I’ve started working on writing more articles & getting them submitted to various directories. This is a time consuming process, but appears to be one of the few effective methods of getting decent, quality links pointing to my sites.

Although this whole writing process doesn’t come naturally to me, it’s surprising how quickly I’m now reaching my 500+ word target each time. But 500+ words in themselves are not enough; ensuring that the article contains combinations of the keywords & keyphrases you want to target is vital, as this content then shows that your site is relevant to those searched for keyphrases.

But are article submissions worth the time & effort? Once registered with an article directory, manual submissions take around 10 to 15 minutes on average to login, format and submit properly. Obviously, the writing of the article is a separate issue & can take a couple of hours to research and write. However, once the article is written, it can be re-submitted to a number of directories, withi only minor adjustments.

The more directories you submit your articles to, the more exposure they will receive & more links will be detected by the search engines, but you will need to make at least 10 submissions to get a reasonable exposure for your articles, adding up to a couple of hours per article!

To make the most of my time I have to make sure that the article directories I am submitting to, are able to bring me as many visitors and backlinks as possible. I am going to try to do at least 10 manual submissions for each article, so it’s important to choose those directories wisely. The only two ratings easily available to web users to judge the quality of websites and web pages are its Alexa Rating and Google PageRank. Both are not conclusive and often do not reflect the true authority or traffic of a page. But since there is nothing better, I will stick to these two figures when deciding if a directory is worth submitting to. Of course, one must not forget the power of themed sites. If you have a choice between a general directory and a directory focusing on the article topic; it’s better to choose the latter.

The current Top 10 article directories (by Alexa Ranking and with a Page Rank of around 5/6) are shown below & these are my starting point for any article submissions:

1. ezinearticles.com
2. ArticlesBase.com
3. buzzle.com
4. helium.com
5. webpronews.com
6. goarticles.com
7. searchwarp.com
8. articledashboard.com
9. articlealley.com
10. articlesnatch.com

However, there are some restrictions placed on articles by these directories; for example, buzzle.com insists that their articles are unique & not reproduced on any other directory, so you will have to write a different article just for this site. Some, such as ArticlesBase.com may apply “nofollow” to the article links, so you won’t benefit from an inbound link.

EzineArticles.com and Buzzle.com can bring you a lot of traffic, GoArticles.com brings you backlinks, and ArticlesFactory.com PageRank. You can even earn money from your articles by publishing them on Helium!

If you don’t have the time, or are not able to write articles by yourself, there are many content providers and ghost writers who can provide articles & then other services that submit them to the directories for you. I have used some of these services myself in the past, but I think the old adage of “you get what you pay for” applies, as I have not been impressed with the cheaper offerings I have seen so far!

I am considering using some more expensive services in the near future, but the cost does vary wildly; from $5 per article (for very poor offerings), to the most recent quote I had of £100 per article!! I think something inbetween will be more in my league & will blog about any that I find particularly useful/value for money.

Cashback Shopper has just received its 12,000th member!! )

I’m really pleased to have reached this milestone, but don’t want to rest on my laurels as there are still millions of people out there that shop online & yet have never heard of cashback!

The difficulty is getting that message out to people! Until now, I’ve been focussing on the terms cashback, cash back, money back etc. but after a discussion with an SEO company, think I might change tack slightly and work on bringing peoples attention to cashback, by targeting those that are searching for related terms, but NOT cashback itself.

Things like discount shopping, money saving offers & discount codes ALL relate to getting money off your online shopping, yet aren’t people specifically searching for cashback & therefore may not be aware of cashback shopping sites at all!

Unfortunately, these phrases are even more competitive online, so how effective it will be remains to be seen. I’m looking into the article submission side of online promotion & I’m also considering some offline promotion.

In the last few days, I’ve set up 5 Tweet accounts, focusing on My Travel Extras, Cashback Shopper, Freshwebz, Love Your Pets & UK Shopping Spree. I’m going to follow relevant Tweets through each of these accounts and add blog entries from the relevant blogs. How does this help promote a website? Other than bringing your site to the attention of other people, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t take much to add posts, so we’ll see!

