Tag was given a lot of weight in the early days of Search Engine Optimization, but people abused it and now it does very little. You may still want to include your keywords here, but know that it will not do much and in fact most search engines won't even check it.

4) Bold or Italicized Text:

Adding emphasis to certain keywords like using bold or italics can make your text easier to scan for the reader if done properly, but has little to no affect on your search engine ranking.

5) Content Length:

There is no search engine rule stating that your content needs to be a specific number of words in order to get indexed. Any recommended length is more to assist the reader in understanding what you do than to aid the search engines.

6) Duplicate Content:

Posting specific content like an article or blog entry on your site and then on another site will not get you penalized. In the search results, Google will recognize that the content is the same and only choose one of the pages to display, but it will not hurt your overall search engine ranking.

7) Avoid Flash:

Any text that you place in Flash will not be readable by a search engine, but this doesn't mean you have to avoid flash altogether. You can still very successfully incorporate Flash into your site through rotating pictures or a header on the page. Just don't have an all Flash site or use a Flash intro if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings.

8) Pay-Per-Click:

Some say that using Pay-Per-Click will help your organic listing while others say it will hurt. Both are false. The fact is that Google has gone to great lengths to separate the two departments of organic and paid listings to a point where the two departments don't communicate or even sit at the same table for lunch.

9) Update the Site Frequently:

Updating your site often is a good idea if you have something new to say. Just don't change around a few words to accommodate the search engines as that won't help your listing at all. Regularly adding legitimate content like articles, press releases and blog entries will help though.

10) Doorway Pages:

Many companies will sell this idea of increasing your ranking by creating hundreds of one page sites loaded with keywords that link to you from various domains. This is considered spamming the search engine and is not recommended. If you properly optimize your site and focus on the correct way to get listed, you will increase your ranking much quicker than these doorway pages ever could.

Of course there are many other myths out there confusing the general public about what works and what doesn't work. Some of them are spread by people who don't really know the truth and others are spread by SEO companies in an attempt to make search engine optimization confusing... mission accomplished! Regardless of where the myths come from, if you or the SEO Company you hire use common sense and do things the right way, you will have no trouble finding the proverbial Bat Cave…and when you get there please tell them that I want my utility belt back!

About the Author
Marc D. Ensign is the CEO and Visionary of Sound-n-Vision, a New Jersey web design and Internet marketing company. Marc actively teaches workshops and seminars on web design and search engine optimization throughout the New York Metropolitan area.

5 Ways to Entice Visitors to Keep Coming Back

What does a website need? The simple answer is repeat visitors, this is what successful websites share in common, and this accounts for a major part of their traffic.

Why is this?

Well, experience shows that returning visitors are much easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The whole issue of credibility disappears.

So what do you need to do to keep your visitors coming back and visiting your site?

How about checking out some of the solutions below:

1) You could consider starting a forum, chat room or shout box.

Providing a forum, chat room or shout box, allows your visitors to have a voice where they can share their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them visitors of your site.

Over time this develops into a sense of community and conversions will follow and your visitors will look forward to coming back to your site each and every day.

2) This probably goes without saying, but starting a blog can be a fantastic source for both new and recurring traffic.

Having your own blog is like keeping an online journal, and human beings are curious and thirsty for information. You need to keep your blog frequently updated with your latest news, both business and personal.

You will find that over time more and more people will come back to read your posts and with it you will develop credibility as an authority figure in your niche.

3) How about carrying out polls or surveys?

You will note that so far all the suggestions made have had some form of visitor interaction and conducting polls and surveys is no different. This is one that you should definitely consider adding to your site.

They are a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. It is important that you publish the results of any polls or surveys so that you keep the interest of your visitors to come back and see the results.

4) This is a little bit more innovative, but have you considered the use of puzzles, games and quizzes.

This will provide a yardstick as to how many people are willing to return to your site if you are maintaining their interest through entertainment.

You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) This may appear just plain common sense, but you need to update your site frequently with fresh content if you wish to attract multiple visits.

Although this may appear to be the most likely of strategies it is also the most overlooked with some sites seemingly looking the same for years.

If you want returning visitors to the same message over time that message needs a refresh, a different approach or angle!

Maintaining the same approach continually will have the effect of changing nothing, so don't be lazy and add new fresh bites of information from time to time to increase your visitor's interest.

About the Author
Christopher Raine - Are you ready to maximize your sales potential? If you answered "Yes", find out how you can increase your sales by 40%, even when your visitors are leaving your site! "Yes" you heard me right! Find out how this is possible with your own Virtual Sales Employee.

