Alliance of Associates

Website Problems

2009-07-13T06:13:00.002-05:00

The main website for Alliance of Associates has gone down today for the second time in a month. I don't think it is the hosts fault, it may be the link-cloaker I have been using. They are looking into it.
In the meantime, I will be posting to all my blogs here at blogger.com. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Five Tips to Managing Time with Your Blog

2009-06-23T05:42:00.001-05:00

I found this fascinating quote today:

So you want to start a blog but you are afraid you do not have the time to devote to it? If you want to have your own space on the internet and have the opportunity to show your inner self to the world, blogging may be the answer. Consider these five tips to making your blog as time efficient as it is exciting.Associateone, Five Tips to Managing Time with Your Blog

You should read the whole article.

How to Blog

2009-06-20T15:26:00.002-05:00

In recent years, blogging has become a new sort of art form. In the sense that all writing is art, blogging is just another branch of that. Many who spend the time creating and maintaining a blog are those who choose to use the internet as their means of sharing their thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, and everything about life in between.

Many people use these blogs to share themselves with others all over the world. Those who choose to do so can easily set up an account with a blog provider and create their own personal journals. This is a great avenue of expression for many.

Recently, however, trends have also shifted towards the use of business blogs. These are used to promote companies or products. Bloggers generally post articles that are relevant to the company or product and are intended to draw attention from potential customers. This can help to increase sales, thus becoming a profitable venture.

For those interested in creating a blog, consider the following tips to insure that your blog does exactly what you want it to do.

First of all, it is important to take into consideration the audience to whom you will be
addressing. No matter what your purpose, you have to generate a blog that will be
interesting to them. A blog is your voice, but you have to "speak" in a way that others
can understand and will want to return in order to be successful.

Secondly, remember the importance of pictures. Often, a good picture can say more than pages of writing. Not only does it say what you cannot many times, but it also helps to make your blog more entertaining to browse. This does not mean you have to post personal pictures of yourself. Remember to be safe and also to protect the privacy of others, but you can post any photo that does not insult those who would be reading your blog.

Next, consider being constructive in your writing. You blog can be on any topic, or lack thereof, that you wish, but consider using that avenue to be of some benefit to others. Sure, you can write about anything you want, but it is often nice to include some articles that would be helpful to those reading your blog. Provide some useful information instead of just entertainment.

Along the lines of keeping the interest of your readers, do not make a blog that is too
technical or formal. Using complicated techniques or extremely highly-educated
language may turn off readers instead of welcoming them. Remember that you can make quick factual statements and shorter blog comments instead of feeling that you have to make a lot of long entries. You are generally not writing to an audience made up solely of scholars.

In addition, remember that most people who read blogs typically enjoy the internet by
scanning for information. You would be best advised to offer shorter statements and
colorful pictures with article links than to offer long articles that readers may find too
overwhelming. As mentioned earlier, remember who your audience is.

Finally, if possible, add some sort of interactive function to your blog. You can include videos or audio segments. You can also have a guestbook or comments area where readers can post their own thoughts in relation to what you have said. You will be able to see how others react to your reactions about life.

Yes, even those blogs that are created for fun serve a purpose. Whether you create a blog to sell a product or just sell your sense of humor to the rest of the world, a blog is a great avenue for creative writing.

Networking With Blogs

2009-06-20T11:31:00.003-05:00

In the past, people relied on websites for networking. Today, however, the newest thing to hit the internet craze is the blog, or web log. It is fairly easy to create a blog to journal, talk about events, express your thoughts and ideas, or do just about anything you want.

Without having to have a website yourself, you can create a blog that is hosted by a mass blog website.

Blogs really hit the public scene during the 2004 presidential election. The reason is that it gave many people a place to be heard both as a journalist and political commentator. However, that type of blog is not always right for everyone. If you consider using a blog for your own networking purposes, you can use it as a sort of diary or a place to share your expertise on a particular topic.

Blogs can be updated quite easily and are hosted on a website, so you do not have to
worry about any lack of knowledge in the area of sites themselves. You may find that
you can use a blog instead of a newsletter and it would actually reach more people
because it could be viewed by anyone searching for keywords contained in your blog.
This means more profit, if you are using your blog as a money making device, because
you make more money when you reach more people.

But what are the benefits of your own blog? First of all, you are giving people a chance to know you and learn from you. In a sense, you are generating a clientele or following. Secondly, you give others an easy way to recommend you. They only have to provide a link to others to tell them what is great about you! Finally, it helps you to stay on top of things and become a cutting edge expert. You will have to do some research to make sure your topics are fresh and interesting, and this will help you to know what is going on in your area.

Once you decide that networking with blogs might be right for you, how do you get
started? There are three things that are most highly recommended for beginners to do before jumping in headfirst. Consider the following tips.

First of all, take the time to read other blogs. Do a search on your favorite search engine for blogs related to your potential topic. See what else is out there. This will help you to see what types of things are being done in blogs that are successful and what things are being done in blogs that are not doing as well. Consider emailing blog owners and asking for guidance and assistance. In many cases, blog owners are more than happy to help and are not as competitive as one might assume.

