What is the #1 most important part of all your marketing on the
Internet? The one thing that is even more important than your sales
letter?

It’s your headline.

Think about something very carefully for a second. How do people
reach you on the Internet? What makes them click over to your web
site or read your email message? (a subject line is still a
headline)

The answer is the headline. It is the most vital of all. If your
headline does not make them click, your site never gets read. If
your headline on your site doesn’t make them stay they simply click
away.

Nothing is more important than the headlines you use in your emails,
your ads, your banners and your web pages. All of them must be
powerful and make people want to know more.

Headlines are so important that not spending the most time on them
will make you lose tons of money. More time should be spent on your
headlines and titles than the actual writing of your salesletters.
They are that vital to your success in any type of advertising.

When you realize that one headline can pull 1700% more than another
you begin to realize just how important they are. If you are placing
ads right now and they are pulling in 500 hits a week, one simple
change in the headline could make the same amount of work pull 5,000
hits a week.

The difference can be massive and will determine the success or
failure of your business. It can also determine how many people care
to read your article.

Titles for articles should be given the same amount of consideration
as headlines for sales letters. The more power and impact the title
has the more people will read it.

Many people give very little thought to the title of their articles.
Don’t make that mistake. Make your titles provocative, exciting,
promising a huge benefit and they will draw the maximum number of
readers. Your articles should be just as exciting as your sales
letters.

When you consider that the only way for anyone to reach you on the
Internet is through a headline, it gives you some idea of their
power.

A classified ad should be created out of the best headlines you
have. Your banners should contain the most potent headlines you can
think of. All links on your site should be thought of in terms of
headlines.

Links on most sites say things like, "Free E-Book". They expect you
to click on that and download it. It’s not going to happen. ‘Free
ebook’ tells you and I absolutely nothing. We’ll pass it over
without even a second glance.

Give all your links life, power and benefits and then watch what
happens to the response. Treat each link like you absolutely had to
get every visitor to click on it.

What would happen if all the links on your pages suddenly got 20
times more clicks than normal?

If you’re already making money, then your income would skyrocket.
All from some very simple changes that would take no more than a few
minutes.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

Have you ever sat down, closed your eyes and really looked at
yourself or your product through another persons eyes?

Have you, in your mind, literally become your customer or your lover
and looked hard at yourself or your work through their eyes?

Can you do it?

I hope you can. It is one of the most powerful techniques man has
ever used. Ground battles, corporate battles and the hearts of great
Women have been won because of it.

When you become your customer, the secrets of how to influence them
magically appear. The same thing happens when you trade minds with
your wife or husband. Some of the things you see may shock and
change you in ways you could not have imagined.

The man or woman who has the power to really look at their work
through another persons eyes has an incredible advantage in all
business and personal situations. If you find that this ability
comes easy to you then by all means really do it. Sit down and do it
very deeply and totally and you will be shocked at what you are able
to see that you could not see any other way.

Can you look, and I mean really look, at your sales letter through
your prospects eyes?

Get good at doing this and you will find 100’s of ways to
dramatically change both your business and personal life
immediately.

Many people only ‘ think ‘ they see their product through their
prospects eyes. They think that when they are looking at their sales
letter or web page that they can do this. But really, they are still
looking at their work filtered through their own feelings, attitudes
and background. You have to remove ‘ you ‘ from the the picture
entirely.

This is a deeply serious technique that, for most, require the eyes
to be closed to even begin to touch its real power.

And if you think the author has somehow lost his mind, it would do
you well to know many, many millionaires and billionaires have
confirmed in public and in published writings the incredible power
of this strategy and that they have always used it to build their
wealth without fail.

I would never think of using a sales letter without first looking at
it long and hard through the eyes of an average customer. Never let
yourself get too close to your own work.

In order to do this right you have to completely move ‘I’ out of the
way. You must get your own feelings, thoughts and attachments about
your work out of the way so you can see it clearly and see it the
way other people are seeing it.

When you do that, you will know how to write irresistible ad copy,
you will know how to create web sites people instantly understand
and buy from, you will know how to make yourself 100 times more
attractive to your wife or husband…….and much, much more
….test it and see!

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I’ve just added 6 new books and Special Reports written
by the insane Michael Ross.

From the ‘guru’ marketers to multi-billion dollar Fortune 500
companies most of them have one thing in common – All Use Command
Copy!

You see it on sales letters and on television: Act Now!
- Order Now! – Pick Up The Phone And Call Now!
- Do it Now! – Take Action Today!

Command copy creates impulses to act!