Accept Credit Cards Online - Add a Shopping Cart to Your Website

Selecting the shopping cart software

There is a variety of shopping cart software available that you can integrate into your site. We generally don't recommend that any business use a proprietary shopping cart system that is tied to one vendor, like Yahoo!. The problem is that if you don't like the service for whatever reason, you are stuck there, because the shopping cart is tied to their systems.

On the other hand, if you have a shopping cart that is transferable from host to host, such as the Zen Cart or OSCommerce shopping cart systems, you are free to use any host that supports their programming language - which is PHP - an industry standard language for dynamic Web sites.

If you want to accept Paypal exclusively, with a little programming, you may be able to circumvent installing a shopping cart. The transactions are handled off-site on Paypal's secure server. Paypal's website has a lot of valuable help for developers if you wish to look into that.

SSL Certificates

In order to accept credit card payments directly on your own website, you will need to have an SSL certificate. Check with your bank before buying your certificate. Some banks are very fussy about the security of your site, and you may need to buy a more expensive grade of SSL certificate.

Merchant Account

A merchant account is an organization that accepts the money from credit card purchases on your behalf, and deposits the money in to your bank account. You might get a quote from your bank for an Internet-capable merchant account. Sometimes your own bank can offer you better terms, faster deposits, etc. than a third party.

Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is the organization that manages getting the credit card information from the client, checking to be sure that the card is valid, gets authorization (or declined) information form the client's card bank, then hands the information to the organization that handles your merchant account (above) to get the money into your account.

A popular payment gateway is Authorize.net.

Paypal is also a Payment gateway. They handle all of the legwork of getting the money out of the clients account and getting the money to you. Paypal is very convenient, but usually more expensive than traditional Payment Gateways.

Another Payment Gateway that handles the secure transactions on their own server (remotely) is 2Checkout.

Final notes

Setting up an e-commerce website is not for beginners. Most people will need to find a reputable party to install the software, and set everything up. Your web host may offer development services, or can probably refer you to someone. Once the initial setup is done, a good shopping cart is easy enough for someone who is moderately computer literate to maintain and operate.

Be sure to check with your Payment gateway and merchant accounts to find out their fees. Especially if you have a very tight profit margin.

About the Author
Allen Howard is the senior Technical Support Representative for InfoServe Media, LLC. InfoServe Media is a full service Houston Website design company specializing in custom Web site design. In addition to superior website design that even a new business can afford, we also offer hosting and domain names. We can integrate a shopping cart on your website, and provide guidance for setting up your payment gateway. Or we can build a website for you from the ground up. See our website for complete website design and hosting solutions including website promotion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services, SSL certificates and more.

Break Through the Frustration of Optimization

"I am an artist," the man proudly proclaimed. "I don't care," the critic proudly responded. "The frame is too large, the colors are dark and it will not match my furniture," the critic further explained.

Many times web developers experience a similar scorn but not always from humans. A site has been designed with an interface that pops with beautiful GIFs and JPEGs, dazzles with Flash and functions like a charm with JavaScript. The search engines do not care. The content, the keywords and the tags do not correspond with the criteria of the search engines. Therefore, you are ignored.

It is a struggle between art and science that frustrates many. The responsibilities of web developing -- the art -- clash with the role of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) -- the science. That is why some companies and development firms are designating web developer and optimizer as two distinctive jobs.

Yet many smaller companies and shops still have the web developer fulfilling both roles. The problem is that optimization is becoming challenging and competitive. So here is some information to help start the optimization before, after or during the developing.

Content

It's all about the text.

Remember that optimization is all about the text. Search engines are text driven but there are still some basic HTML tags to keep in mind (i.e., h1, h2, meta tags, title tag). SEO helps improve search engine results but does not guarantee top ratings.

Patience and realistic goals will keep the frustrations low. Search engines have to crawl a site to determine what a site is about. This takes time, usually about a month, before crawls and indexing are completed by the various search engine spiders.

Take time to think (a lot) about the purpose of the website. Write down a lot of stuff in a word processing program even if it sounds silly at first. Then edit what you wrote. Edit some more, get some feedback and then start working on the keywords and keyphrases that identify the unique quality of your website.

Keywords and Keyphrases

Keywords used to be easy. Those days are gone. Keywords are highly competitive. Using two-word or three-word, maybe even four-word, phrases makes optimization less frustrating. A keyword phrase (keyphrase) helps identify the uniqueness of a website.

