June 5th 2003 Hi Folks! It's a jumbo sized issue this week, so please bear with me :-) Write articles, get links! In the past, I have spoken about the value of incoming links to your website - that is, getting other sites to link to yours. This is particularly beneficial if the sites that are linking to you have good search engine rankings or a generally high level of traffic. I have also suggested that one of the best ways of getting other sites to link to you is by offering them a commission on any resultant sales. But there is another way - and this way won't cost you anything except a bit of time.... If you have knowledge of a particular subject (and I assume you do if you have managed to build a website about something), then why not see if you can write a few articles and get other site owners to publish them online or in their newsletters? There are many, many sites out there that are crying out for good quality content that they can use - many site owners simply don't have the time to sit down and write fresh articles every week. This means that if you offer to do this for them for nothing more than a link back to your site, many will grab the chance with both hands. Choose the sites that you approach carefully and you could soon have your links on some high-traffic pages, which will benefit you not only by sending you lots of new potential customers, but also by increasing your 'link popularity' - search engines love sites that have lots of other sites linking to them, especially if the sites doing the linking are high-ranking themselves. To see how this concept can work, take a look at the following link - it is a short article that I wrote for a UK website that offers help and advice for new businesses: http://www.thetraderonline.com/startups.html In addition, check out the wholesale section of the above site and you will see that again, my contribution to this section is rewarded with several links to one of my sites. It is a great way of getting traffic and also of building your own reputation and as I said at the beginning of this article, it will cost you nothing more than a bit of time. ***************************************** If you want to learn more about writing articles and getting them published to generate huge amounts of traffic to your website, take a look at: 'Turn Words into Traffic' by Jim and Dallas Edwards.... Build your traffic, your reputation and your credibility http://www.thetraderonline.com/words.html ***************************************** AOL assisting the spa^mmers?? I read an article a couple of weeks ago and it really got me thinking. We all have to put up with receiving spa^m mail and it is an irritation to all of us. People are very quick to accuse newsletter publishers of sharing their email addresses if they suddenly start receiving junk mail - from time to time I have received emails from people saying that they subscribed to my newsletter and 'suddenly' started getting spa^m. Just to put the record straight, let me say here and now, I have NEVER sold, lent or passed on in anyway whatsoever, any of the email addresses of my subscribers or customers (and I never will). There are lots of different ways that spa^mmers get hold of your email address and quite frankly, if you are online using email, it is going to happen to you at some point and it won't necessarily be anyone else's fault. But, this article really concerned me - if you were looking for someone to blame for the spa^m you were receiving, the last company you would think of would be AOL right? After all, they use anti-spa^m filters to filter their customers email before it even gets to their Inbox and they make it very easy for AOL users to report spa^m, so surely they wouldn't do anything to assist the spread of such a thing? Well, take a look at the article below and make your own decision. The key sentence is about halfway down the article when it says that the self-confessed spa^mmer claimed that AOL willingly sold him their entire customer database and when given the opportunity to deny this, the Vice Chairman of AOL did not. http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2210551 Now, the fact that he did not deny the claim does not necessarily mean that it is true and I am not for one moment suggesting that it is - innocent until proven guilty and all that - but it certainly made me think. As I say, make your own decision but bear it in mind when considering where all of your junk mail is coming from because personally, I think that the 'little guys' such as myself are the ones that are playing by the rules and as is often the case, it is the 'big boys' that are doing exactly what they like... And finally... Some of you may have heard of my online colleague, Peter Twist. Peter runs a superb website called the Internet Marketing Lounge and records audio interviews with top online marketers every week. Peter contacted me this week and asked if I would agree to be interviewed about eBay and of course, being the helpful chap that I am, I agreed :-) The interview is being published in two parts and you can listen to the first part by visiting the link below and subscribing to Peter's newsletter. You will immediately be able to listen to my interview and also two others. You will then get an email at a later date when the second part of the interview is published. Previous interviews that Peter has conducted are locked away in his 'members only' site and he recently closed the doors on the site and stopped taking new members. However, I knew that some of you would be interested in listening to some of the great interviews that he has recorded in the past and therefore I twisted his arm and got him to agree that if any of my subscribers wanted to join the site, he would sort something out. If, after listening to the interviews above, you are interested in hearing more, then email Peter at the address on his site and mention my name and he will assist you further. In the meantime, to hear the first part of my interview, simply visit the link below and subscribe to Peter's newsletter. http://www.thetraderonline.com/iml.html Until next time.... ***************************************** Having trouble making your online auction ad's look professional? Want to create eye-catching eBay auctions that will grab your buyers attention? There is a software product that will create professional auction descriptions that will hit your potential buyers right between the eyes and you don't need any programming or HTML skills to use it! Not only that, but the software comes with full resale rights http://www.thetraderonline.com/auctionmatic.html ***************************************** |
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