If you’ve done any research at all on SEO then you know how important directory submissions are to the success of your online business. Directory submissions are not only a great way to build links, but they also guarantee targeted traffic to your site since directory users will find your site by searching within specific categories that interest them. The drawback to directory submissions is that they can be tedious and time-consuming. Since each directory has its own set of submission guidelines, and since directories are edited by humans, online business owners have to be meticulous when submitting their sites to directories. One of the ways to get around manual submission is to use automated submission programs. But before you invest in one, check out the pros and cons to see if it’s the right thing for your business.

Automatic Directory Submissions: The Pros

· The primary feature of automatic submission is that it takes the hassle out of adding your URL to directories and can allow you to submit your site to thousands of directories in a short amount of time.

· There are plenty of software products to choose from at a variety of price points.

· If you don’t have the time and inclination to submit to directories yourself, there are an ample number of third-party providers who will do it for you.

· If you choose not to use software or a third party, you can find web-based programs that will submit your site on your behalf. Most of them require only that you fill in your pertinent information and then click SUBMIT!

· Agencies that specialize in manual submission have been known to falsify their documentation. They may tell you that they’ve submitted your site to hundreds of directories, and they may even have a spreadsheet to prove it, but the reality may be far from the truth. In this case, automatic submission may work in your favor.

Automatic Directory Submissions: The Cons

· Each directory has its own submission regulations and much of the automatic submission software is unable to customize submissions according to those regulations. Because directories are edited by humans, you run the risk of forfeiting your listing if it doesn’t conform to the regulations established by the directory editors.

· Many directories regard automatic submissions as spam. They frequently block automatic submissions and may not allow you to resubmit in the future.

· Automatic submission software uses a list of thousands of directories when determining where to submit your site. Because many directories are short-lived, your automatic submission program may be submitting to sites that no longer exist. While your software may report to you that it submitted to 2000 directories, it may have only actually submitted to 750 when all is said and done.

· One of the most important aspects of submitting to directories is researching the most important categories and subcategories for your site. Directory editors will often reject submissions to categories that are not relevant to your site’s content. Categories and subcategories vary from directory to directory, so your submission software won’t always submit your site to the correct category since the software only recognizes a select list of categories with which it is familiar.

· Directories vary with regard to use of keywords and titles. Some directories will allow you to submit keywords along with your title while others will only allow you submit your title. Automatic software may cause you to forfeit the opportunity to list your keywords along with your title, or it may cause your listing to be rejected because you’ve included keywords along with your title.

· Automatic software takes control away from you. It may submit to sites that are little known and not considered authoritative by search engines. It may seem like a great idea to submit to 2000 directories, but if half of them are unpopular or not recognized as high-quality directories by search engines, then you’re not benefiting your business.

Consider consulting with an internet marketing professional to determine whether or not automatic submission programs are appropriate for your business goals. You’ll be glad you did!

As a work at home mom myself, I know when I started my business the funding for advertising was not available. I began to look for ways I could promote my business online and offline without spending any money or ways I could market my business cheap.

After I used many free and cheap marketing ideas I was able to build my business enough that I could afford to spend money on advertising! Here are the best ways I have found to market your business that actual work.

1: Join Forums- Forums offer a great opportunity to market your business. Now, joining forums just to promote yourself will only get you banned, so you much advertise your business tactfully. When you join a forum introduce yourself and participate in discussions. Make sure you set up your signature to display with all of your posts. You do not have to sit and post all day, but posting to a few threads will get that signature on several different areas of the forum! Not only will the forum members be interested and check our your website, search engines also index forums and that offers extra exposure!

2: Moderate a chat room or group- Offering to help moderate a chat room or online chat group is another way I have found to work very well! Because you are a moderator, people see you as being an example, which opens a new door to another prospect for your business!

3: Get a website- If you want to run your business online a website is vital! Once you have a website you can submit it to search engines for free. If your company does not offer websites, I would highly recommend having a professional build you one. If you are going to market online, you might as well do it right…..With a professional looking website.

4: e-Mail signatures- These are very powerful! Set up a signature and attach it to every email you send! Include your name, business name, and website url. Even if you email a website about an order or email someone just to ask a question! That puts your website and information in front of another new prospect.