The keyword "game" will generate about 1 billion(!) results. The keyphrase "card game" will generate about 50 million results. That is a difference of approximately 950 million. The keyphrase "magic card game" will generate about four-million results. Time will need to be spent finding unique keyphrases but the benefits of narrowing the results, with multi-word phrases, provides a better chance of being noticed.

Keyword Density

The density formula is D = WC/KC (D = density; WC = word count; KC = keyword count)

For major keywords target 3-7% density
For minor keywords target 1-2% density

Keyword density measures how relevant keywords are in a page. The formula density = word count divided by keyword count will provide a general idea of the density percentage. For major keywords try to keep the density between three and seven percent. For minor keywords keep density between one and two percent. Try to optimize between five to ten keywords per web page.

Avoid the unethical practice of keyword stuffing. You will be penalized and possibly banned from the search engines which is worse than doing no optimization at all. Keyword stuffing uses various techniques but it is basically stuffing a page and/or meta tag with several occurrences of a keyword or keyphrase.

Keyword stuffing will result in being banned from the search engines.

Meta Tags

The meta tags are important although some will disagree. Meta tags have fallen out of favor because these tags used to be the magic solution to optimization. Not anymore. Keywords and content are more beneficial in getting a web site in top rankings. However, meta tags are still important. Meta tags are a part of the HTML and are used by most search engines to find a description of your website.

Therefore, no question about it, use the meta tags for description and keywords. Place these meta tags below the title tag on your page.





The keyword meta tag helps you keep track of the keywords and having these meta tags give a small boost to search engine ranking. While it is true that meta tags do not perform the magic they once did it is better to have the tags than to have none. Think of meta tags like vitamins. Vitamins are not necessary for being healthy but vitamins do provide a healthy boost.

Title Tag

The title tag should be unique for every page because every page will or should have different information regarding your website. Therefore, some pages will have some but not all of your total keyword list. For example, let's say that your web site provides information about card games; one page has data about magic card games and another discusses bridge card games.

The title tag of the page with information about magic card games could have a title like Magic Card Games available at ourwebsite.com. The bridge card games page would likely have a title of Bridge Card Games at ourwebsite.com.

The name of pages should also have keywords like magic_card_games.htm or bridge_card_games.htm.

Developing websites is fun. Optimization can be a chore. Yet by focusing on content, keywords and tags you have a good start to decreasing the frustration of optimization. Granted there is more to optimization than the items addressed in this article but these are the items that can be and should be tackled first.

About the Author
Lawrence Roth in an independent web developer who owns and maintains rothline.com. Lawrence has worked on various e-commerce and website projects. Lawrence writes articles and stories to submit to online publications.

7 Steps to Building a Successful Web Presence

Doing business in the 21st century will eventually require every company to have a website in one form or another. Whether your site is interactive or simply informational, there are steps you can take to ensure you're on the right track to creating a successful web presence, seven to be exact (at least from our humble perspective).

While following these steps will not guarantee a successful website, it is certainly an intelligent place to start.

1. Perform a Business Analysis.
What is a business analysis? Simply put, review your business requirements and your objectives. What do you want to accomplish? How does your website fit into your overall business plan? What... no business plan? Develop a business plan first before you go any further into the process.

Your business plan will be your roadmap to success, so make sure the objective of your website fits into your overall business plan. I'll say it again, BUSINESS PLAN, don't have one? GET ONE!

2. Perform some research, also known as, the Research phase.
Research your competition and industry sites. See what kind of competition is out there. What kind of marketing does your competition engage in? Don't look to "reinvent the wheel", take a look at how the current market works; develop a list of pros and cons about your competition and then make your web presence work better.

3. Develop a concept and a design.
Finally time for the creative and fun stuff! This involves the selection of specific content, the layout of the site structure and navigation and the overall "look and feel" of your website.

Remember to pay special attention to your navigational structure!!! If visitors can't navigate your website or feel lost when doing so, your "pretty" site will have been a waste of time; don't go there, keep the navigation simple and for SEO purposes, make sure your navigation is text based. Although Flash driven websites look cool, they are not SEO friendly and can create more problems than the "coolness" factor they express (we'll discuss Flash sites in another article ).
4. Develop your website.
When considering which technology to develop your website, think cutting edge technology, not bleeding edge. Make sure the technology you use, such as ASP, PHP, HTML, CSS, will be useful for the next three to five years.

