What You Must Know About Spam

Does spam annoy you?  Spam and scams online, how would you define them?  What are they and how can we avoid them?  Read on if you want to find out.  Leave a comment to let me know what you think of this article.

What You Must Know About Spam

By: Mihaela Lica

What Is Spam?

When referring to emails, according to the NCES (National Centre for Education Statistic), "Spam refers to electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define Spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. In addition to being a nuisance, Spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Because the Internet is a public network, little can be done to prevent Spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, the use of software filters in e-mail programs can be used to remove most Spam sent through e-mail."

Some search engines use the term to describe websites that try to attain a high listing rank by submitting identical or mirror pages. In this article I am going to give you a few tips about email Spam. 

If we give a too general definition to the word, we might end up taking for Spam perfectly legitimate emails. Not "any" unsolicited mail is Spam. Spam means unsolicited bulk email.

If a message is unsolicited that doesn't make it Spam. The same goes for bulk. A message is Spam only if it is both unsolicited and bulk. When you receive an unsolicited job enquiry, you do receive an uncalled-for email. But is that Spam? No. What about a newsletter? That is bulk, but no Spam if you are a subscriber. 

Why Do You Get Spam?

Have you posted your email address online in forums, chat rooms, on your website? Than why do you marvel? Spammers gather the addresses from the Internet; so no wonder your own found its way onto a spammer's list. Besides, spammers use different other means to get what they want: viruses, Trojans, buying from other spammers. 

Spam Scams

How many times have you received an "update your account" email from paypal, a bank or ebay? How many times have you received a "warning message"? Maybe it didn't look suspicious to you as it came from an institution you work with, but was it really that way? This kind of emails is referred to as "phishing scam". There is not much you can do when this happens. Just don't click on any links in that email, don't give away any confidential information such as social security number, bank account or credit card number. There are some free tools that can protect you against known phishing websites. For example download the free EarthLink toolbar and report the scam to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.

What about the emails from different Nigerian (or other nationalities) citizens offering you a percentage of a vast sum of money? Yes, you've got that right: scam. You'll only loose your money on this one. Better don't be curious. They will ask you to pay a fee in advance - a so called transfer tax, and guess what: some complications will appear, you have to pay more and more and end up with nothing. And don't believe the "you won money" lottery sweepstakes either. You'll only spend. The same goes for the Nigerian purchase scam: they want to buy something from you, pay by check and they wish the goods to be sent in Lagos, Nigeria. 

A Major Don't

Don't reply to spammers... ever! Don't send any "remove me" message. By doing so you confirm your address is active, you show you read bulk messages, you prove your ISP doesn't use Spam filters. You are the perfect candidate. You will never be removed. On the contrary... 

Spam Fighters

If Spam really bothers you and you want to fight against it, than you have plenty of possibilities. If you are an American, join Cauce at: www.cauce.org. If not... check out Cauce's international partners (example: EuroCAUCE for Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, France, Norway).

Associations such as to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or other volunteers' organizations are there to help protecting you against scam or other illegal emails (children pornography for example). Detailed information about Spam, Spammers and ways to fight against them you can find here: www.spamhaus.org.

Author Bio
Mihaela Lica is a skilled journalist and PR consultant, founder of Pamil Visions - www.pamil-visions.com Previously she used to work as a military TV redactor for Pro Patria and the Military Media Trust within the Public Relations Directorate of the Romanian Ministry of Defence.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

Source:  By Mihaela Lica

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/email_articles/spam_what_to_know.htm

How to Setup a Winning Autoresponder Series — How to Start an Email List #4

Autoresponders are a great way to increase traffic to your site but here are some pitfalls to watch out for.  Are you making these mistakes?  Read on and let me know what you think of this article with a comment below.

Golden Rules For the Use of Autoresponders

By: Morris Clopton

Autoresponders are a perfect way to increase traffic to your site. They can save many valuable hours by automatically answering emails concerning frequently asked questions about a service or product or by sending a welcome letter to new members of your program. There are many ways that autoresponders can help your business. One of the most important is their ability to track the effectiveness of your promotions. Since autoresponders are one of the most popular marketing tools available today, they are being used by a lot of different kinds of business and websites. Some of these take advantage of the system to use the autoresponders in a negative manner. You should be aware of some of the "Golden Rules" when using autoresponders.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder Address When Submitting to Search Engines.

