If you want to succeed in the search engines, it’s crucial that you follow link building best practices. What are these practices? Here they are.

=> Shoot for One-Way, High Authority Links from Related Sites

These three factors are the most important factors for determining link quality.

* One way – If the link is reciprocal, Google vastly discount the link.

* High authority – Getting one link from the New York Times is easily worth more than 10,000 links from brand new websites. Get links from high authority sites. In the past “authority” meant page rank, but today Google takes a lot more than just page rank into account.

* Related – If you have a ton of unrelated sites linking to you, Google will look at your site with suspicion. In natural markets, people link to one another within the same topics and industry. Search engine spammers on the other hand tend to buy links en mass from unrelated sites. Get links from within your industry.

These are the three most important factors for evaluating link quality.

=> Get a Mix of Link Sources

There are many different places you can get links from.

* Contextual – This is the best place you can get links from. If your site is mentioned in another site in relevant context, that’s viewed very highly in Google’s eyes.

* Static site links – Getting a link on someone else’s site, especially authority and/or related sites is viewed highly by Google.

* Blog commenting – Blog commenting used to be an effective way to get ahead in the rankings, but comment spam has gotten commenting downgraded. That said, it can still help your rankings quite a bit.

* Forum postings – Forum postings with a link back to your site in the thread or in a signature can help your rankings as well, especially if the forum is related.

Getting a mix of link sources is the best way to appear organic while getting a fair volume of inbound links. Don’t just use one technique – use them all.

=> Anchor Texts & Deeplinking

Most webmasters link primarily to their home page. If you do that, however, chances are you’re missing out on a lot of link-juice opportunities to get sub-pages ranked.

Instead of sending all your links to your home page, link to relevant subpages. Get these ranked for long tail keywords. Your home page will also gain in ranking as a result. Focus on getting backlinks to pages deep in your site.

Also, make sure your anchor texts are relevant to the page they’re linking to, rather than your home page. Anchor text is extremely important in determining the relevance of the link.

These are some of the more important link-building practices for getting ranked in the search engines. Diversify your link sources, deep link, get the right anchor texts and aim for high authority, related one-way links.

Autoresponders are salespeople without a home, family, kids or mortgage. They work 24 hours a day! Why wouldn't you use them?

Tired of silly old email enquiries? Say hello to autoresponders!

If there’s one thing that drives us all crazy, it’s not having enough hours in the day. You need hours to work out your internet marketing, your sales, your budgets, follow up on invoices and god knows what else. What you’re reaching for is an aspirin. What you probably need is an auto-responder.

“You must be joking!” you laugh. “I’ve seen what autoresponders do!”

I’d actually be quite surprised if you haven’t. Here’s the scenario–
It’s 3.00 in the morning. You’re sitting at the computer sending out email. Suddenly, from out of the blue, someone (to whom you’ve just sent the mail) replies. You’re excited. Who could be up at 3am like you?

What you’ve just received is an, I’m out of the office autoreply and voila, here is the most basic use of an autoresponder. Autoresponders, are like fax on demand. You zap; they zap back.

I run a small wine company. How can autoresponders help my business?

First, you have to understand how an autoresponder works.

Let me make it really basic with a real life example. You hear a radio ad, where they promise you can make millions in the next 2 years. They promise to send you a tape and a brochure if you call in now.

The operator takes the call and your details. She then routes your information to someone else who packs your tape, your brochure, puts a stamp on it and sends it to your mailing address. In a series of very basic steps, you get the information you desire and are now more interested in what the company has to offer.

Once you hear the tape and read the brochure and find it interesting enough, you contact them and a sale is possible.

Autoresponders work just like that. You have a link on your website or someone else’s website. The link says that you are giving away free information on how to buy the best wine.

The person is interested in your offer and clicks on the link. At that precise moment, the website or the HTML code generates an email with a SUBJECT for the email such as Free Wine Info. This is sent to your email address and your computer recognises the subject headline Free Wine Info.

Automation does all the work for you from this moment on. It detects the subject line and puts the sender’s email address in your master email list of subscribers to contact. At the same time, it goes to the folder where you have stored the requested information in a file and sends that file to the person requesting the information.

All this is done, without you lifting a finger. And this is just the beginning…

That’s amazing! What other practical uses can I use autoresponders for?

Autoresponders have the following uses:

1) Information
Clients request information all the time. If you ran the wine company, you could have price lists, types of wine, even a brochure done in Acrobat Reader (pdf format) that gives tons of information about your products and company. Most people like this system because it doesn’t compel them to buy. This is a very non-threatening situation.

However, they are interested in your product, and by virtue of asking for the information, go into your database. You can then follow up and ask them if they want more information. It gives you a very valid reason to follow up and convert them into paying customers.