Database driven website are ultimately the easiest to maintain through the use of a content management system, but make sure the CMS you use is SEO friendly. An SEO friendly CMS will utilize real URLs, not strange looking query strings with lots of strange characters and question marks. Search engines despise query strings and rank these site accordingly.

5. Choose a host provider and implement your website.
When deciding on a host provider, make sure the host is not only reputable, but has been in business long enough that you can be sure they will be in business next year. Also, ask about site uptime. If your site is down for any reason, this will not only affect your potential and current customers, but the search engines as well. If the search engines decide on a given day to spider your site and it is unavailable, it could cost you your rank.

6. Promote and market your website.
Register your site with the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Initiate other marketing activities such as an email blasts to prospective customers. Consider "Pay per Click" advertising with the major search engines and don't forget about a long term SEO campaign to drive targeted traffic to your site. 7. Finally, maintain your website.
Probably the most important long term step is continuing to provide current and relevant information on your website. Keep your site content current to encourage return visitors and give them something to return for! Related to SEO, search engines just LOVE sites which provide new content on a regular basis and rank such websites accordingly.

Overall, remember, your website is not just a marketing tool, it's a business tool, and it should be generating a revenue stream for your business.

About the Author Matthew Mckernan - About the author, Website Design, Search Engine Optimization/SEO, Web Development.

How to Begin Keyword Research

What is a keyword?

It's anything people type into a search engine. It could be made up of one word or several keyword phrases joined together. Every person uses their own method of searching, and that makes anticipating those keywords that will connect their websites with the right visitors very difficult. Keyword research starts with the understanding that finding lots of related keywords that deliver targeted traffic is the ultimate goal of any keyword research.

Sending thousands of visitors to a site who have no interest in your product, let alone in buying it, is just wasted effort and doesn't do any good for your business. If possible, we want to find the customer who has a clear knowledge of what they want and is close to buying something soon.

We would ideally want a few visitors who are seriously looking to buy in the near future. In order to achieve this, we want to find the least competitive keywords with the highest number of searches that are the most relevant to our website.

If you are just starting out, it definitely would be to your advantage to target lower competition terms. Having success with low competition terms will lead to increased confidence to target more competitive terms with higher search volumes.

Thinking like your customers

Thinking like your customers is easier said than done.

All merchants are guilty of thinking in terms of features and specs of the products and not thinking in terms of benefits it can provide to the customers.

You know your business and market too well. The industry jargons and slang are in your every day language. No wonder when you start your keyword research you have a very narrow keyword focus. You become your own worst enemy in exploring other ideas.

Here is an example: what is the most popular search term, "cheap flights," "cheap seats," "low fares" or "discount fares"?

As you can see it's not that simple to pick the best keywords, is it?

The hardest part of keyword research is to keep an open mind about all possible search methods people might use to look for the same thing. Keyword research is part science, part intuition, and imagination. Since we can't get into the heads of every possible potential visitor to your site who may be interested in your products or services, we have to rely on keyword research tools to tell us what people actually search for and how often.

There are a handful of very powerful keyword research tools that are worth using, but the amount of information you can mine from them is mind boggling.

Another great resource for proven keywords is to look at your competitor's website. We are talking about finding the highest ranking competitors on the search engines using your target keywords. Once you find the top 5-10 competitor sites, perform a quick review of their keywords on the web pages.

This can be a lengthy and slow process, but luckily there are free Keyword Analyzer tools that can dig up keywords from your competitor's sites in a snap. We'll cover in detail how the Keyword Analyzer can be used to add hundreds of keywords to your keyword research project.

Keyword research is like a job interview process

In order to find the right candidate you may need to interview hundreds of applicants to find the perfect fit for the job. Well, the keyword research process is very similar; you have to cast a widenet first to capture all the possible combinations of keywords known to man. Even then, it's almost guaranteed you will discover new keywords you have missed in the original research only a few weeks earlier. What this tells us is the keyword selection and refinement process never ends, or at least it should not end until you are happy with the number of visitors you are receiving to your site.

Where and how to look for keywords

In order to find the best keywords for our website we need to gather information from a variety of resources. Some of these resources may include:

Brainstorming: Getting your brain to go on a magic carpet ride is one of the best ways to find relevant keywords for your website. Don't just settle for asking the obvious question, what does my website sell? Ask questions such as: "What is this product made up of?" or "Who is using my services?" or "What problems do my products solve?"