Since you will most likely submit your site to search engines such as Google or Yahoo!, directories, classifieds, and free for all sites, you should be made aware of the fact that these sites commonly use an autoresponder as well. If you were to use your autoresponder to contact these companies, their autoresponder will reply to yours and so on and so on. Thus creating a cycle of autoresponses that will flood your email box and theirs as well.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Subscribe to Ezines or Discussion Forums.

Since most of the time an Ezine will send you updates and new information regularly, your auto responder will send them a message each time. In a discussion forum, every person in the discussion forum will receive your auto response. This can be irritating and most of the time you will be unsubscribed. It is often hard for the administrators of the forum or ezine to determine who is using the autoresponse and therefore it is simply common courtesy to never use an autoresponer in this manner.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Take Advantage Of Unsuspecting Individuals.

Some very unprofessional companies will use autoresponders to respond to an automated message when this is done the address in the "from" field will be automatically subscribed to their mailing list. This is a extremely un ethical use of autoresponders and those who do it are in jeopardy of creating a very negative image of themselves and their company. Rather than promote their service or business, this usually leads to people becoming very upset and spreading a negative word about your company rather than a good one.

The Internet can be a great place to do business and autoresponders can be an excellent way to save time, however when used in an unprofessional way, they can lead to frustration and aggravation for others. Your company will suffer the loss of much business if you choose to participate in these abusive practices. The appropriate use of auto responders can generate a large amount of business, while inappropriate use can drive away that business.

Author Bio
Morris Clopton can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours... To learn more, visit: www.AchieveWealth.com/pips.html

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

Source:  By Morris Clopton

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/website_traffic/autoresponders_golden_rules.htm

How To Get More Traffic To Your Website - How To Promote Your Website And Increase Traffic!

If you want to know the way to make the most of promoting your website read on.  Let me know how useful you find this article with a comment below.

Promoting Your Website

By: Susan Jennerjohn

6 Proven Strategies to Promoting Your Website

There's a proven way to make money online, you can do this by selling information or knowledge you have.

The great part is you'll be your own boss. You're work from your home, while earning money on line. Isn't this fun?

But to successful, you'll need to promote your website.

Make a comprehensive marketing plan that where you've clearly identified your markets and how to appeal to them. You'll also need to 

work closely with your web team to optimize your website, so your business connects with both the human audience and content spiders.

But remember - you can only do some much promotions and marketing before you fall flat on your nose. Be sure you have the following elements present in your website.

To promote your website successfully, you need to have great products and services. Otherwise, they will come in to look but won't buy. Your promotional efforts will be a total waste.

Make sure your website is perfectly positioned, to sell and process orders. If your e-commerce aspect is not secure, then no one will buy. No matter how many great products you have. No matter how many links you swap with, promoting your website will just be a waste of time.

Third element - internet marketing, means you need a marketing plan which clearly speaks to your audience. Make sure that it's at a price you can afford. If you spend too much on your promotional efforts, only to have it die down because of lack of funds, you will lose your momentum. So stick to a promotional budget you can afford.

So how do you promote your website?

Website design

Keep your website design basic and user friendly. This means minimizing the use of animation or outlandish colors. Make sure your content has the appropriate keywords in them, so that search engines can read and put you at the upper top of the rankings.

Optimizing your website for search engine rankings

Make it a point to submit your website to two of the most popular and heavily used crawler based search engines - Yahoo and Google. If your promotional budget is small, make sure it's keyword rich. Then submit, wait patiently for a few months before it to appear. Or you can do a sponsored listing if you have a bigger promotional budget.

Submit your website to directories. This is free; and many seo experts say you'll dramatically increase your chances of appearing at the top of the search engine results. Try these directories: MSN, Yahoo, Google, AltaVista and Inktomi, for starters.

Do swap links with other websites. Only after, you've researched their websites to see if you're a fit for each other. Some will refuse to swap links, but don't let it throw you. Just keep trying.