2) Subscription to Your Ezine
If you run an ezine, (you’re doing a disservice to yourself if you don’t) then this is a great way of getting people to get the first copy without you physically mailing it out to them. Within seconds of sending an email to you, they receive your ezine and get put on the mailing list.

These are live customers remember? All it takes for them to buy your product or service is for you to follow up.

3) Free Reports
The best way to get people to visit your website or test your service or product is to give them information. Information tells them that you know your business. They don’t know you from Adam or Eve. A comprehensive report (such as this), gives them the confidence that you know much, much more than what exists in this report and are in a very good position to advise them.

To get people to your website or to subscribe to your ezine, you need to circulate your report on as many websites, ezines, etc. as possible. If the persons reading your report find it dynamic, they will assume your abilities follow the same path.

This will lead them to your website, where they will sample more about your products and services. At the same time, because they have subscribed, you are following up with them. At some point, the value generated by your product or service will be worth the price you are asking and will convert those maybes into a big yes purchase.

The last thing you need is to have your email address on these reports. It sets you up for all the nuts on the internet. However, if you have an autoresponder email address, it automatically goes to that address and sends your message to them.

* When placing classified ads, instead of supplying your regular email address, use your autoresponder address.
* Appropriate News Groups
* Opt-in email discussion lists
* Guestbooks
* Business Cards
* Letter Head
* Your web site

Follow Up on Invoices

Hey, if the client’s a pest and you need to get paid do this.
Set up the autoresponder and let it go. After a couple of reminders, the client will get the message.

Your blood pressure will stay normal and his will go up. You don’t need non-paying clients anyway and you don’t want to waste time on follow ups, so this is a great tool. You could space it out so that a message goes out only once a week for say 5 weeks. If the client pays in that time, you can cancel the autoresponder.

High Powered Sales

One of the biggest secrets of sales is persistence. Most sales people give up after 3 tries. It takes at least 5 pitches before prospective customers throw in the towel and are willing to listen to you. Most of them are exactly like you. They have little time and resources. If you have a solution that will make them money or save time and resources, they will listen to you.

After 5 Calls!

Autoresponders help you do that. Many autoresponder services have a follow up sales routine. Which means, the autoresponder will follow up with a second, third, fourth, fifth and tenth (if you need that many) follow ups. Each follow up is based on the fact that the person hasn’t responded. If the person responds, the autoresponder doesn’t send them any more messages. If they don’t, it keeps sending them gentle reminders.

Of course, there’s always the thought,”What if it drives away potential customers?” It doesn’t if you’re smart. Most autoresponder messages can be quite informal and not overt sales messages.

People respond to messages that seem one on one. They always do. It’s scared to death business owners and marketing managers who don’t try it and pooh pooh the whole idea.

For example, when someone asks you for information, it means they’re interested. Now all you have to do is keep that interest up.

Here’s a Scenario–

Dear Bruce
Thanks for your email about our wine list.
Here is the wine list.

————

Dear Bruce
I see you asked for our wine list three days ago. We’ve got some good news for you. We send out an email not more than once a month giving customers like you a substantial discount. The email also gives you handy tips on how to choose the best wines for a very reasonable cost.

Would you be interested in receiving this money-saving email?

To subscribe:please email xyz@yxz.com

————

Dear Bruce
I guess you’ve been busy. For the month of July our specials are
1)dddddddddddd
2)eeeeeeeeeeee
3)ffffffffffff
You can have these specials by going to our website at

If you register for the Wine Tasters Ezine, you will get this money saving information on a regular basis plus a great selection of wines.

————

A couple of followups like this will make even the laziest customer finally click, get on your email list, and end up making one or several purchases, depending on your direct marketing skills.

This is one of the most powerful way to make your sales. So use it!

Tracking Your Autoresponder Responses

Tracking your ads’ response rate will be the key to your marketing success. Once you test your ads and determine which ad is pulling the most responses, you can easily test which classified ad sites are producing results as well. This will save you a lot of valuable time by only placing your ads at classified ad sites that produce results.

1. Make a list of the classified ad sites where you intend to post your ad.
2. Number the list of ad sites.
3. You can key your ad using the subject of your email. Many times, if you ask for a certain subject description, it may not be provided. To avoid this problem you can add a simple code to your email tag.

mailto:xyzinfo@yourautoresponderaddress.com?subject=cl1

This code should contain your autoresponder address and will automatically fill in the subject with your ad key when clicked on. The “cl1″ stands for the classified ad site number one. The second ad site you have listed should be coded as cl2 or classified ad site number two and so on. By coding your ads, you will know exactly where your leads are coming from.