Finding the main and secondary keyword phrases should take less than a month for even 2 or 3 websites. This does not mean your keyword research has ended forever, but finding the 4-5 word long secondary key phrases can be done with the free keyword research tools if your budget is tight.

Free keyword research tools: You can gain access to the powerful and free Google external keyword tool to expand your keyword list. Unfortunately the Google external keyword tool only gives a search volume indicator instead of the actual search numbers. Another very valuable feature in Google external keyword tool is the "Site-Related Keywords" finder. By simply entering the website URL of your competitors, you can find out in seconds which keywords they target on their web pages.

Another free keyword research tool available without creating an account is the Overture keyword inventory . As of now, August 2007, this tool only shows the January 2007 search volumes as it's being phased out, but Yahoo! is promising a replacement. If you have a Yahoo! Search Marketing account you can still gain access to their keyword tool albeit without the search volume numbers.

Related search terms suggestion tools: One of the fastest ways you can find hundreds of related keywords is to use online lexical or thesaurus tools.

Creating a large initial keyword list that includes a large number of synonyms and acronyms is essential to effective keyword research. Discovering related phrases that are not simply stemming from the original keyword term is a cornerstone of semantic latent indexing . Semantic indexing can be described as the grouping of related documents based on not only direct relationship between words, but the meaning of the words as well.

Some of the search engines provide a related search command list in their search results. Try Clusty by entering a search command and take a look at the "clusters" side bar. You can get dozens of ideas from the keyword clusters by playing with different combination of keywords. You can also visit Technorati a well known blog aggregator and social media tagging site to help unlocked your brain and generate new keywords. Enter a search term and observe the "Related tags" section directly under the search results.

Visitor statistic reports: These can be generated from web server log files or from script based visitor statistic programs. This can help you uncover new keywords for your website by discovering what the visitors are typing into the search engines to find your websites. In some cases, you'll find keywords you didn't expect to come up for in the search results. You should further research those keywords and uncover new keyword niches.

Site search engines: This can be a great source of new keywords and a potential data mining source. As well as further analysis of the average number of keywords, keyword length and other important keyword metrics.

Top ranking competitors: These websites are already well optimized and contain keyword rich web pages. Why not leverage their efforts and harvest the best keywords for your own website? With the help of the SEO Studio keyword analyzer you can extract hundreds of keywords from their META keywords and HTML page content in seconds.

A few examples of good keyword selection practices

Selecting the best keyword takes experience and a little know how, but it's always helpful to see how the pros do it, so here are a few basic steps for keyword selection.

Using your favorite keyword research tool Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery or the Keywords Analyzer, type in the main keyword phrase. Start with the broadest possible search terms, this way there is less chance of missing keywords that might otherwise be overlooked.

Look for 2-4 word key phrases that have at least a daily search volume of 200 or more. Since the top 3 sites will receive 60 of all searches, it follows you can expect at least 120 or more unique visitors for those keywords phrases. In some cases, you may want to lower the minimum search volume threshold to as low as 50 if the search term is well targeted for your business.

At this point you should have at least 20-30 really good secondary keywords in your basket.

Hopefully most of the keywords you have selected will have little competition. Some of the keyword tools we have recommended will also tell you the amount of competition for each keyword, but you can also verify these numbers manually by typing the search terms into the search engines with quotes.

It's very important that you use quotes around the keywords to let the engines know you are looking for an exact match. The rule of thumb we use to assess keyword competitiveness is around "100,000" websites. Anything above a hundred thousand results is fairly competitive and requires a fair amount of optimization and link building.

About the Author
Charlie Hearns is a website promoter and SEO professional for TOP Promotions based in Sacramento, CA. See more articles from his forum: http://charliehearns.freeforums.org.

10 Ways To More Website Traffic

Every website needs more traffic. This traffic needs to be as targeted as possible to the site you are promoting, whether it is your own web site or an affiliate program. This is the lifeblood of the business. No traffic - No business, More traffic - More sales

The question is - How do you get this highly targeted web site traffic.

I will list some of the most popular methods.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Of all the pay per click search engines, Google Adwords is the largest and most popular.

This method, when done correctly, will increase your exposure, and give fast results. You must keep up to date with Google's rules, so be sure to read them. You pay a one off fee when you register and set up your campaign. You can have your campaign up and running in minutes. There is a minimum bid, but of course you will have to pay more than this. But the beauty of Adwords is you can set a daily budget of how much you are willing to spend.

You can create as many campaigns as you want, and then test your ads (changing the headline for example).