Post authoritative comments about subjects you are knowledgeable about. A majority of these forums give you the freedom to put your URL at the bottom do so.

Lastly - write articles about subjects you are an expert on. Submit these articles to the directories that have big audiences. Include your URL and byline. Soon, you'll get the traffic you need, because of the promotional efforts you've done. 

Author Bio

Not long ago, I didn't know ANYTHING about Internet marketing... However, within just 2 weeks, I launched my own website AND learned how to profit from an opt-in list, pull in sales with ezines, make money with Google Adwords and setup my own BLOG! 

Here's how: www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-9583 

Here's the website: 

www.JennerJohnHomeBusiness.com  

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

Source: by Susan Jennerjohn

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/website_traffic/strategies_promote_website.htm

How To Get Free Traffic To Your Affiliate Link (Free Traffic Sources)

Is there really such a thing as FREE traffic?  Free traffic exchanges may seem like the ideal but are they what they seem?  Read on for the lowdown and let me know what you think with a comment below.

Free Traffic

By: Andrew Daigle

If you're an online marketer and own a website, you know what free traffic means. You also know there's really no such thing as free. There are free traffic exchanges that allow you to get free traffic to your website or promotion, but you must spend your time surfing through other websites to earn credits. Free traffic exchanges are a great way to get lots of visitors to your site however, so spending an hour a day surfing, is not a lot to ask if you're making sales from your efforts.

Free traffic exchanges are a great marketing tool for a many reasons. The best reason is that you get lots of people looking, and hopefully clicking on your website or promotional pages. But there are hidden benefits to free traffic exchanges you may not have even considered.

Search engines love free traffic exchanges because of all the incoming and outgoing links they generate. Plus the rapidly changing content is another reason the search engines love traffic exchanges. Exchanges that have more content also generate a higher page rank, and therefore more traffic, and increased memberships. The key is to find exchanges that are very active and have lots of members. The more members they have, the more potential customers you get looking at your offer and your chances for sales conversions are that much better. But bigger isn't always better.

Some free traffic exchanges may convert sales like crazy for one person, and be a complete waste of time for another. If everyone were promoting the same website or affiliate program is the same traffic exchange for example, then chances are you would not make many sales. Even if you were promoting the #1 thing on the internet, if everyone promoted the same program, your chances are much lower that someone will purchase through your website or link to make you any money. Also, when people see the same ad over and over again, they get desensitized to it. Don't fall into this trap. It's one thing to try and sell a very popular product/service/ebook etc, but it's another thing when a million other people are trying to do it too. Competition is a good thing, because it validates your market, but too much competition is tough and it's time to move on to something else.

We all know clicking on ads in a free traffic exchange can be very boring, monotonous and can take a lot of time. That's why you need to make the best of your opportunity or you will just be wasting a lot of your time and effort on something that just isn't working. If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn't promoting, especially within that particular traffic exchange.

One way to use free traffic exchanges to your advantage is to join a few at first, and see if your sales pick up. If your sales aren't doing well, then test out a few more. When you do find a few traffic exchanges that appear to be generating sales for you, then narrow those down until you find the one, or two that are working. Now concentrate your efforts on those because they're the ones you want. At least for now anyway. Things may change, so keep an eye on your campaigns and if sales seem to be falling off, then it might be time to change your offer or find another traffic exchange that could pick your profits up again.

As I mentioned, your individual promotion is everything. If you're trying to promote something everyone else is, I don't care what traffic exchange service you're using, your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all. You cannot always blame the exchange. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and think if you're doing all you can to make sales.

If you're going to use multiple free traffic exchanges, and I recommend that you do, you should get yourself a multi-tab web browser. Many of these browsers are free and run on PCs and MACs. The tabs feature allows you to have one web browser open with multiple tabs each going to a separate website. You could easily put 5 or 6 of your free exchange sites in these tabs, and earn credits for all of them at the same time. So instead of surfing for 1/2 an hour or an hour earning 200 hits for one exchange, you could earn 200 hits for 5 exchanges in the same amount of time. This is a huge time saver and multiplies your earned hits by 5X or 6X.

Getting free traffic to your website is a lot of work. If you don't have the money to spend on full blown PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords, free traffic exchanges are a great way to get the traffic you need at a very good price. Free!

