Warning - Doing This Can Be Hazardous To Your PC's Health

One of the things we're all looking for is website traffic.

One of the methods used to generate traffic is the use of 1 or more traffic exchange programs.

Now when traffic exchange programs came along a few years ago they were great. You may not have gotten "targeted" traffic but if you were willing to spend some time and knew how to use several traffic exchange programs efficiently, you could get enough visitors to make it a very effective form of marketing.

Speaking from my own experience, I would spend just a couple of hours a week, use around 15 traffic exchange programs and get a few hundred visitors to my site. And if I had a good offer, I'd get more than a hundred subscribers. (Not a great conversion rate but 100 free subscribers was worth more than 2 hours of work.)

Unfortunately, those who get their jollies by creating havoc for others have now infected most if not all of the traffic exchange programs.

Now this is not the fault of the traffic exchange program owners. Most have done everything they can to make sure that real people see the sites and to keep the sites safe. They have implemented anti-cheat systems, they review the sites and they put "Report This Site" links on their pages.

But even with all of this, using these programs can still infect your PC.

How do I know this?

I again am speaking from experience.

I no longer use my tool to surf multiple exchange programs at the same time. I gave it up after having been infected 5 times in 1 month. Infected bad enough that I had to re-format my hard drive and re-install my operating system and software. (Yes, I use anti-virus and anti-spyware software.)

Oh, I still spend some time with a few of the exchange programs. Like when I am on hold and can't really do anything but mindlessly click the "Next Site" button. (It's more productive than sleeping and better than just listening to the canned music they play while your waiting in queue for the next available representative.)

But, even with programs that I've been using safely for more than 3 years and having anti-bad-stuff installed, my PC still gets infected occasionally. Like this last weekend.

Yes, I was using 3 trusted exchange programs and yes, my PC got so badly infected I had to re-load my operating system.

Did I report the site?

Not possible since one of the things this stuff did was shut all my browser windows and not allow me to open them again.

Since this particular person's infection blocked me from getting on the web and was impossible to miss, I must assume that they were doing this just for the sake of creating havoc. For me, it was just bothersome since I have everything backed up and only had to spend a couple of hours reloading everything. However, for someone just learning to use their PC, someone who's unfamiliar with the need of having backups or someone who doesn't know how to re-load their operating system, this infection was a "killer."

So a word of warning to you if you're thinking of using start page exchanges:

1. Do it at your own risk.
2. Make sure you have everything important backed up where you can get it again. (Don't back it up on your primary hard drive because you'll lose your backup if you have to re-format.)
3. Learn how to re-load you PC unless you're willing to spend the time and money to have someone else do it for you.

To Your Success,
Susan

A Great Way To Get Free Targeted Traffic

We've all heard it before but I'll say it again anyway.

One of the best ways to get free targeted traffic to your site is by writing articles.

And we all know the main reasons people don't write articles is because they think they can't write or they don't know what to write about.

So today, let's address those problems and get some of your quality articles listed in those article directories.

Problem number 1: I can't write.

Now if I were asking you to write a newspaper story or a novel this could be a real concern but I am not asking you to do either. Instead, I am asking you to write an online article and if you can talk, you can write one of these.

Remember, we don't follow all the rules with our best online writing. We write like we are talking to someone. So if you can talk, you can write.

Now you will have to follow some of the rules like good grammar and correct spelling but since there are word processors that can correct both of these things, you shouldn't have a problem with either.

Problem number 2: I don't know what to write about.

You've got a site you're trying to get people to visit and your site is focused on something. (If it isn't, then you've got a bigger problem than not knowing what to write about.)

Using your site as an inspiration, you have lots of things to write about. Just go to some of the big article directories and search on topics related to your site.

Here are some examples:

• Vitamins - Lots of articles
• Car Insurance - Lots of articles
• Shopping - Lots of articles
• Plush Toys - Lots of articles
• Holiday Decorations - Lots of articles

I could go on but you've probably got the idea by now.