Google provide tools to help you with your campaigns, and have exellent tutorials that walk you through everything from signing up to creating your Adwords campaigns.

Link popularity

This is achieved when other sites have links to your site. If a high traffic site has links, the search engines perceive both sites must be popular. The important thing is to have quality web sites linking back to your site.

Why should anyone want to link to your site? If you have quality content, this adds perceived value and makes your site popular, so others will want to link to you.The type of content could be:

Free downloads
Free reports, articles, ezine or newsletter
Video
Links to other good sites

Reciprocal Links

This is where you exchange links with other quality sites. You can create a links page on your site. This create a resource that visitors will want to return to. Find quality (there's that word again) web sites related to your subject and contact the webmaster about exchanging links.

Ezine advertising

Most ezines accept advertising. Ezines are online or email newsletters. They are used to build a relationship between a webmaster and a web site visitor, with news, updates, special offers etc. But as always they should have quality content. You place an ad in ezines that are highly targeted towards your niche. Prices depend on the ezine, and also the position of the ad. The most expensive is the solo ad, where yours is the only ad.

Article Submissions

Submitting articles is a great way to build back links and web site visitors. Your articles can become 'viral' when others want to re-publish them on their sites, or use them in their newsletters and ezines. You include links to your site in the author resource box offering more free information. The resource box is your chance to convince the reader to visit your web site.

Two of the most popular places to post your articles are http://www.goarticles.com/ and http://www.EzineArticles.com.

Forum Posting

In order to be successful using forums there are some things that are required. Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research. Join relevant forums that are in some way related to the promotion's primary sales market. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active members are two good ways to check for this. Choose forums that allow sig tags. Read the rules before joining and pay attention to them.

You've Joined: now what?

Keep your sig tag short and update it regularly. The ideal thing is to limit yourself to one link, preferably to your main website. Never create posts that are nothing more than an advertisement. This is a universal rule. At best this kind of post will be deleted by the monitors, at worst, you will be banned. Be an active member on the forum. Plan to spend at least an hour each day there. Get to know the users. Iintroduce yourself with intelligent questions depending upon the forum's topic.

Use Your Sig file to the best advantage and within the rules. Some Forums have places where you can advertise and give special deals to members.

Social Bookmarking

In a social bookmarking system, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists are both accessible to the public or a specific network, and other people with similar interests can view the links by category, tags, or even randomly. Some allow for privacy on a per-bookmark basis.

Social Bookmarking can bring immediate traffic to your website, as web 2.0 community websites such as Technorati, Digg, Reddit and Tailrank provide almost immediate information on various topics. These type of Bookmarking sites index and categorize content usually faster than the major search engines. People looking for the latest information on certain topics usually refer to these types of services.

Bookmarking Accounts to check out:

http://digg.com/
http://technorati.com/

You can increase your Bookmarking using the free submission site http://www.OnlyWire.com to bookmark many accounts at once. When you signup to OnlyWire.com you can use many bookmark accounts and with one simple procedure bookmark your blog post to all your accounts at once.

OnlyWire.com interfaces with:

Backflip
Bibsonomy
Blinklist
Blogmemes
Blue Dot
de.lirio.us
del.icio.us
Diigo
Furl
Jots
Linkroll
Looklater
ma.gnolia
Markaboo
Rawsugar
Shadows
Simpy
Spurl
Wink

If you don't have a Bookmark Account for the ones listed go and sign up.

Viral Traffic using free reports - ebooks etc.

Directory Submissions

Submit your website url's to the search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization, (SEO), is making web pages attractive to the search engines. The better optimized your web page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in the search engines. Most people searching the internet only look at the first couple of search results.

So optimizing for the search engines focuses on techniques such as making sure that each web page is using the appropriate title tags and meta tags, and that the keyword or key phrases for the particular pages are distributed throughout the content. Search engines find and catalog web pages using spidering software.

These are just a few ways to get more web site traffic.

About the Author
John Leigh is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher, with a passion to help others. If you have your own affiliate program or web site and you want loads of people promoting your website or product and take your business to the next level, then visit http://www.yourvirtualaffiliatetrainer.com and take a look at the FREE comprehensive online training video, and http://yourvirtualaffiliatetrainer.wordpress.com/.

Chocolate Vs Green Tea - Which Offers You More?