Secretly spy on & uncover anyone’s Google Adword Keywords while you browse Google in real-time!

Download This Revolutionary New Keyword Research Tool For Free NOW!!

Keywords are the backbone and foundation of an online business as they are how people find your website. Without keywords, hardly anybody would ever find your site to purchase whatever it is you’re selling.

When broken down into its simplest form, what separates a failing online business from a thriving one is that the thriving business knows EXACTLY which targeted keywords/keyphrases will send “buyers” to their website. While, the failing internet business (99% of internet businesses) are blindly guessing which keywords to advertise with.

Based on this extremely simplistic view, we know that in order to have a successful internet business, we MUST know with 100% certainty which keywords are going to send potential buyers to our website – people that are actually looking to purchase whatever it is we’re selling.

Now, the question is…How do find out which keywords to advertise and base our business marketing on?

This is where PPC Web Spy comes into play…

With PPC Web Spy, you’ll be able to uncover all of the keywords that successful businesses are already making money with. Then, you’ll be able to take those keywords and advertise your own business.

Let me give you an example…

Let’s say you were selling a “how to make money on the internet” eBook. You would use PPC Web Spy to show you all of the keywords that a very well-known, proven, “how to make money on the internet” eBook seller was already advertising with.

Instead of you spending months and even years figuring out which keywords could potentially make you money, you can simply swoop in and take the keywords from this successful eBook seller… The keywords that probably took them months or years to uncover.

Then, just advertise your own eBook with those keywords and you can expect similar results!

Here’s a brief rundown of the specific “features” within PPC Web Spy…

You’ll be able to quickly and easily uncover any Google Adwords advertiser’s keywords in only a few seconds! Then, simply take those keywords and advertise your own product or service and get ready for the money to come rolling in!

You’ll be able to see critical Adwords data relating to each keyword. Data such as:

• The actual Adwords ads your competitors have written for each keyword
• The Cost Per Click, or amount your competitors are paying for each keywords they’re bidding on
• Your competitor’s Adwords rank, so you’ll be able to determine how much money you should be spending to get your site to a similar rank, to expect similar results.
• The total daily amount your competition is spending via Google Adwords
• And much more!

You can use PPC Web Spy to generate your own giant list of keywords based upon any of the individual keywords your competition is using!

You can also generate a giant, targeted keyword list by inputting your competitor’s domain name, allowing you to build an even larger, more targeted keyword list!

You’ll even be able to see the exact landing page (i.e. destination URL) that each Adwords advertiser is sending visitors to, WITHOUT actually clicking on their Adwords ad and charging them money – a very generous touch   )

It means that you’ll be able to shave off hours, days, months, and even years of time doing keyword research and testing exactly which keywords convert visitors to buyers. It means you won’t have to waste massive amounts of money as you slowly figure out your market’s “best” keywords.

PPC Web Spy saves you both time & money… and because PPC Web Spy is a Firefox plugin, rather than a bulky, standalone desktop application, you’ll be able to save money and time as you casually browse Google like you normally would. It’s VERY cool and powerful.

Don’t forget, the software is FREE to download, so why not give it a try & see how it can make a difference to your keyword research?!

As the recession has now been officially confirmed & the squeeze is on for businesses, many will be looking at areas where they can cut costs and these are often made in marketing strategies.

For many, search engine optimisation (SEO) is often a cost that’s cut, as perhaps it’s perceived that the benefits take longer to realise and are less tangible. However, dumping SEO can mean missing out on a fantastic cheap growth opportunity!

If you’re one of the businesses re-evaluating the future of your marketing strategy, consider the following before making your decision:

1. Ongoing Returns.
The value of SEO continues well after the actual optimisation has finished. Unlike other marketing, (PPC) where the value diminishes quickly after a campaign, SEO continues to generate results, at no additional cost!

2. The traffic is “free”.
While we understand the allure of PPC (fast, guaranteed, qualified traffic), it does cost for each visitor you receive. If you stop paying, your traffic stops. SEO, on the other hand, provides free traffic so your costs are easier to control. Plus, Internet searchers PREFER the natural search listings – 65% of users click on natural results in preference to PPC.