It has the power to make a reader actually pick up the phone and
order when otherwise he would have put it off if the command had not
been given.

I’m not saying you turned him into a robot that had to obey you and
order. I’m saying that when you gave the command to: ‘Go Ahead And
Order Now’ ..you helped give him the impulse to act. You ‘opened’
his mind up to the thought of actually going ahead and picking up
the phone to call. Tell your reader exactly what he should do and it
will shock you when you discover he actually does it!

Is this hard to believe?

It has been proven through millions of dollars in testing sales
letters and tv commercials both with and without command copy. The
differences in responses are astounding!

The owner of a popular real estate package being sold on cable tv
reported that when they put the words “Get up and call now -
1-800-xxx-xxxx” across the bottom of the screen and added a part at
the end where he again gave the order to ‘get up and call now’ the
commercial immediately began making a profit whereas every time it
was ran before it lost money!

Your reader or the TV viewer may be blown away by your product. He
may sit hypnotized by the thoughts of all he could do with your
product. But unless you tell him to order now and show him a clear
and easy way to do it, he may just keep right on sitting there
spaced out about your product but never actually making the move to
order it.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I’ve just added “Magnetic Sales Letters” to the Warrior
download site. 281 pages of Proven sales letters you can model to
create your own hot copy in just minutes.

There’s no better way to learn how to write killer copy than
modeling already written and proven letters.

This is the same book being sold on the Internet for $67 right now.
Yours free as a Warrior member.

Become A Warrior Member Today -

http://www.warriorforum.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

Here’s another technique that is perfect for Internet marketing.

Increasing the perceived value is easily done by simply adding
bonuses that cost you little or nothing to add and create a ‘package
deal’!

Let’s say you are selling a book on getting to the top of search
engines….

You could add 2 or 3 web marketing reports you found as bonuses. You
could add some free software you discovered that made your job 100
times easier, you could add this e-book you’re reading now and so
on.

Write down every benefit the reader will get from theses bonuses and
make a bulleted list of them!

This can make your $29.95 book seem like it’s worth $229.95!

Look for things that can go along with your product as bonuses but
yet cost you very little to produce. With a little effort you can
easily make your current product seem like it’s worth 20 times what
you are charging for it.

It will actually be worth more than you are charging if you put some
good bonuses together. And that’s great – it cost you nothing extra
and will blow your sales through the roof. Everybody wins.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I’ve just added the powerful book “How To Make Maximum
Profit In Minimum Time” to the Warrior site. This book is written by
marketing guru Peter Sun. 104 pages of genius marketing ideas.

Find out:

* How To Make Up To $10,000 A Week (or more) From Tiny Classified
Ads And Two-Step Marketing

* How To Make An Extra $100,000 A Year Publishing Your Own
Newsletter

* How To Steal Customers From Your Competitors

* How To Get $25,000 In Free Advertising For Your Business Each
Year..

And Much More…

Become A Warrior Member Today -
http://www.warriorforum.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

Certain words, when combined together, literally draw the readers
eyes to your ad…the words below are those I have found to work
every time.

You – Ultimate – Free – Master – Power – Discovery – Easy -
Guaranteed – Love – Money – New – Scientific – Proven – Results -
Incredible – Discover – Breakthrough – Secret – Private – Cash -
Shocked – Shocking – Revealed – Uncovered – Hidden – Profit’s -
Inside – Sex…Sex?

Yes Sex…used only in certain situations where it can apply though.
For example, when I wrote the headline "Sex Sites Are Not The Only
Ones That Can Pull In $5000 A Week Using The Power of Instant
Access!" ..it immediately added about $50,000 to my income last
year. Just that one headline!

I thought it was a unique angle because all you heard on the news
for months was how people where making big money with porno sites.
You never heard about those of us who where making great money
without selling sex.

Some example headlines using those words above:

"Revealed! – Scientifically Proven Strategies Guaranteed To Double
Your Profit’s Every Month or You Keep The System For Free!

"Master The Art of Building Web Pages In 30 Minutes With This
Proven, Easy to Use Software!"

"Breakthrough Money-Making Secrets That Sex Sites Do Not Want You To
Find Out About – Uncovered And Revealed Inside!"

Power words, like those above, are already implanted deeply in the
minds of all your readers simply because of what the words mean.

For example, when I see the word " Discovery ", it evokes a response
from within me and draws my attention to the rest of the sentence
because Discovery ‘means’ something to me and most other people.

The Discovery might give me a great advantage before you and others
find out if I read about it first. People love to discover things
and the word attracts them instantly when they see it.