Author Bio

Andrew Daigle is owner and creator of TrumpTraffic.com, a Free Traffic Exchange www.trumptraffic.com, DXInOne Free Training Site and Forum www.dxout.com and Google AdWords Training www.adwording.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

Source: by Andrew Daigle

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/website_traffic/free_traffic_exchange_sites.htm

Free Article Writing Tips to Increase Website Traffic

Want to know how to maximise the free website traffic you get out of writing articles for your website?  Here are some great tips you can try.  Read on and leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Free Article Writing Tips to Increase Website Traffic

By: John Michaels

If you're not doing so already, you may want to consider writing articles about your website's topic. Writing copyright free articles is a great way to:

·         Establish your credibility and build your reputation and brand

·         Establish yourself as an expert in your field

·         Increase your exposure on the internet

·         Gain laser targeted traffic to your website

·         Increase the number of one way links to your website, which should help your website in the search results.

Writing articles about the topic of your website is a fantastic way to demonstrate your expertise and credibility and at the same time allows you to build your reputation and your brand. Submitting your articles to the various free article sites gives your articles the opportunity to be picked up by other webmasters for their websites and newsletters. When your articles get used on these other websites they must be used with the author bio section un-edited. This means that you can generate one way links to your website, which in turn leads to greater exposure and better rankings in the search engines. If the readers of your articles on other sites click through to your site, you gain targeted traffic.

Some Article Writing Tips

To get the greatest benefit from your article writing endeavors, try to keep the following article writing tips in mind:

·         Try to stay away from turning your article into a sales pitch. Give your readers credit - they will be able to distinguish a sales pitch right away. Once they think they're just reading another sales pitch they will quickly click away from your article. I can just about guarantee that no one will pick up your sales pitch and use it on their website, unless it's one of your affiliates.

·         Don't include too many hyperlinks within the article body and stick to only one in the author bio section. Most webmasters will not pick up an article, no matter how good it is, if there are too many outgoing links. I would recommend not having any links within the article body but sometimes this is unavoidable.

Which situation would you rather have: 1 article with 1 outgoing link to your website that gets picked up by 1,000 webmasters or 1 article with 10 outgoing links that gets picked up by 10 webmasters?

·         Check, re-check and then check your article again for typos and grammatical errors. Have someone else proofread it for you before submitting it. Nothing says amateur more than typos and grammatical errors.

·         Write articles that complement the topic of your website. Don't write about something totally unrelated to your website. Remember, you want to establish your credibility and expertise. Write about what you know.

·         When adding that one link back to your site, make sure to include a keyword targeted link back to your site. I'm talking specifically about the words between the anchor tags. For example, this is how you should structure the link back to your website: <a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com">keywords go here<a>.

When the search engine robots come across this link they will index the anchor text and it will help you with those keywords in the search engines. Do not waste this valuable link by just having your website address (www.website.com) as the anchor text unless you have your main keywords in the website address. Try to vary the keywords a little as well when creating this link. There is speculation that having too many "uniform" links to a site may hurt you - just something to keep in mind.

·         Do not place a copyright notice at the top of your article. This leads to confusion and may cause webmasters to stay away from posting your articles on their website and in their newsletters.

·         It may be a good idea to write completely new content for your articles. Some writers just copy and paste parts of their websites and put them into articles. This may lead to a "duplicate content" penalty and may end up hurting your search engine results. I would recommend that you should play it safe and come up with totally new content for your articles.

How Many Articles Should I Write?

The number of articles that you will have to write really depends on how good your competitors are. If you're competing against many highly optimized websites, then you may have your work cut out for you. On the other hand, if you notice that your competitors are not all that great at the SEO thing, your road to article writing will be much shorter. Any way you look at it, writing articles can bring too many benefits that are yours for the taking.

Author Bio

John Michaels is a part-time editor for ArticleGeek.com. John has developed many websites over the years in many different business areas. He is a professional web developer/designer/architect. ArticleGeek is a free website content resource for publishers and webmasters and a place where authors may submit articles for FREE!