Now you may have to wade through some articles to find some that give you ideas for things you could write about.

Going back to some of our examples let's see a few of the titles.

• Vitamins - "Vitamins for Kids"
  "5 Secrets for Higher Energy"
  "Importance of Vitamins in Your Life"


• Shopping - "Selecting Safe and Stylish Newborn and Infant Baby Clothing"
  "Information to Help You Understand the Difference Between Mini Blinds, Wood Blinds, and Vinyl Blinds"
  "Tips For Locating The Best Wedding Favor Ideas"


• Holiday Decorations -
  "Holiday Decorating Ideas and the Environment"
  "7 Holiday Decorating Timesavers"
  "Quick and Easy Holiday Decorating"

Now obviously you can't just pick a few articles and call them your own but you can read them to get your creative juices flowing.

Just be sure to follow these 4 simple rules:

1. Write your own article - don't steal one.
   
   
2. Use good grammar and correct spelling otherwise your article could get rejected.
   
   
3. Don't write a solo ad disguised as an article or your article will get rejected.
   
   
4. Follow the directories submission rules or your article will get rejected.

Sure, you will have to spend some time and do some research to write your article. And you will also have to spend some time submitting your article to some of the directories. But the payoff for writing a good article that appears in someone's ezine or on their website makes it worth it.

To Your Success,
Susan Carroll

PS I written a free online report "How To Evaluate Article Directories
To Get Your Content Published.". It's available at:

http://www.friendswhocare.us/articlewriting/

Take Advantage Of Google's Linking Algorithm To Maximize Links To Your Site

Having links on other sites pointing to your site is a great way to both improve your Google Page Rank and increase your traffic. This article explains how to use articles to get those links.

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Take Advantage Of Google's Linking Algorithm To Maximize Links To Your Site
by Chris Ellington

Links to your site are one of the key components of Google's PageRank technology. With a high page rank, you get higher position on the search engine results page, resulting in more visitors to your site and improving your chances of earning a living online.

As the founder of articlemarketer.com, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that writing articles results in a ton of links to your site. Of course it does.

But there's a trick to it.Many of the internet marketers who submit free reprint articles go about it all wrong. They fail to take advantage of Google's linking algorithm and they lose some of the power of their articles.

What is Google's linking algorithm? 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the googlebots are spidering the web, seeking out content, classifying and indexing the billions of web pages available to web surfers.

This results in a standard "Bell Curve" of links to your article around the web. A few links begin to appear within a few days, rising to a peak at about 8-10 weeks, and then tapering off over time. That's the Google linking algorithm at work.

Over time, Google eliminates many of the links generated by a given article. Some call this the Google "Duplicate Link" penalty. I wouldn't call it a penalty. It's just the way things work on the web. And with a clever approach, you can take advantage of it.

You can keep your links high using the Article Marketer Bonanza approach. Our authors use it all the time. That isn't to say that you can only use it if you're an articlemarketer.com subscriber. I'm giving you the approach here and now, absolutely free. You can use the Article Marketer Bonanza approach if you use phantomwriters.com, Article Announcer, or even if you submit your articles manually.

What is the Article Marketer Bonanza approach? The Article Marketer Bonanza approach keeps your links high by taking advantage of the Google linking algorithm. Google wants fresh content and they begin to "penalize" (although I still wouldn't call it a penalty) you when your content becomes stale. With the Article Marketer Bonanza approach, you never rely on stale links to drive new traffic.

Article marketing is just like every other form of advertising. Coca-Cola and McDonald's don’t run just one television commercial and expect a continuing stream of customers to buy their products. Of course, they have the benefit of zillions of dollars and the resources at their disposal to continually buy new commercials.

Your resources are a bit more limited. You have less money and fewer people. Time is of the essence. That's what makes the Article Marketer Bonanza approach so successful.