Chocolate has always enjoyed a comfortable spot on most people's list of favorite foods and desserts. This is why recent studies on chocolates are focused on the health benefits of this "food of the gods." According to researchers chocolate contains up to four times the antioxidants found in tea. There are more than 300 chemicals found in chocolate that have different health benefits. One of these is flavonoids (also called flavonols) which found in gourmet chocolates. Flavonols is a type of polyphenol antioxidant which helps reduce risks of cardiovascular diseases. Another element found in chocolate that is similar to tea is called cathechins which is a primary bioflavinoid antioxidant. Cathechins is found to help reduce risks of heart attack and cancer as well as help repair damaged blood vessels by reducing inflammation.

Green tea, on the other hand, is the most consumed beverage worldwide next to water. It is classified under unfermented natural tea leaf and can either be steamed or dried. All teas come from one basic plant which is called the Camellia Sinensis plant. Teas differ according to how this plant is processed. To create green tea out of the Camellia Sinensis, the leaves are slightly withered and rapidly heated to produce teas that have lower caffeine and more subtle flavors. This kind of tea produces a greenish-gold drink. However, is chocolate healthier than green tea or vice-versa?

According to studies on the health benefits of chocolate, upon using special analytical techniques to test the antioxidant content of different beverages, they found out that the antioxidant concentration found in cocoa drink is twice as strong than that of red wine, twice or even thrice as strong than that of green tea, and four to five times stronger than that of black tea. You have the option to drink chocolate any way you want, but experts emphasize that it is better to drink hot cocoa than cold cocoa. Your body will more likely absorb the nutrients and antioxidants from chocolates when you drink hot cocoa. However, the value of antioxidants in chocolate is much higher than those found in raw cacao.

Comparing the catechins from chocolate and green tea, researchers have found that dark chocolate contains 53.5 mg of catechins per 100 grams while green tea contains 28 mg to 42 mg of catechins. This indicates that chocolates are healthier than green tea. However, if you choose to take your daily dose of antioxidants from chocolates, experts say that it is better to go with the drinkable stuff. They say that a 40-gram bar of plain chocolate contains around 8 grams of saturated fat compared to 0.3 grams in a cup of hot cocoa. So sip some chocolate and feel good about what you are doing for your body!

About the Author
Shannon O'Hara has been an entrepreneur for the last 10 years. She has a number of business ventures primarily in travel and food industries. Passionate about family, travel and chocolate - Shannon lives in the Mid-Atlantic so that she can see the ocean every day! Want to know the difference between dark chocolate vs. green tea?

Search Engine Optimization And Search Engine Crawlers

There is a lot to learn when it comes to online or internet marketing and search engine optimization. That is why a lot of people hire SEO consultants to worry about their internet marketing for them.

However, if you do not want to have to pay SEO experts to help you with the marketing of your website, then you may want to think about doing it yourself! It's not that hard, it just takes some reading on the internet from trusted sources. Really, most of the SEO services that are provided online are built around one thing, and that is search engine crawlers.

Today we are going to talk more about search engine crawlers, and what they do. Soon you will find out that pretty much everything that you do, as far as search engine optimization goes, is to make these little crawlers happy. It is no longer as easy as a quick search engine submission and your website becomes popular.

As you may be able to guess by the name, these search engine crawlers are little bots that roam around the internet looking for new websites and ranking them based on an algorithm. When they come across a new website, they rank it in different ways, taking many things in to consideration. These ranks help to determine where the site is going to end up in a search done on a search engine.

The first thing that you have to do for these crawlers is to get noticed by them, and that is the hardest part of SEO, or at least that is what SEO consultants want you to think! The truth of the matter is, you can get your website noticed by simply visiting different popular search engines and adding your URL to their submission forms.

You also must get links from other web sites pointing to your web site to obtain link popularity and credibility with the search engines. This way the crawlers will know where your site is at, and find it a lot quicker. They will also consider it a relevant source of information if other sites link to you.

After that, it's all about marketing your web site on the internet through search engine optimization techniques. These little crawlers are programmed to look for certain things on your web site, these are things that SEO experts study and have an understanding for.

Using the services of SEO Consultants to help in your marketing, however they can be very costly, so you should hire a service provider that is talented and can provide a portfolio to ensure you get quality work.

Before hiring someone to work on your web site you should make sure they use ethical search optimization and marketing tactics and also make sure that they can provide results.

The first thing that crawlers look for is, of course, keywords.

Keywords in your web sites content and keywords in the links pointing to your site. When it comes to search engine optimization, use keywords wisely. Don't over-saturate your web site with keywords because you can get docked as a spammer. These keywords have to be worked into the web page and not just listed there. You should integrate them in to your content, page titles, meta tags and URL. Also, it will help the marketing of your web site if you work them into the titles of your web page as well.