Just like the words ‘Scientific Breakthrough’ will immediately draw
the attention of most everyone. I can not pass up a headline that
has those two words in it. If I see those two words I will always
read the rest of your headline. And if the rest of your headline is
something I am interested in, then you are well on your way to a new
customer.

If the Scientific Breakthrough had to do with a new kind of Hair
Growth Formula then I would move on with no interest.

BUT…you at least got me to read the ‘full’ headline…and you got
a lot of other people to read it too!

If the Scientific Breakthrough had to do with making money you would
have had me hooked into reading more and possibly all of your
letter.

You got the attention of the maximum number of people with the first
two words, then, with the rest of the headline, you weeded out those
with no interest and hooked your target prospects.

We love things to be revealed , we love secrets, hidden things,
proven things and shocking things…we always have and always will.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I’ve just added the awesome ebook "Classified Magic" to
the Warrior site. This is an incredibly detailed book that will
allow you to extract the maximum profit possible from classified
ads.

Are you ready to use a simple, proven system that is making an
incredible amount of money right now for hundreds of different
products?

If so, I’m going to reveal a horribly simple way certain "Masters"
of the game are making fortunes all around you right now. It doesn’t
take a genius or a $100,000 investment. In some cases the entire
thing can be put together for $0 cost.

This article assumes you will be selling either information,
software, streaming audio, video seminars, cgi/perl scripts..etc.
Products that can be downloaded immediately after the order is
placed. Instant Access – we all love it.

Let’s get to it.

The first and most vital rule of all is this…

Your site MUST be a Direct Response Site.

Here’s where some shine and the rest just don’t get it. For a web
site to make the most money it must be a Direct Response Web Site.
It must focus on selling one product and get an immediate response
in the form of an order or lead.
(Preferably order)

Most sites exist as nothing more than portals leading their traffic
off in all directions away from their own site. A home page full of
links is just that – a home page full of links. It’s not a profit
machine and never can be.

A web site created out of a hot sales letter and an image of your
product will make you much more money than a web site full of links
ever will.

To me, advertising on the Internet is no different than advertising
in an income opportunity magazine. The only difference to me was the
fact that now I could not only sell the prospect, I could also take
the credit card order and deliver the product at the same time.

That was an exciting thought to me and it’s no less exciting today.
In many way it is even more exciting now. Today we have services we
could only hope for just a few years ago. On today’s Internet you
have services that do it all. A true plug and play opportunity to
sell anything you can come up with.

You don’t have to have a merchant account. You don’t have to know
about password protected directories. You don’t have to install any
affiliate script yourself. And the list goes on. If you choose, all
this can be done very easily for you. All you have to do is acquire
your own products to sell.

Once you have them you are going to create a direct response, self
advertising cash machine to sell them. A simple system that works
even when you don’t.

Here’s an example…

Bill is out clicking around on the net and comes upon a site created
by an obvious programming genius. The owner of the site is a 22 year
old who simply loves to create different software programs. He’s not
really interested in trying to sell what he creates.

Bill sees an opportunity. He contacts the young man and convinces
him to create a custom software program that will create incredibly
professional web sites automatically by simply answering the
questions the software asks. Perfect for newbies worldwide!

Bill immediately begins creating his direct response web site to
sell the product. A Buy, Bookmark or Leave site.

He chooses a combination of…

www.digibuy.com and www.affiliatetracking.net

…to accept credit card orders, give instant access to his product,
accept affiliates to sell his product and have affiliate checks sent
out all automatically. Once the software is done, Bill uploads it
and he’s ready to sell.

Bill then contacts e-zine owners in an attempt to make a deal. He
offers the e-zine owners a large percentage of the profit if they
will make an announcement about the offer. Bill contacts a total of
138 e-zine owners. 23 bite on the offer. Bill’s in the money.

Over the next 3 weeks Bill sells 400 copies of his software and
acquires 227 affiliates who will promote his product for him. After
the e-zine runs cooled down Bill averages $2,400 a month in sales
and growing. As more people visit Bill’s site he signs up more and
more affiliates to sell for him..all automatically.

Now this may seem like small numbers to you but realize that Bill
has a whole world of products available to him. He also has 23 e-zine
owners that already know him and will more than likely deal with him
again.

Bill can duplicate this system 100 times if he wants to with 100
different products. More than this, Bill can go to the Bahamas any
time he chooses without having to worry about much at all. His money
machines are on autopilot. Everything is done for him.