Most internet marketers can produce a quality article in about an hour (it took me exactly 27 minutes to write this one.) That includes spell checking and everything. But let's say it'll take you more than twice as long to write 500-700 words on your favorite topic.

Write a few articles. How many? Let's say you write 3 articles. If you write them and submit them all today, Google's linking algorithm will give you a few links over the next couple of days, a lot of links over the next 8-10 weeks, and then they'll taper off. It's like turning off the faucet.

The Article Marketer Bonanza Approach – Step by Step:

Bonanza Step 1: Submit one of your articles today. This allows the algorithm to begin working. Watch your links increase.

Bonanza Step 2: Submit the second article next week. Google goes to work on that one. You just added several new links, and you're not near the peak yet. Now you've got two articles climbing the charts.

Bonanza Step 3: Submit the third article the following week. Again, Google gets busy. More links on top of the growing links from article two, which have been added to the large number of links that are already pointed at article one. You've set things in motion.

Bonanza Step 4: Ok, it's been three weeks, it's time to write a few more articles. Set aside a few hours and capture your wisdom on paper.

Bonanza Step 5: Submit your articles, one per week, over the next three weeks. You've now got six articles in the market place, and you haven't yet reached the peak. Your link count is going crazy.

Bonanza Step 6: It's now week 10. Your first article is dropping off the charts as Google "settles in" on the links it'll keep. That's ok because article 2 and 3 are holding your link count high, and you've got three more climbing the charts.

Bonanza Step 7: That's all there is to it. You keep submitting new content and Google rewards you with a permanently high link count. You can keep this going indefinitely. Your link count will never drop.

Depending on how prolific you are as an author, you could submit your articles faster – two or three per week. If you love writing and you write articles on several topics, you could submit new articles every day. You'll always have new fresh content bringing new links to your site.

See, it's not always about resources. With the Article Marketer Bonanza approach, you'll be doing something Bill Gates wishes he could do – you'll be staying one step ahead of Google!

Chris Ellington founded Article Marketer to make article submission easier. He made the Article Marketer Bonanza approach easy because authors can submit unlimited articles for one low price (even free). "Auto Pilot" helps too. http://www.articlemarketer.com

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PS I started submitting articles to multiple article directories a couple of months ago after I joined trafficwriting.com and have noticed an increase in my newsletter subscription rate as a result.

Tell Them Where To Go

Imagine you're doing some research on the internet.

Now imagine you've found a site that says it has the kind of
information you're looking for only ...

all the information
is contained on other pages of the site and the page you've
found doesn't provide any links to those pages.

Now, how valuable would that site be to you?

This is a rhetorical question since we all recognize the value
of putting links to the other pages on our site where our
visitors can find them easily.

But how about e-books?

Imagine you've found an e-book that holds a lot of valuable
information. The e-book has more than 200 pages of information
that has been split into logical sections for ease of use
however ...

there is no Table of Contents or Index contained in the e-book.

If this is a PDF e-book and you know the right search term, you
may be able to do a search and find what you're looking for. But
if it's not a PDF e-book, you have no way of finding the
information except by clicking through every page.

So how valuable is this e-book?

This is not a rhetorical question since many e-books are
created with no Index or Table of Contents.

Sure, you can take notes so you'll know where things are. Then
you can either go straight to that page or click that many
times.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the author to have provided
either a Table of Contents or an Index? Would you buy a hard
copy reference book that didn't provide 1 or both of these
things?

If you are an e-book author and create e-books that contains
more than a few pages (few is a ambiguous term so let's say 20
pages), then you should provide either an Index or Table of
Contents for your readers.

If you create PDF e-books which are the "in thing" right now and
you use MSWord to write them, then making an Index or Table of
Contents is not that difficult. All you have to do is:

1. As you write you're e-book, make every main section title a "Heading 1."
   
2. If you have subsections you would like contained in the Table of Contents,
   then make every subsection title a "Heading 2."
   