5: Write articles- Take some time and write some articles on a topic that if of interest to you. Many website use articles for content for their visitors to read and several webmasters use articles in ezines. When you write
any article, you can add an author bio, which can include any info you want to add. This area can have your name, business description, website link, and contact info. Just think if you write 5 articles that 10 websites display the amount of exposure you will have for your business!

The purpose of this article is to outline three different ways of getting a WordPress blog up and running. WordPress is a free blogging software, has many benefits and is supported by a large community of users and developers.

A “blog” is abbreviated from the term, “web log” which is a form of online diary or journal.

Since its advent a few short years ago, blogs have found numerous uses. Just to name a few, these include:

- teenagers putting their thoughts and ramblings online

- hobbyists giving updates about their interests and passion

- people staying updated with friends overseas

- professional bloggers updating specific niche products

- multinational corporations (MNC’s) such as Microsoft & General Motors using blogs as marketing tool

Like a web site, a blog has global reach. However, it’s far cheaper, quicker and definitely easier to maintain a blog than a traditional web site. A blog’s contents can be easily updated by submitting short or long articles (commonly known as blog posts) through an easy-to-use graphical interface. As a blog’s content is updated regularly, they naturally attract both human readers as well as search engines hungry for fresh content.

To set up a blog, we need some form of blogging software or platform. There are free software like Blogger and WordPress and there are paid platforms like Moveable Type and Typepad.

Blogger is owned by Google. It’s free and perhaps the easiest way to create a blog and your first post, literally within minutes! Howeer, its features are somewhat limited.

Thus, WordPress is a good alternative if you are looking for free blogging software. As it is an open source software, it is literally supported by a huge community of users and developers that assists both new and experienced bloggers. Not only feature rich – it supports categories, pages and trackbacks, just to name a few – it is constantly being updated through its core software as well as through software plugin’s which are bonus software components that extend the basic functionality of WordPress. For more information, visit WordPress.org

Here are 3 different ways to get a WordPress blog up and running:

1) Via WordPress.com

2) Via WordPress.org

3) Via CPANEL’s Fantastico

VIA WORDPRESS.COM

Like Blogger, you can get your WordPress blog and first post up and running within several minutes through WordPress.com! This site is meant for people to get a taste of WordPress without having to go through the somewhat involved procedure via WordPress.org (see the section below). If this is the first time you are getting your WordPress blog up and running, you should definitely give this a shot.

It’s as easy as going to WordPress.com, clicking the button that says “Get a WordPress Blog Now>>” or something like that and following the directions there. And then, you start posting!

In this case, your WordPress blog will be hosted on WordPress.com totally free. Therefore, you do not need your own web host. The only drawback is that there are limitations such as you can’t install your own themes or plugin’s.

VIA WORDPRESS.ORG

Instead of having your blog hosted on WordPress.com, you can install WordPress on your own web host. (Of course, in this case, you need to have your own web hosting account which preferably comes with a version of “CPANEL” – a an easy-to-use graphical control panel to manage your web host.)

Setting up of the WordPress blog comprises the 3 main steps below.

Step 1: Visit WordPress.org and download the WordPress installation files which are free (since it is open source software as mentioned before). As the files are in a compressed format, run your compression utility (such as Winzip) to expand the files to your hard disk..

Step 2: Run your File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program and connect to your web hosting account. Then upload the installation files to the domain (if you have multiple domains hosted) and folder that you want your WordPress blog installed.

Step 3: This step is going to be challenging for the non-techie type if they managed to survive Step 2! You log into the CPANEL of your web host and create and configure your MYSQL database. After this is done, you need to configure some files to complete your installation.

Next, launch your browser to access your blog and start making your 1st post by running the “wp-admin.php” script that has been installed.

As you can see, this is the “normal” but very tedious way of setting up of your WordPress blog.

However, the effort you expend is worthwhile as you can configure all aspects of WordPress like installing the theme you like and adding HTML codes to include Google AdSense on your blog to earn some profit, etc.

VIA FANTASTICO

Again, you install WordPress on your own web host but this time through FANTASTICO. In this case, not only would you need to have your own web hosting account, it MUST come with a version of “CPANEL” that includes “FANTASTICO” – an advanced script installer that automates a 1-click WordPress installation! (Actually a few clicks are needed.)