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

Source:  John Michaels

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/website_traffic/free_article_writing_tips.htm

RSS Provides Multiple Opportunities to Share Your Information

Are you making the most of RSS Feeds in marketing your website?  Here are some tips and tricks to increase the popularity of your website.  Read on and let me know what you think with a comment below.

RSS Provides Multiple Opportunities to Share Your Information

By: Michelle McClory

RSS content syndication is a relatively new member of the internet marketing family of campaign options. And, it seems as though new uses for RSS content are coming about very quickly. This is possibly due to recent changes in the way that major search engines like Yahoo! and Google want web site owners to advertise. 

It seems like it shouldn't matter to the search engines - the way you choose to market your website. But, it does when your link popularity begins to fall due to too many links on irrelevant web directories, etc. With RSS content syndication, you will not face that problem. And the better your content, the better the chances of increasing your standing with the search engines (not to mention your site visitors).

RSS feeds are no longer just appearing on the large news sites in order to show the latest headlines. They are appearing on internet-enabled cell phones, PDA and other mobile devices. The reason this is possible is the simple XML format used to produce the RSS feed. By using RSS syndication to spread the word about your site, you are now using one of the best advertising methods for reaching the "non-traditional" web browsers installed on these mobile devices.

Anyone familiar with web directory will understand the approach recommended for RSS syndication that I will term "many doors." The many doors approach means that you are providing several different headlines for the SAME article! If you have done directory submissions, or worked with a directory submission service this is what you provided for anchor text and site descriptions.

So, you can see that while some level of time investment will be required... you will no longer need to generate huge numbers of SEO content in order to "trick" the search engines. As a matter of fact, you will probably want to concentrate your efforts on providing a few high-quality relevant articles that will gain and keep the attention of your site visitors.

You will need to generate content an update your website frequently if you want your RSS content syndication technique to be an effective form of marketing. Why?

The answer is simple, but often overlooked by those publishing RSS content for syndication. When site visitors become accustomed to looking at an RSS feed for teasers about new information they can use, and they notice that there have not been any new additions for a while they stop looking. If you decide that RSS content syndication is a good marketing tool for your site, understand that you are committing a small amount of time in order to draw and keep your web site traffic.

How often will I need to update? That is a question frequently asked by those new to the world of RSS marketing. It really depends on a few things. If you are publishing content about developments in the stock market, your readers may expect hourly updates. However, if you are publishing content on the week's hottest new movies you could probably publish once a week and keep your readers happy. Of course, if you are syndicating RSS content about new books written on the topic of antique shoe stretches you may only need to publish content annually. This also points out another thought to consider.

If your content is so specific that it applies only to a limited group of people, then either RSS content syndication is not the right marketing technique for your web site or you need to expand your content offerings. If you find your website traffic lacking, why not try expanding your content to include a broader audience?

When you publish content on your website that you want your visitors to see, but you also want to make that same content available to others interested in the same subject area, RSS feed services provide a great and inexpensive way to expand your readership!

There are actually new search engines (Example, Feedster) that are in place with the purpose of allowing people to search for syndicated content that can be placed on their RSS feeds in order to provide a service to their web site visitors. Because there is such a service, there must be a need for this type of content! Therefore, listing your syndicated content with sites like Feedster will enable other web site owners seeking your information to find it.

Here is a short overview of what you need to do in order to get your content out there for RSS syndication:

First, you will need to compile a list of the content articles provided on your website with their headlines, URL and description. From this list, you will need to create a simple XML file (RSS format).

Second, you submit the XML file to services that make RSS syndicated content available for other users.

Third, you wait for approval of your RSS feed from each of the services.

Fourth, after you are accepted by a site you need to find out how often they will update their system with your latest XML RSS feed. You then need to ensure that you are updating your information at the appropriate time!

Finally, you need to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor! This is when you will begin to see increased traffic and sales to your site.

Author Bio

Michelle McClory is an online marketing expert with 5 years of experience who is proud to be a member of the eByro team. If you would like to explore more Internet Marketing techniques visit eByro - the Vertical Portal for Internet Entrepreneurs at: www.ebyro.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

Source: By: Michelle McClory

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/rss_articles/rss_share_information.htm

How to make an RSS Feed - What NOT to do with RSS

Here are some tips on what not to do with RSS feeds.  Let me know what you think and leave a comment below.