3. If you have subsections within your "Heading 2" subsections, you can make
   those subsection titles a "Heading 3."
   
4. After you've finished writing the content and saving, place your cursor at the location where you would like your Index or Table of Contents.
   
5. Click on "Insert" in the menu bar.
   
6. Go to "References" and select "Index and Tables ... ."
   
7. Click either the "Index" or "Table of Contents" tab.
   
8. Select the formatting options you want and click "OK."

You've just created a Table of Contents. True, it doesn't provide hyperlinks but at least the reader can see where things are located and can get to them easily.

You can play around with how you want to format your Index or
Table of Content until you find the one you like best. Just
remember to delete all the extra ones since MSWord doesn't
overwrite, it just keeps adding them.

(Side Note - If you discover you need to add new sections
or subsections to your e-book, you'll have to delete the Table
of Contents and recreate it after you've made your additions.)

If you're creating your e-books in .exe format, making an Index
or Table of Contents is like creating a site menu. You have the
option of putting it on a separate page, putting it on every
page or both. I also suggest that you use hyperlinks in your
Index or Table of Contents since the reader cannot get to pages
easily unless you do. Also, if you decide to put it on a
separate page, you'll want to provide a link to your Index or
Table of Contents on every page of your e-book.

Making either an Index or a Table of Contents does make a little
more work for e-book creators but it also makes the e-books more
user friendly.

So as you create your e-books, tell your readers where to go
because having quality information that is easy to find can help
build your reputation as a "good" e-book author.

To Your Success,
Susan Carroll

How To Track All Your Website Traffic For Free

Tracking your site's traffic is extremely important
and many online marketers don't do it because
they think they don't have the budget for it.

Today I found an article written by a Louis Allport,
a very successful online marketer. In it he explains
not only why you should be tracking your
website traffic but also how you can do it for
free.

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How To Track All Your Website Traffic For Free
Copyright © 2005 Louis Allport

Do you know:
* Exactly how many people are visiting your website?
* How long they're staying on your site before they move on?
* Exactly where those visitors are coming from, each day?
* How much of your website traffic is repeat visitors?
* The exact paths people take as they click their way through your website?

Here's what I'm getting at:

If you don't know your visitors, it makes it *very* difficult for you to improve the performance of your website and turn more visitors into customers - AND - get more quality traffic. For the simple reason that you're effectively working blind.

Without knowing how people visit your site and what they do on your site, any attempts at growing your traffic and improving the profitability of your website is working with one armed tied behind your back, at least.

And unfortunately - the web stats that come with your web-hosting are generally not enough these days.

Depending on your web host, chances are you've either got Webalizer, Analog Stats, or AWStats installed on your server. Here's how that software works:

It takes the "raw" (unreadable to the human eye) information your web server stores of everyone that visits and presents this in an easy to understand way.

Unfortunately, due to a number of technical reasons, this information is often presented in quite an inaccurate way.

And in my personal experience, these software packages don't present this information in a particularly helpful way either for someone trying to improve the conversion ratios and profitability of their website.

What I personally do, and what I would suggest you do is use a "Tracking Solution" that accurately tracks and reports all your visitors in an easy to read and understand way. These solutions come in two forms: Software & Services

Both these options have their pros and cons, but what they both do very well is present exactly what's happening on your website right up to the minute, and in a way that's very helpful to you for making good (and profitable) decisions for your business.

To start with here's a software solution you can install and use for free on your website:

Now before you go and install it, you should of course be familiar with installing software on your server. If you're not comfortable installing software on your website, a tracking service (which I'll come to in a moment) would probably be best for you.

And it's also important to note that installing software on your website can often put more strain on the server. This is particularly true if you're on shared hosting.

I've personally used the following free tracking software and it works well. See what you think. Go to http://www.curve2.com and look for "TrackPro". As I write this, version 2 is in Beta and is downloadable from the site at the following address: http://www.curve2.com/trackpro.php

You'll also find many further free tracking software solutions at http://www.hotscripts.com.