With FANTASTICO, all the 3 steps above are automated for you. All you need to do is to log into the CPANEL of your web host and then click the FANTASTICO icon, which is a smiley face.

In the next screen, click on “WordPress” and then click on “New Installation”. FANTASTICO will open a form and you fill in a few things like which domain (if you have multiple domains hosted) and which folder to install to. Once you have typed in the information and pushed a button, FANTASTICO will install WordPress in a few seconds!

How is that possible? That’s because the installation files are already at your web host. This saves you time as you don’t have to download them from WordPress.org, expand them and upload to your web host. Likewise, the databas is also automatically created and configured for you.

Next, launch your browser to access your blog and start making your 1st post by running the “wp-admin.php” script that has been installed.

As you can see, this is the “preferred” method of getting a WordPress blog up and running, also within minutes.and yet you can have all the benefits of configuring all aspects of WordPress, such as adding Affiliate Programs easily (including Amazon.com) and Google AdSense to make a handsome profit month after month!

Do you feel lost when you see veteran Internet marketers set specific goals such as increasing revenue by 50% in the next quarter, or obtaining 10 more paid leads in the next month? Are you able to make the connection between the level of effort and the concrete results? Do you wish to know if your current effort level is enough to bring about some results for your simple work from home opportunity online? If you answer yes to any of the questions above, then the guidelines below may provide some insight into answering these questions.

1. Select Your Keywords

Keyword is the basis of your whole frame of references. Without a proper keyword selected, your online campaign will not have a focus and will end in vain. Keyword selection will also help you get the statistics of your competitor. These statistics, such as backlink count, traffic rank and page rank, to name a few, provide a concrete starting point of our own measurable goals.

The selection of keyword merits a whole separate discussion, which is beyond the scope of this article.

2. Set A Measurable Target

A measurable target essentially refers to one thing: number of backlinks. If you intend to get organic search engine traffic and not pay-per-click traffic, you would need to build up backlinks to your website. The more the links, the more likely your site will rank higher in the search result, which in turn brings in traffic.

How many backlinks do I need in order to be on the top of the search result, you may ask. The reference point comes from your competitors. To find it, do a search in Google of your keyword phrase in quotes. This will tell you how many sites have been optimized on the same keyword phrase. The site that comes on the top is your number one competitor.

Then run your top competitor through Linkpopularity.com and see how many backlinks your competitor has in Google, Yahoo, and MSN

3. The Game Plan

Say your competitor has 10,000 backlinks in Yahoo (Google does not show all of the backlinks in its link query result; so go by Yahoo). How much work do you have to do to beat it? Let’s do the math.

Example – Write 2 articles/week and each submitted to 10 directories.

2 articles x 52 weeks x 10 directories = 1040 links / year

In reality, there is also the distribution rate which means the number of times web publishers and free content seekers grab and publish your articles on their own sites. I have seen my articles generate 30, 50 and close to 100 links each whereas others have reported having thousands of links from one title. To be conservative, let’s assume it at 10 times/article. The above formula would be modified to read:

2 articles x 52 weeks x 10 directories x 10 distribution rate = 10400 links / year
10000 links /10400 = 0.96 years, or 11.5 months

You can see that it takes about a year to build up your website against a hypothetically static competitor with 10000 backlinks. This time period may be shortened if you also use other methods such as blogging, forum posting, social bookmarking, etc.; but any less commitment may mean a much longer time period before you have a chance to reach the top.

In summary, it is hard to get bearings for your Internet marketing effort. You will need to develop the frame of reference through your own experiences. Making an optimal keyword choice and researching on the competitors accordingly can provide you as concrete a starting point as there can be for you to set measurable goals, and a strong work ethic in discipline and persistence will make the difference in the end.

You have got your blog up and running on the internet. The next obvious thing to take care of will be to devise promotional strategies that will make your blog visible to others. This requires a certain extent of planning on what kind of tools that you want to apply to the formation of promotional strategies for your blog. These strategies should be given a fair amount of consideration before applying them.

Strategies for blog promotion are many. Nonetheless, what’s listed below are proven strategies that should work effectively for your blog.

(1) Search engines and blog directories

Web directories such as Yahoo and search engines such as Google surfaced to catalog all new sites that are being created. Directories prominently used are Technorati , Blogwise , Blo.gs just to name a few. Send your newly created blog to such directories and search engines for indexing. Your blog will be made visible promptly.