3. Go against the trend
While other businesses might shy away from SEO, or fail to understand it’s importance or benefits, it’s a great chance for businesses to capitalise on marginally lower competition. It could help generate quicker results.

4. Untapped Opportunities
There are still many untapped niches in terms of SEO, especially within localised and specialist industry sectors. Again this offers great growth opportunities for smart business operators, who can quickly climb to the top of their niche market.

5. Leverage the money saving trends online
Consumers ARE being more frugal with their spending and the online space is where they’re doing their comparison shopping. It’s vital for your business to be visible to them, which is why SEO is critical. Google is where the comparison shopping begins and where you need to be found – specifically within the first 30 results!

Given the above benefits and the fact it’s much cheaper than other online marketing initiatives, it seems only logical that SEO should actually be the last option you cut in your marketing plans.

If you’re looking for help with promoting your website, FreshWebz can discouss your SEO options with you.

According to metrics and research firm ComScore, the internet population (users over the age of 15) has now reached 1,007,730,000 visitors. The first time it’s broken the 1 billion visitor mark; and in news that will surprise few, Google sites were the home of most of these internet visitors providing access to an astounding 77% of the market.

I’ve been researching how to increase the amount of visits to my blogs – bearing in mind I now have 5 – and hopefully increasing the take up of the offers on the 4 shopping ones:

• www.freshwebz.co.uk/blog/
• www.cashbackshopper.co.uk/blog/
• www.loveyourpets.co.uk/blog/
• www.ukshoppingspree.com/blog/
• www.mytravelextras.co.uk/blog/

The first step I’ve taken is to create a profile at Technorati & “claim” all my blogs.

Technorati was founded to help bloggers to succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the online global conversation. As the leading blog search engine and most comprehensive source of information on the blogosphere, we index more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time and introduce millions of readers to blog and social media content.

Any updates to the blogs will be updated on Technorati automatically, so this will hopefully increase potential readership, provided I have something interesting to say!!! There are a number of other steps I am currently investigating, so I will add them to this post as I go along.

I’ve now set up feeds with Feedburner which can be subscribed to for RSS updates via Feedburner (which is now part of Google) rather than just directly from the blog itself:

• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ CashbackShopperOffersBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ MyTravelExtrasBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ LoveYourPetsBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ UkShoppingSpreeOffersBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ FreshwebzWebDesignAffiliateMarketingBlog

Feeds are a way for websites large and small to distribute their content well beyond just visitors using browsers. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates, delivered automatically via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email. Feeds also make it possible for site content to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other bite-sized technologies that make it possible to display blogs, podcasts, and major news/sports/weather/whatever headlines just about anywhere.

As Feedburner has been taken over by Google, it’s also possible to incorporate Adsense ads in the feeds – whether this is a good idea depends on what you ae advertising….having ads for your rivals in your own feed doesn’t seem like a good idea to me!

However, Feedburner states that it can help promote blogs in the following four ways:

1. Publicize your content and make it easy for people to subscribe.
2. Optimize distribution so that your content is properly formatted for all of the major directories and can be consumed by subscribers wherever they are.
3. Analyze your traffic to learn how many subscribers you have, where they’re coming from and what they like best.
4. Make Moneyitize by participating in the FeedBurner Ad Network. Why not reward yourself for your effort?

I’ll be returning to Feedburner to work on these four features once my blogs are “settled”.

Well, I did say I would blog about the downs of affiliate marketing too, so here goes!

What happened to all the Christmas sales?!!! I don’t mean sales in shops, desperate to attract people to them before they all go bust (goodbye Woolies & MFI), but the online sales I was expecting through Cashback Shopper. Transactions had been steadily rising as the membership grew, so I put extra effort (& money) into PPC to try & attract as many new members as possible for the Christmas rush.

But new memberships have dropped to a trickle & the amounts spent have also fallen as we get closer & closer to Christmas! I can only imagine that people have decided that because of the discounts offered in stores, it’s better to go & buy direct than online!! Perhaps this is affecting everyone, or is it just on my site that transactions have been disappointing?!