4. Begin submitting your ad and replace your normal email address with your key coded autoresponder address.

Recommendations for Autoresponders

Some of the best tools are out there. Do your due diligence. Here are some you’d want to check out.
http://aweber.com/
http://www.1shoppingcart.com

You’ll also find free autoresponders on the net. Free anything is generally a waste of time, much like free internet and free email addresses. They don’t give you or your company a professional image and show you off as a freeloader — something you want to avoid at all costs!

Next Step: Get yourself onto autoresponders today. You’ll be wasting time if you don’t!

Next Step: Read more Internet Marketing and Website articles. Create your own internet marketing strategy using these tactics.

©2001-2009 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Article written by Sean D’Souza.

Planning for Your Success

By Stacy Karacostas

“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.” Sun Tzu

This week, I’ve got a question for you…

What is one of the critical differences between successful businesses owners and unsuccessful businesses owners?

It’s not how much money they start with, or where they come from.

It’s not their level of education.

It’s not who they know.

The majority of truly successful business owners have one thing in common…they are really good at deciding exactly what it is they want, creating a detailed plan for getting
it, and putting that plan into action.

You see, successful people don’t just wait around for things to start happening…they make things happen. And not just any old things…the right things.

That’s why, last week, I talked about the power of creating and writing down clear, well-defined intentions, or goals, for your business (read last weeks issue ).

If you’ve already done that, congratulations! Just taking that one simple step is often enough get you moving down the right path.

But here’s the catch…If you really want to achieve success quickly, you have to do more than just set clear goals. You need to come up with a doable plan for achieving them.

Now I’m not saying you have to spend weeks creating a 30-page business or marketing plan (though that is certainly a good idea some situations). But you do need to have a well-thought out, written plan of action.

So in order to help you do just that, I’m going to take you through a simplified version of the process I use to create highly-effective Marketing Success Action Plans for my
clients…

Let’s say you want to grow your business by 30% next year.

I start by listing three objectives, or targets, you could hit that would let you reach that goal (I don’t advise choosing more than three unless you’ve got people to help
you. Otherwise you can get overwhelmed and never get anything done.).

For example, you could decide to increase return visits by 10%, attract 20 new customers per month, and develop new products or services to generate an additional $X a year.

Whatever you choose, always give yourself specific numbers, or targets, to hit. That way you have benchmarks you can refer to later to make sure your plan is working.

Next, I come up with one strategy (more if you have the resources) for achieving each of your objectives. Say you want to increase return visits. A good strategy could
be to send out a regular newsletter to your current clients.

Now, I make a checklist of all the steps you need to take in order to put each of your strategies into action.
Whatever you do, don’t skip this part…it’s critical.

So to start a print newsletter, at minimum you’re going to need to: pick a marketing angle, come up with a name, decide how often you want it to go out, write or get content, purchase a template or hire a graphic designer, choose a printer, find a mailing house, compile your client database and get the whole thing put together and out the door.

Finally, I create a detailed timeline with deadlines to get it all done.

Whew!
Now you have a goal, and a plan reach it. And you can start taking action by checking things off of your new to-do list.

Of course, don’t forget that some plans are going to be easier to implement, and/or more effective, than others.

So take your time researching options and choosing strategies. Better yet, unless you really know your stuff, consider hiring a professional to help you make the best decisions for your business and your goals.

Remember, this is the blueprint for your future success. It’s worth the extra effort!

©2002-2006 Success Stream. All Rights Reserved. www.success-stream.com

Your Recording Keeping System

Your financial records are the voice of your success. Good records can do two things for you:

• Tell you whether or not you are achieving your goals step-by-step, by telling you whether your business activities are giving you a financial return on the time you invest in them.
• Keep you organized

Financial Files

Keep your financial files separate from the rest of your filing system. Keep your business files separate from your personal financial files.

Start with one "Business Financial" file and keep all financial paperwork in it as it comes in: bank statement, receipts, bills, etc. Make a date with yourself at least once a month to reconcile your bank records and track your business expenses. When the month is "closed", put it all in one envelope and label it for the month.

At the end of the year, you may want to file your receipts according to the types or categories of business expense but if you use an electronic system like Quicken, just make sure that for each entry you categorize your expenses. (This system works well for your personal finances, too, as long as you keep a separate folder and separate bank accounts.)

Banking

Set up a separate bank account for your business to keep your business finances separate from your personal finances. Look for a free checking account for small business with a debit card (if you like the convenience of a debit card). Keep your check register up to date.

If you will be using a credit card, apply for a separate business credit card and look for one that will send you a detailed categorized statement at the end of the year.

Taxes

If you need tax advice it is best to consult someone qualified in your state to help you. When you are just getting started, make sure to have a “My Business” folder and file some essential pieces of information:

• a business plan,
• some records related to using your car and mileage records,
• a marketing plan.

So, now you have two files, minimum: "My Business" and "Business Financial".