Also make sure that your main page headings are bigger than that of your normal font so the crawlers can easily pick out what the main focus of your page is.

SEO consultants also worry about how many links there are out there that point back to your website. The more links, the better. However they must also be quality links from popular sites that are credible with the search engines. That is why SEO experts are always looking for different places where they can post links to your website. While crawlers are looking around, if they come across links to your website, then that helps to boost your ranking online.

As you can see, SEO services are very helpful, but if you can learn how to do online marketing by yourself, you don't need to hire anyone.

About the Author
Joel McLaughlin - DataFlurry offers Affordable Search Engine Optimization & Marketing. We are a talented Phoenix Internet Marketing, Search Advertising Online Agency.

Should I Make a Down Payment? Do I Have To?

I am considering buying a home soon. Should I save up for a down payment or should I pursue low or no money down financing?

If you are wondering this, that's a very good question! The answer though will depend on your other fiscal and lifetime strategies and goals as well as your daily and monthly cash flow and other needs. Some new families or couples starting out choose to make a small down payment or none at all. It is important to understand that for the first 2, 3 or 4 years of a mortgage loan, the home owner is paying mostly interest on their mortgage loan anyway! Very little money if any traditionally gets applied toward the principle mortgage loan balance.
However, some choose to accelerate payments by paying extra either monthly or by choosing a bi-weekly mortgage. There are other ways to accelerate your equity if that's the strategy that makes sense for you.

Many 1st time buyers expect to only stay at their new home for a short period, say between 2 and 5 years. It is also noteworthy to examine how often the average consumer buys and sells a home (how often they move) as well as how often the average consumer keeps their existing mortgage financing in place. Sometimes, when conditions allow or needs arise, homeowners may refinance their loan to change their term, lower their interest rate or sometimes to borrow additional money. So, there is no one particular answer. It's not a case of one saddle fitting every horse when it comes to down payments. Some people need the extra monthly money more than they need to accelerate equity.

Also, stay educated on the facts about down payments and mortgage financing. Many media sources and others will have some believing that no 100% financing exists anymore, that every buyer needs 20% down "just like the old days" or "just like it should be", and that is quite far from the truth! Through USDA Rural Development and the VA, 100% financing is very much alive and always will be.

In conclusion, when considering how much to put down one must fully understand their own personal and lifetime strategies, their intentions or plans for the property and its future and be on the same page with their borrowing partner, if they have one. Also, it never hurts to run it by a Certified Financial Planner.

About the Author
Jamie Woods. For more, visit http://www.activerain.com/jpsunshine

Credit Card Money Savers - Just Flash The Card and Save Money!

The credit card has been known for quite some time now. When you are on a shopping spree, this may be the ultimate gear. This little plastic card may be your best friend.

This card may be the most convenient thing to use during your shopping and when you lack cash. This card at the same times tempts you to spend a lot.

So you may be wondering if there are ways to save money when you have a credit card. Of course you can.

This little piece if plastic may be very helpful. You actually can save money with the credit card.

A 0% balance transfer:

If the credit card you are using at the moment has high rates of interests, you can shift the balance to a card which has lower interest rates or may be even to those who might have no interest at all. Some of them may offer you a 0% interest rate for a while and then go on with charging you on lower rates which may be regular. If you were paying an interest of 19% you can shift down to one which provides 16.1%. this little difference will mean a lot to you in the long run.

Lower rates of interest:

Look out for those credit cards that provide you with the lowest rates of interest. This saves you a lot of money. if you do not have any savings, it is recommended that you go in for a card that has no annual fees. You will have to check on these before you make a decision as some of them who give you low rates of interest may not be affordable by you when they are combined with the fees that they take at the end of every year.

Rewards program:

Cash back programs and reward points are being offered now. Despite the fact that you buy frequently, you get a 5% off even when you are maintaining a low balance.

Increase your chance of experience:

You must always try to shun away from the drawbacks. If you are smart enough, you will head on the right track.

Make sure you have read all the details. You need to look at the penalty charges if you ever are late for the payment. Be cautious. Spending sometimes can not be avoided. Do try to make a good deal of what you can.

About the Author
Abhishek Agarwal is a financial expert and he has got some great Family Budget Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 96 Pages Ebook, "Family Budget?Demystified!" from his website http://www.Trading-Masters.com/23/index.htm. Only limited Free Copies available.