What NOT to do with RSS

By: Richard Keir

Everybody is hot on using RSS to increase their traffic, promote their sites and do their marketing. Why?

Well, it's newish - at least within the internet marketing segment. Not as new as it was a year or so ago, of course. Getting significant results is a little harder as the competition increases.

With the profusion of blogs and spam blog-pinging to attract the search engine spiders to index static pages, the utility of this approach has been seriously impaired by unscrupulous overkill.

Pinging every 3 minutes is - even to an idiot - absurd - or at least it should be. Why not just scream, "I AM AN AUTOMATED SEARCH ENGINE SPAM PROGRAM." Lovely footprint, very hard for even a seriously brain-damaged bot to identify.

Still there are a lot of sites with RSS feeds that are real feeds being produced as pages change and new content is added. So, yes, RSS feeds still work. Maybe not as fast and maybe they are less powerful than they were, but RSS remains a valid and increasingly necessary part of site promotion.

Techniques do get abused and the early rapid response tends to decline as a result. If people were a little clearer about what they're doing and why and how it all works, the frenzied search for new approaches could, perhaps, be a little less daunting. And if the quick buck artists were less successful at misleading people into doing things that are bad for everybody in the long run, then . . . but that's how it is, was, and apparently will be forever more.

One thing about a real feed - it's for more than getting bots to index your pages. If that's all you want then you can stop reading here.

For the remaining readers (if any), consider the single most critical element of any marketing or website promotion effort. You can have the most magnificent site, the greatest ever-changing content, beautiful and valid feeds in all formats -- and very little in the way of traffic. Unlike the search engines who have all those lovely spiders we are so hot to gain the attention of - most blog/RSS search engines and directories do not send out bots in search of RSS feeds.

Nope. You have got to submit to them. I know. I've done the smart thing - submit to a bunch - and the incredibly unspeakably stupid thing - letting the submissions slide because, frankly, it's a horrible boring tedious and extremely boring (did, I mention how boring it is?) job. That's not a very pretty admission, but there you are. I have a limited ability to tolerate severe boredom - even when I know I'm hurting myself.

And if you don't do the submissions, you won't get the traffic you could have. And that means fewer conversions, sales, opt-ins or whatever it is your site is about.

Ah, but there are answers to this problem. RSS submission services exist and so do RSS submission tools. In fact here's a new (still in beta) service that allows you to submit to 17 blog/RSS search engines - with more promised - for free. It's called FeedShot and you can find it at www.feedshot.com.

Now with FeedShot you need to enter each feed individually. However, with a tool like RSS Submitter you can enter from 3 (in the free evaluation version) feeds to an unlimited number in the SEO version. RSS Submitter then submits automatically to over 70 blog and RSS search directories and can also be used to do additional manual submissions with auto-form filling.

This tool is the purest gold for the serious RSS feed marketer. It works, it's easy to use and it saves you incredible amounts of time - and eliminates that nasty boring tedious repetitive work. Check it out and download a free evaluation copy through www.MarketingWithRSS.com/rss-submitter/

Just to be clear here you should realize that you can create and use RSS feeds without ever using any of the ping sites. RSS feed updates are noted by RSS readers/aggregators which check feeds for new content either on demand or on a schedule. RSS/blog search directories also check on a regular basis. Users find your feed through these directories. Again, if you want visitors, then no matter how you do it, you've got to submit.

Obviously, if your feed is produced by a blog, you'll want to notify ping sites when your content is updated. But you still need to submit the feeds. And you can also submit your blog URL to a whole host of pure blog directories, but that's a different subject.

The people who use RSS readers/aggregators in addition to or in place of a browser are the real target group for RSS marketing. When you consider how and what you want to market with RSS, keep in mind that this group tends to still be made up of relatively affluent, early adopters with some technical sophistication, a taste for new technology, a low boredom threshold and a keen appreciation of the value of their time. And don't forget to submit.

