NumaTek Web Design E-Zine
NumaTek Web Design E-Zine (e-magazine) is a free newsletter covering many aspects of e-commerce and how to build a successful online business.
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The Last Issue:
10.10.03
Show Yourself as an Expert
In our previous issue we told you about that the "Articles" part of your web site can bring your more visitors. Let us to remind you about the process:
- Find the subject(s) indirectly corresponding to your business.
- Write some articles on this subject(s) and publish them on your web site.
- Wait 1-2 months when the new pages will be indexed by search engine robots. For example, Google updates its database every 36 days (10 times a year).
- Get extra visitors to your web site after that period.
We were happy to receive feedback from many of our clients on my last newsletter. Shelly, the owner of alchemyshoppe.com wrote:
I enjoyed reading your newsletter. I wish to add much more information on my website. I write an article each month for one local newspaper, I want to have those articles available along with information on how to use products for an "at home spa experience."
Thanks,
Shelly
Good intentions, Shelly! If you write articles for a local newspaper, you should publish them on your web site as well.
If you remember, we promised to explain how to get more benefits from your articles. Let's jump in.
We like to compare an online business with a real store. Adding articles that indirectly correspond to your business is like having extra doors open. Instead having a one door, your store invites different groups of prospects by numerous entries.
But now tell us as a store owner, would you like to have your advertisement in numerous other places? Plus, it would not be a short "meaning-nothing" advertisement like "Visit whatever.com", but a high powered advertisement which shows your prospects that you are the expert in your field. What is impossible in reality can be very possible in the Internet. And all of this for free? Wow, you say. And we would say to you it is possible, but just takes a little time. You may have already written some articles for your web site. Why wouldn't publish them in other places? There are many web sites which would like to publish them.
Your benefits are obvious:
- You show yourself as an expert in your field. People prefer to buy from experts.
- It is common that an author of an article includes a URL to his/her web site in a signature. As a result, more web sites link to yours and your link popularity (page rank) is continuously increasing. Your web site will get a higher ranking in search engines.
For those who don't know what a link of popularity is and
why it is important, we will explain it briefly. Let's try
to think like a search engine robot. 
If a web page links
to your web site, it means that this web page considers your
web site important and interesting. So, the more web
pages that link to your web site, the more important and interesting
your web site is in the opinion of a search engine robot.
But here, the most common mistake of web site owners is concealed. Recently some of our clients were spending a lot of time exchanging links with other web sites trying to get as many links as possible. We have to say that the process of increasing a popularity link is not simple as it seems. The QUALITY of the web site linking to yours is more important for search engines than the QUANTITY of these web sites. Search engines can tell what type of web site the links come from. An example would be the difference between a "good and bad neighborhood". Web rings and link exchange programs are considered a "bad neighborhood". Why? Because the principle, "link to my web site because I link to yours" is not valued by search engines. The web rings and link exchange programs were created as a way to trick search engines. But search engines always find "antidotes" for this. This is why many search engine robots don't or won't follow links at a links.html (links.htm, link.html. etc) page. You can call your link page whatever you want, but a search engine robot will figure out that this is a Link Page because the content of the page is mostly links and banners (that's why many web sites require putting their banners /buttons on your home page when you offer them to exchange links. They don't put your link of their home page though). This is why the hard work of getting reciprocal links doesn't bring the expecting result and will not pull your web site up to the search engine "heaven" - top 10. We can't say that exchanging reciprocal links with other web sites doesn't work at all. But it doesn't work as well as it used to several years ago. When exchanging links with other web sites, you have to keep in mind that:
- The web sites you exchange links with must have same theme as yours. If you own a real estate business it doesn't make sense to exchange links with a dating web site;
- The web sites must be of good-quality.
How does a robot determine how important a link to your web site is? Search engine robots look at the content (words) surrounding the link. But what content can be better than an article written by you? Articles published on other web sites which show your expertise and have a link to your web site are the best way to earn the highest-quality link of popularity.
In our opinion, one of the best ways to show your expertise is http://www.suite101.com. Within 2 days after publishing our first article at suite101.com, our web site has received 201 hits from this site. Let us to tell your more about the web site. The web site is an online publishing community of writers, readers, and educators. You can't publish just a single article there. You have to become an editor of one or several topics. For example, I am the contributing editor of the Internet Marketing topic in the Business & Economics Community. Of course being an editor and supervising a topic takes some time. But in return, you receive popularity and promote your business at the same time. Plus, if you are already writing articles for your web site anyway, why wouldn't you use them for your suite101 editor activity?
You can see the "Wish List" of topics at http://www.suite101.com/editorapp/wishlist.cfm.
Even if there is no a topic which you would like to supervise in the Wish List, you can create your own.
Here are a few web sites where you can also publish your articles and press releases without becoming an editor:
http://ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://www.free-press-release.com/submit/
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/termsofuse/articlesubmission.htm
http://www.digital-women.com/submitarticle.htm
(women community)
http://www.spark-online.com/masthead/aboutspark.html
http://www.escapeartist.com/OREQ/article_submission.htm
(real estate only)
http://www.weeno.com/Pages/submitrules.shtml
http://www.411contractor.com/411Referral.net/links/submitArticle.htm
(home improvement and landscaping industry)
http://www.techknowlogia.org/TKL_active_pages2/Submit/main.asp
http://www.occultopedia.com/submit.htm
(occult sciences and knowledge)
http://edlines.hprtec.org/submit.php
(education)
http://www.childfun.com/modules.php?name=Submit_News
(children related)
http://www.businessknowhow.com/newsletter/articleguidelines.htm
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