At the moment, all I can do is get through Christmas & hope things pick up again in the new year. But now there are bigger (national) companies starting up their own cashback sites & I’ve spent everything I can on getting my site where it is & can’t afford to spend any more.

January is a peak time for travel, but I don’t have the budget to push my travel extras site any more & to be honest, I may even have to consider getting a day job again   (   Or, at the very least put the affiliate marketing on the back foot & try to get more small business web design work……

Following rumours that Best of the Web Directory (the internet’s oldest directory) are going to buy DMOZ, which Google uses as its own Directory source, I decided to try & get some of my sites listed.

Also known as the open directory project, DMOZ is probably the most well known free directory online. Like Yahoo and Best of the Web, DMOZ is also known for its very high standards when it comes to website listings in the directory. It is best to submit your site to DMOZ on your own.

Considerable effort needs to be spent on making the right submission, according to the guidelines mentioned. You only get one chance to have your site listed in DMOZ, hence it must be ensured that the submission is made properly.

Best of the Web Directory like Yahoo Directory was established in 1994 and has since maintained one of the strictest editorial review policies, accepting only content-rich, high quality sites. This commitment to quality has made it one of the most highly regarded directories on the web. A link from Best of the Web directory would immensely benefit a site, substantially increasing its search engine rankings. Best of the web directory is a paid directory currently offering two listing options: one for an annual review of the website which costs US$ 99.95 per year and one for a one-time review which costs US$ 249.95.

Because I wasn’t sure that my site would be accepted & the fee is non-refundable, I decided to opt for the annual review option first & see what happened….better to lose $100 than $250!!!

I submitted 2 of my sites to the Directory: Cashback Shopper & My Travel Extras. My concern with Cashback Shopper was that it is a white label site & could possibly be considered as duplicate content. However, I needn’t have worried, within 12 hours I received an e-mail telling me that my submission had been successful & my link would appear on the site within 24 hours! )

My Travel Extras has also been accepted & the good news is that the sites can still be upgraded to the one time review option, albeit at a cost of $239.95…..but at least I know they will be accepted! Because this directory is so well respected, I hope it will add to my tally of backlinks in Google, which are looking pretty threadbare at the moment when compared to those from Yahoo.

I am considering adding other sites to the directory in the future, but at the moment the cost of advertising is too high to add any others. I also want to see if the directory submissions make any difference to my rankings.

I blogged previously about the failure of my short breaks white label site to make any sales, whilst it was integrated into the main My Travel Extras site.

As a result, I set up the site as a standalone short breaks mini-site & have just set a PPC campaign on Google, using only 3 or 4 (or even more), exact match keyphrases. I’ve created 4 different ad variations & limited my bids to £0.50 so that I’m not spending too much per click. With this budget, Google predicts at an average CPC of £0.37 – £0.49, these keywords could potentially generate 36 – 69 clicks per day (which would cost £20 – £40).

I think this is plenty for now, assuming a few sales come from these clicks(!), but I will be fine tuning the campaign as I go & see if these figures improve. If Superbreak make sales, then using an identical copy of their site & directing relevant traffic MUST generate sales, musn’t it?!!!!!

Time will tell!

Despite advertising the page through PPC, I have still made no sales from my Superbreak white label site & this is starting to annoy me! The site is a direct copy of the Superbreak online hotel directory for UK and European hotel bookings & they do ok, so why no sales?!

I’m wondering if it was because the site was embedded in an iframe on the My Travel Extras site & this may have looked a bit strange to new visitors. The bounce rate from the site was over 53%, which is not so good so as a result, I’ve decided to try an experiment & promote the site as a standalone mini-site, rather than part of the main one. I’ve set up a subdomain http://shortbreaks.mytravelextras.co.uk & will be able to build links to this site instead, which still shows my branding, but looks a little tidier.

The subdomain uses a frame redirect to display the site as this allows me to avoid the superbreak name appearing anywhere in the URL & I’m going try to submit this subdomain to directories & market it using specific products rather than generic terms such as short breaks, city breaks etc.

Fingers crossed it might actually make a sale or two before Christmas! /