But personally speaking, what I've found works very well and avoids putting any increased strain on my existing websites is using a third party tracking service.

The only things really to worry about when using a third party service are:

* How long will this service be around? (If they stop their service after a year, you wouldn't be able to access your past data and will have to change all your tracking codes on your pages too.)
* What is their privacy policy regarding my web stats? (Are they honest and trustworthy in other words. You don't want the service owners studying and then duplicating your successful business plan.)

Over the past month I've been using ecommStats (http://www.ecommstats.com). Now, this service isn't free, but at this time they give you 50,000 free page views per domain, and depending how busy your site is those page views can last you a very long time.

The service works great and is very easy to add to your pages -- simply add three lines of code at the bottom of each of your pages (you can easily do this with Server Side Includes if you're comfortable with that) and all your visitors get tracked accurately and in great detail.

Alternatively - an entirely free (at this time) and very established service is StatCounter (http://statcounter.com). It even has a rave review from Tucows.com (one of the largest download sites on the internet) which speaks for itself and adds a lot of credibility to the service.

And just in case you're wondering how a free service like StatCounter makes money, well - since it's such a popular service with many webmasters logging in every day (and many I'm sure even more than once a day just like me) that it's made it very easy for them to sell a lot of advertising on their site. They also offer an upgrade to their advanced paid service.

But thinking beyond free services, as your business grows you may choose to upgrade to high end paid services that provide even more in depth information about your visitors...

Services like Urchin (Urchin.com - owned by Google) or Deep Metrix (DeepMetix.com). However, to help you grow your business to that point you need to keep a close eye on what your visitors are doing and where they're coming from, and free tracking software and services is a great way for you to start to do this.

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Louis Allport is an online product developer and marketer and recently revealed a simple and *proven* four-step formula for creating best-selling products practically on demand: http://www.friendswhocare.us/createoffers.htm

Do YGWYPF With A Free WYSIWYG Editor?

Don't you just love web acronyms like LOL and WYSIWYG?

It took me forever to remember that LOL means "Laugh Out Loud" on the internet since it meant "Lots Of Luck" in my previous life.

Then I started seeing WYSIWYG. This acronym was easier to remember once I found out what meant because I'd never seen anything like it before.WYSIWYG means "What You See Is What You Get" and didn't exist as a programming term until the internet. (Us "older" programmers can tell you that you had no idea what we were going to get when we ran a newly written program the first time - we just hoped it would run.)

Just like our mouse gives us "point and click" capability, WYSIWYG editors give us the ability to put things on a web page where we want them and the HTML code "just happens." So unless you were a web programmer in your other life or can learn new programming languages quickly, you should either be using a WYSIWYG HTML editor or paying someone to create your web pages.

Now a few years ago if you wanted a WYSIWYG HTML editor you had to buy 1. If you were lucky, you may have found 1 for less than $100 but usually the prices started around $200 and went up.Today, you can get good WYSIWYG HTML editors free. They may not have all the features as the ones you pay for but they have more than enough to get you started.

Recently I downloaded and tried one of the free WYSIWYG HTML editors and it impressed me enough that I've included it as a free resource in the membership area. Using this free editor you can do all the the "13 HTML Basics" I mentioned in an earlier article and a whole lot more. (The article is archived in our membership area.)

While the free editor didn't have all the same features as the version of FrontPage I purchased, it did offer the most commonly used ones.

In fact, most of the features not available with the free WYSIWYG editor aren't really necessary to those just learning to use HTML because ...

• Many of the missing capabilities can be done manually - like checking your page in different browser types.
• Most people don't need or use many of the missing items and some really increase the amount of time it takes for the page to load into a browser window.
• It's recommended to not use some of the capabilities like custom defined colors and WordArt because they don't display the same across all browser types.

Here's another acronym for you, YGWYPF - "You Get What You Pay For." Only in the case of free WYSIWYG HTML editors, you can really get a lot and pay nothing.

To Your Success,

Susan