This is not fantasy talk. It’s happening right now. One of my own
clients uses the service www.clickbank.com to sell over $11,000 a
month worth of one of his offers. ClickBank accepts the credit card
orders, allows him to accept affiliates AND pays his affiliates.

I’m talking about a simple system with huge potential. Anyone from
any place in the world can do this. The product and the web site are
all you need to concentrate on. The rest can be done for you. You
are only limited by the limits of your own imagination.

Here are the simple steps:

1. Get A Product.
2. Create A Direct Response Web Site To Sell It.
3. Plug In A Card Processing And Affiliate Tracking Service.
4. Do An E-Zine Blast. (Paid Ads or Commission Based Deals)

And wherever you may get stuck in the process, members are standing
by to help you through it in our forum. There is not a single
question you can ask about this process that can’t be answered.

Here’s another awesome bonus I do only for Warrior members. Once you
have your product created contact me and I will include a link to it
in one of my newsletters. I have over 90,000 readers as I write this
so if you have a hot product this should give you a great start. The
only requirement is that it must be a new product created by you or
someone you made a deal with.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

Washington DC was nasty as could be. As I sat on the bench waiting
for my bus to arrive I couldn’t wait to get back to the backwoods of
Louisiana. I had almost sat in a pool of blood that was on the far
end of the bench and I was ready to go. I truly hope people coming
to visit our country don’t make DC one of their stops.

Anyway, before my bus arrived I was approached by a nicely dressed
elderly gentleman in need of directions. I told him I had no idea
what he was looking for as I too was just passing through. To this
day I’m not sure why, but we started talking as if we had known each
other for years.

We talked about life, people and eventually the conversation turned
to business. It was here that the gentlemen saw something in me, I
suppose, that made him feel like sharing what he said was the
greatest secret ever told. He said everyone had heard it but almost
no one paid any attention to it, even though it was the one thing
that could bestow a fortune upon any man or woman who used it.

My ears where definitely starting to perk up. Something about his
tone told me this man knew from whereof he spoke. And I wanted to
know what the secret was with a passion. He must have sensed my
anxiousness because at that very moment he gave me a warning that
was almost a scolding.

I’ll try to recount here as best I can the rest of our
conversation…

Man: "Do not make the mistake of shrugging off what I am about to
tell you because you have heard it before. No doubt you have heard
it already from at least one person in your life. You may have even
heard it many times. Do you have any aversion to religion Mr. Says?"

Me: "No I don’t. I don’t believe many preachers know what they are
talking about or even what they are trying to teach, but I do know
the Bible has a lot of great knowledge in it."

Man: "Good. I would not want you to discount what I am about to tell
you because it does come directly from the Bible. But its
applications reach far beyond what most people can conceive of. It
will take thought, intense pondering on your part, to begin to get
some inkling of its power."

"This simple secret, when applied to business, will draw money to
you as easily as water runs down a mountain. Even a fool can apply
it and prosper. When applied to relationships, it will create more
friends than you can handle" (laughing heartily)

Me: "What is it, I’m dying to know now?"

Man: "Patience Mr. Says, Patience. I will not give it to you as it
has always been repeated by fools who have no respect or knowledge
of what it even means. No. I will give it to you another way."

"What type of business are you interested in?"

Me: "Well, I’m dabbling in Mail Order right now. I would like to
place ads and sell books."

Man: "Fine. Fine. Mail Order it is. Let me tell you how to create a
fortune in this Mail Order. All you have to do is create the product
you want to buy"

Me: "I don’t understand"

Man: "You will"

"You see, you are your market. Whatever you want, there are millions
of other people wanting the same thing. That elusive product you are
looking for is the product millions of others are also looking for
right now."

"All you have to do is create the product you want to buy, the
product you yourself have been looking for. Once you have this
product, what would you want the sales message to say so that you
know this is the product you have been looking for?"

"If someone else where selling this product, what would you want the
ad to say, what would get you to buy this product?. When you have
that answer, that is the ad you want to create."

Me: "I see" (hesitantly)

Man: "See the business across the street here? Pizza. I could triple
the business that place does inside of 10 minutes. That’s what I do
by the way" (smiling)

"All I would do is walk into the business as a customer. I would sit
there and imagine all the things that could be done to me that would
make me a loyal customer to that business for life. What could they
do for me that would make me feel this way?"

"Once I had the answers to that question, I would implement them
across the board. Every customer would be treated the way I had
imagined. And without any doubt what so ever that business would
triple the profits it now makes."