(2) Apt description of your blog to your targeted audience

Write a short and apt description of your blog ; the description must fit the type of audience that you have targeted. Whatever benefits that readers can get from reading your blog must be clearly pointed out. One of the strategies for blog promotion requires you to let your readers know the real reason why they should read your blog in the first instance. What’s in your blog for them? You can support this strategy by using “tagging” which essentially is a subject or category description that you are attaching to your blog and to each individual blog post. This will make your blog more easily searchable by others. Tagging can be done with your posts on directories such as Technorati, for instance you can add tags like “London” and “shopping” to a particular post so that your blog will show up when others search for these topics in blog search engines.

(3) Make use of the “ping”

The “pinging” action will enable you to automatically alert readers that you have written a new post on your blog. This action is executed through the various blog directories and other services that do publish blog updates. Upon publishing your latest post, you will “ping” directories and search engines. The latter will search for the new content on your blog. The “pinging” action will show your blog up in a list of recently updated blogs. To save you the time of “pinging” major search engines and directories separately, you can perform this action in one huge ping , by making use of BlogExplosion , Pingoat or Ping-O-Matic . It is important to remember that you need to “ping” only once. Take note that this “ping” act is one of the more important strategies for blog promotion that should not be neglected.

(4) Two-way comments

If you want to get more traffic, one way is to post your comments on the blogs of others. You should also allow others to post their comments on your blog too. Your perceptions on your blog can be read by others. Posting your comments is in effect equivalent to your contribution to a discussion with other bloggers. Anything topic that is insightful and interesting will surely draw more readers to your blog. It is a door to the building up of your reputation as an expert in your industry. The provision and availability of good helpful resources and relevant links to the topic in question will please the readers and should help to add value to the discussion.

(5) Performing exchanging of links with others

Linking up with other blogs and getting linked back to your own blog is a proven strategy that is intrinsically perfect integration with the blogging model. Readers will be able to access more sources of information on your blog. Your blog will be able to capture more traffic as other blogs link up with your blog. Importantly, the incoming links to your blog should be absolutely relevant to the content of your blog. This is another vital strategy for blog promotion, simply because if the incoming links originate from relevant high-traffic sites, your blog’s search engine ranking will be positively affected. Links can be placed within individual posts.

(6) Put “trackback” to full use

In blogging, you can use “trackback” to the list of other blogs that have linked to particular posts on your blog. You can locate these in the comments section under each post. With this feature enabled through your blog software, each time someone makes a link to a post on blog, you will be informed via an automated message from the other blog, and in return, your blog software will automatically add a link to the other blog below the post that is being referred to. You can use Haloscan where you can find free trackback tools to manage.

(7) Good quality content

What’s needed most on your blog is content. Content must be of quality in order to attract readers. If you want to write real good content, you must ensure two things:

(a) Information that you give on your blog must be unique. Give expert content from various perspectives.

(b) Keep yourself informed and abreast of latest developments in your industry. Be the one to make the first spin of news.

(8) Create repeat traffic

Readers come and go. The solution to this scenario will be for you to write new post on new topic every day. It appears to be hard work, but there isn’t much choice if traffic is to be repeated. Remember that the content must be great. This is a vital strategy for blog promotion, especially for the purpose of generating repeat traffic. Writing up a series of posts will help in getting repeat traffic as readers will come back for more revelation from the future post. You can even try to request from your readers their email addresses, so that you can notify them of your new updates. This is essentially building up an opt-in list that opens the door to numerous email marketing opportunities.

(9) Social bookmarking, blog awards, web ring

Join social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us that permits users to share their favorite web sites with one another. Just “tag” to your blog posts and readers will be able to bookmark your site in their Del.icio.us account. Another great social bookmarking is Digg. Blog awards are given out online. You can participate for the fun and traffic that it will potentially drive to your blog. You can also join a web ring where you can find many groups of like-minded people who may fall into your category of target audience. This will enable you to build your relationship with them on same platform.

To make your blog effective, you will have to work hard on your content. Using the above listed strategies for blog promotion, you will be able to drive traffic to your blog, as well as succeed in your creation of repeat traffic. So, put these strategies to good use and blow away your competition.