Author Bio

Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations, eCommerce related matters, RSS and more. For more information on RSS Marketing - www.MarketingWithRSS.com/blog and on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building - www.building-ecommerce-websites.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com

Source:  by Richard Keir

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/rss_articles/what_not_to_do_with_rss.htm

How to Promote Your Content When You Have No Followers

Have you set up a blog, been posting day after day and looking to see how many people have visited your blog and asked yourself why no-one is visiting?  I’ve been there myself and know what it is like, then I stumbled across this video.  Thanks for the great tips Neil! I look forward to more of your videos.

But wait! Maybe your blog would benefit from more traffic if you knew how to get search engines to rank your blog highly.  If you want to know how search engines work to rank your blog read on. Mike Burke has some great advice about what you should know before posting.  As ever, your comments are always welcome.  Let me know what you think.

The Steps Before Website Traffic

By: Mike Burke

By now, you probably already have the theme of your website established, your keywords picked and your website ready to go live. You're thinking that you'll submit your site to the search engines, sit back and see how much traffic the search engines will send you, right?

STOP! There are many different avenues you can take to drive traffic to your site but they should only be taken after you make the search engines your first priority. The search engines should be your foundation. They'll always send you a certain amount of traffic if you have a high page rank.

IMPORTANT!

Your website must be 'set up' for a high page rank in the search engines and it's important to do it 'before' you submit your site for the first time. Here's the reason why:

Usually, after you submit your website to the search engines for the first time, your website will be 'spidered' fairly quickly and hopefully your site will be listed on one of the top pages.

Your website may not get 'spidered' again for months so if you make changes to optimize your site, you may not see your changes take effect for quite a while. You could be stuck on a back page, if any page at all, for a very long time.

Without getting into the mechanics of designing your website, here are the basics of setting up your website to be search engine friendly.

THE FIRST STEP is to establish the main keyword for your site. This is the word or phrase that you want people to type into the search engines to find your website. It's important to have your site focused around your main keyword.

Let's say you have a site dedicated to 'building your own home' so we'll use 'home building' as our main keyword example.

THE NEXT STEP is to create a title for your website and to place it in the 'title tag' of your site. The 'title tag' should be the first tag in the 'head' of your site and it's important because many search engines use the contents of the 'title tag' as the title of the listing. They also look for keywords in the title and your main keyword should be the first words in the title.

Generally, your title should be no more than 40 characters and, again, it should begin with your main keyword. Try to avoid using 'stop words' in your title. Stop words are transition words such as - and, but, or, for, with, etc.

Here's a possible title using our example main keyword 'home building' - Home Building - Home Construction Plans

Notice our main keyword is first, the title is less than 40 characters (39), there are no stop words and we managed to sneak in 3 secondary keywords - home construction, construction plans and home construction plans. Clever huh?

THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'keywords meta tag'. This is where you list all the keywords you want to use for your website starting with your 'main keyword'. A good rule of thumb is to use about 20 keywords and your main keyword should be contained in about half of them.

Using our example keyword 'home building' our keywords could be - home building, home construction, home building plans, home building cost, construction plans, etc.

Notice I didn't use our main keyword 'home building' twice in a row. For example - home building, home building plans, etc. Search engines might see this as spam and it could hurt your ranking.

THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'description meta tag'. This is where you describe your website and, again, you should start with your main keyword.

Keep your description to about 150 characters, use as few 'stop words' as you can and sprinkle in as many secondary keywords as possible.

Make your description interesting because search engines often use the contents in your 'description meta tag' as the description of your website in the listing.

THE NEXT STEP is to use your keywords often in the body of your website. Make sure your 'main keyword' is somewhere in the beginning and at the end of the body of your page.

It's a good idea to use your main keyword in an 'h1' tag and a few of your secondary keywords in an 'h2' tag. This tells the search engines that you put importance on your keywords.

It's also a good idea to underline your main keyword no more than once and to use bold text for your main keyword no more than once.

Although there are other factors that determine your position in the search engines, having the basics of what search engines look for will give you a much better chance of making that illusive first page and driving consistent website traffic to your site.

Author Bio

Mike Burke is the author of numerous articles and has an affection for website marketing. Learn how to drive tons of targeted traffic to your site without spending a dime on advertising. Visit us at 

http://www.starttheprofits.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/seo_search_engine_optimization/steps_before_website_traffic.htm