Me: "I think I know…"

Man: "Wait, you don’t really know anything yet. That’s the problem
with people. They brush something off because of where it came from
or because they heard it many times. Leave that for fools. You won’t
"know it" until you have deeply pondered it and put it to use."

Me: "Ok"

Man: "What I am telling you has power undreamed of. The simple words
used to describe it cannot contain it. Does not do justice to it,
and has been prostituted by blabber mouths who let wisdom fall off
their lips with not even a single brain cell grasping what they are
rambling about."

"What I am telling you is Law, not man’s Law, but the very Law’s of
nature herself. It’s the way things work and those who truly
understand it rise to the top in every field known to man."

"What people don’t understand is that it applies to everything. This
secret can be applied with virtually every step you take, everything
you do, every word you speak and everyone concerned profits by it."

"If you are a writer, write like you would like to be written to"

"If you are a salesman, sell like you would like to be sold to"

"If you are a speaker, speak like you would like to be spoken to"

"If you want more love, then love like you would like to be loved"

"If you want more friends, be the friend you would like to see"

"When you infuse everything you do with this secret it takes on a
magical power. Businesses dominate the market, books become best
sellers, leaders attract huge and loyal followings."

"How would you like it?"
"How would you respond to it?"
"How would it make you feel?"

"Those are great questions to think about every time you do or
create something. You will get into the hearts and minds of everyone
who comes under your influence if you will first think how you would
have it done to you."

"I’m certain you already know the quote from the Bible I’m referring
to. But don’t repeat it, just ponder it and pratice it."

Me: "I do. But I’ve never thought of how it could actually apply to
everything in life. I too was one of those fools who passed it over
without so much as a second thought. I really want to thank you for
sharing this with me."

Man: "It’s been a real pleasure talking with you Mr. Says, have a
safe journey home."

———–

And with that, he was gone. The funny thing was, as I was riding
home on the bus I realized I never got his name, nor do I remember
ever giving him mine. Maybe he saw my luggage tag. I’m not sure. It
really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’ve profited from
that advice for the last 15 years.

I’m not even really any good at it either and I’ve still pulled in
huge amounts of money. Especially from the Internet. This is one
place this knowledge can really shine. People have always asked me
my secret. How come the Warriors is still here, with the same
products, with all this competition, after all these years?

This one simple secret is the answer. I always ask myself how would
I like to be treated by this company? What would I like to see? What
would I like to get? How would I like to be dealt with?

Those simple questions are all you have to answer. When you do get
the answers, put them into action and watch what happens.

Create The Site You’ve Been Looking For
Write Like You Would Like To Be Written To
Sell Like You Would Like To Be Sold To
Talk Like You Would Like To Be Talked To
Deal Like You Would Like To Be Dealt With
Create For Others What You Would Like Created For You
Excite Others The Way You Would Like To Be Excited

To Your Success,
Allen Says

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset in
your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to
raise your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on
the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for
undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of
time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best
interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high
search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are
lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look
for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine
optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the
approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer
clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to
raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine
policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website
severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine’s
index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the
regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect
a search engine spider and divert them to this special page, which
is set-up to artificially boost your search engine position. Doorway
or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an
entirely different server. Google, one of the largest and most
important search engine on the Internet, will remove your website
from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. Never, never
employ any company that uses this technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you
hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for
you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of
the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some
companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell
their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in
writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out
is the company’s track record of results. However, don’t take the
company’s word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their
results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their
simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and
verify their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The
ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are
the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of
search engines can change with the landscape of the overall
Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine
Watch. You can access this at http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great
results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with unpopular words.
For instance, the keyword "cat leashes" will get high popularity
ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are
looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the
software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can
order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year.
This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on
actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company
claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range
of positions over a number of different search engines using
different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report
for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report
should show good positions on a number of the most popular search
engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make
sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have
done. Some companies will use other company’s results in order to
get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company
they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their
search engine optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful search engine
optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide
range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and
phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you
should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a
report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search
engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine
marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company
that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your
search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust
its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions
must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine
optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a
monthly report. It is essential that this report should show
rankings for the most popular search engines. Don’t be impressed by
a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small
search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also
confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you
are indeed the popular search engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that
you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a
chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data
such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the
top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are
considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month,
and that the sample report they show you includes findings and
recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company
will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a
continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your
positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your
search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company,
but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is
crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a
casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a
thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider
waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your finances to
catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will
also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new
company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a
company without a proven track record – and that risk is your money!
Don’t take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least
a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don’t
use a company that won’t show your references because of any reason,
confidentiality included. Remember – even doctors will provide
references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of
two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise,
specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them
what their experience was like with the company, such as their
availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their
ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall
performance of the company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make
significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors
coming to their site. You are looking for a search engine
optimization company that can balance the needs of both search
engines and site visitors without compromising either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search
engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the
reference. Without profits, it doesn’t matter whether your positions
are at the top of the list or not.

Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and
author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online
since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and
succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free
monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web
site promotions that can help YOU!

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to
your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination
– your website – you need to provide them with specific and
effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do
this by creating carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the Internet.
Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of
traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords
are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors
actually making it all the way to your site – or of seeing any real
profits from the visitors that do arrive – decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If
they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive
your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the
chance to find out about it. So your first step in plotting your
strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your
search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven’t followed certain
specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It’s hard to be objective
when you are right in the center of your business network, which is
the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient
keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your
customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer,
your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential
search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many
potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that
your understanding of your business and your customers’
understanding is significantly different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you
accumulate from them are words and phrases you probably never would
have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside
resources should you add your own keyword to the list. Once you have
this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number
of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality
visitors to your website. By "quality visitors" I mean those
consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just
cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures. In
evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three
elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective
quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the
chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will
then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of
keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real
search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even
suggest variations of your words and phrases. The higher the number
this software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can
logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with
this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the
search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are down at
the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never
scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn’t enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must
move on to the next criteria, which is specificity. The more
specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the
consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find
you.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained
popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile companies." However,
you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword "automobile
body shops" would rank lower on the popularity scale than
"automobile companies," but it would nevertheless serve you much
better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything
from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only
those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders being
directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your
services are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that,
but the greater the specificity of your keyword is, the less
competition you will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires
putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the
seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a
service or product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let’s
look at another example, such as a consumer who is searching for a
job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between
"Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do you
think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this
type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second
one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have
decided on their career, have the necessary experience, and are
ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out
of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his
or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are
ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering
of your keywords until your find the most specific and directly
targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must
continually evaluate performance across a variety of search engines,
bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does popular lingo.
You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will
not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the
effectiveness of your keywords in individual search engines. There
is now software available that analyzes consumer behavior in
relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to discern which
keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good
keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find keywords that
direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill
out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important
factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should
be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or
inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine
success. This may sound like a lot of work – and it is! But the
amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what
will ultimately generate your business’ rewards.

Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and
author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online
since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and
succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free
monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web
site promotions that can help YOU!

Your website’s ranking on search engines is a vital element of your
overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link
popularity through legitimate methods. Unfortunately, the Internet
is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve
their link popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are
now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have increased their
rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines tracks down
such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed
from the search engine’s index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites
are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in
danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a search
engine’s index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such
harsh treatment. But there are things you can do – and things you
should be sure NOT to do – which will prevent this kind of
misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are
linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website
ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use
it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link
popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful
about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes
penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the
purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have
actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when
a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you
are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must
check, and double-check, all the links that are active on your links
page to make sure you haven’t linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have
linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to
download the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. You will
then see that most pages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented
by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale.
This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It
is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are
linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the
flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows
only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not
been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity.
However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links
to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once
you have linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost
their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines
usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their
rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your
keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search
engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of
keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their
keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to
their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them
the same color as the background color of the page, such as a
plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see
these words with the human eye – but the eye of search engine spider
can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to
index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes
back and boosts that page’s link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search
engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a search engine
perceive the use of hidden text – splat! the page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit
overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the
background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text
inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text
and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false
penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color
to text as the background color of the page – ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called
"keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in
the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard
in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses
what is called "Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying
to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords
to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit
to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you
have overdone it and penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without
sounding as if you are stuttering – unless your keyword is part of
your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword
density to soar. So, if your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure
you don’t use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text
on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not
repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should
never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.

The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of
you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to
understand. For the rest of you cloaking is when the server directs
a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different
page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked" because it is invisible
to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site’s
search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider
everything it needs to rocket that page’s ranking to the top of the
list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of
deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these
sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked
for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of
code, often referred to as "pagejacking." This kind of shielding is
unnecessary these days due to the use of "off page" elements, such
as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that
absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster
understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great
risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and
your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly
penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any
appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.

Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and
author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online
since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and
succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free
monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web
site promotions that can help YOU!