Secondly, research and read up on RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is one of several ways to publish your blog online. You can search for a free RSS reader in your favorite search engine and use it to kelp keep track of the blogs you are reading.

Finally, start a blog! Some prefer to create their plan ahead of time while others want to start it up and go with the flow. If you are prepared to take some time up front to get set up, you'll be ready to roll in no time!

Why Custom Content Is So Critical

2009-06-17T13:21:00.000-05:00

Think of the alternatives to custom content: no content at all or content that has been taken from another site. If those two options seem unusable, you're getting a good idea of why custom content is so important. Looking at it another way: not having content is like designing a web site with the exact same layout as Amazon. This just isn't done; your site needs to be unique to be effective.

The two keys to custom content are uniqueness and authority. An informed buyer is an active buyer. Don't make a web surfer go elsewhere to find information on products and services. Everything a customer needs to know should be found on your site: informative articles, glossary definitions, reviews of products, answers to Frequently Asked Questions, and more. When all of this content is in place, a site will rank more highly in search engines, so a potential customer will have a better chance to come to the site and start perusing the information.

The idea is not just to sell specific products, but to sell the website itself, as well as sell the entire company.

All of these things work in conjunction with each other. If people trust the information on the site, they'll be more willing to make a purchase. In addition, there's an element of gratitude for having direct questions answered.

A site should never cover the bare minimum, but the gamut; every possible piece of information surrounding an industry, no matter how small. Along with custom content there should be content organization. Just plastering long paragraphs of text on the screen will exhaust a web surfer before he or she even starts reading. Content needs to be well organized with relevant links both within the article and on the sidebar leading to information that corresponds to the original article. Just as the content needs to be well informed and well written, it needs to be well presented, or a web surfer is going to click out and move on.

All of these issues can make a website stand out from the vast array of sites online. People are more and more looking to the web for both information and shopping. At a content-rich site, surfers can kill two birds with one stone. These days, web owners are hiring copywriters to handle the task of preparing custom content. Each site will have a different demographic and require a different type of writing; for instance, technical or conversational; so it is important to find a content writing firm that specializes in a wide variety of industries.

Win The Battle Of Relevancy Online With Custom Content

2009-06-17T12:44:00.001-05:00

It's a dog eat dog world out there on the Internet. There is the capacity for an unlimited number of storefronts on the web that you'd never be able to find on main street. The fact is that there is even more competition for business online than there is in the brick-and-mortar world. This is only going to get more intense. It wasn't so long ago that many people were afraid to use credit cards online. Shopping online was a curiosity. Now, it's a given.

The battle of relevancy online is the battle of one site being more useful than another. In the growing virtual marketplace, it isn't nearly enough to just have a number of products and hope for the best. Look at Amazon.com reviews; they are core to what has made that site grow. A glowing Amazon review can do a lot for a product's sales. Web surfers use Amazon reviews as much as they use a review in the local paper, if not more. Reviews have made Amazon a relevant and trusted resource for a department store's worth of products.

Not every site can hope to have the same review structure as Amazon. A number of affiliate sites use Amazon reviews as their own content. Web surfers are getting savvy to this: they can smell an affiliate site. Why not just go to Amazon directly? The battle for relevancy, then, is to become something as trusted and vital as the major sites online. You can't necessarily wait around for people to write reviews, and the process may not even apply to your site, so a site owner needs to provide content of your own.

Another word for relevancy is usefulness. It has been shown that the longer a person sticks around on a site, the more likely he or she will make a purchase. Even if that person doesn't make a purchase the first time to the site, the site will have left an impression. People are looking for information on a product or service as much as they are looking to make an immediate purchase. Web surfers like to be informed shoppers and the web gives them an unlimited amount of places to get this information.

This is where your site comes in. Don't make a web surfer click off your site to find information on a product; give them the information right on site. This means you should have articles available about any and all issues affecting a particular type of product or service. There can be hundreds of potential topics on one type of product, and a site may have dozens upon dozens of products available.

Not only will this type of information keep your site relevant to web surfers, it will be relevant to search engines as well. With content, these make up your target audience: search engine spiders and real people. If you provide relevant content that speaks to both, your site can compete with the giants.

The Essentials Of Keyword Planning

2009-06-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

Remember the web in the old days? You could cram in a bunch of keywords at the bottom of the page regardless of grammar, and pretty much devoid of any aesthetic sense, and search engines ate it up. It's probably a good thing those days are over because websites have become a lot more professional. That still doesn't mean that people are using keywords to the best of their advantage. In fact, because it is much harder to write keyword-targeted content, many site owners avoid the issue.

This is good news for anyone looking to improve their page ranking. The market is wide open for people who use an effective keyword strategy. The main issues are both quality and quantity. A few pages of keyword-driven content just aren't going to do it anymore. If you're really looking to improve your search engine ranking, and ultimately improve your sales, you have to provide dozens of pages of content.

To do so, you need to first research keyword strategies employed by competing businesses. Type in the most obvious keyword for your industry. What comes out in the top ten? What have those sites done to achieve that ranking? Keyword planning tools will tell you the popularity of certain keywords, but you should do some brainstorming on your own. Try and think every possible permutation of a possible search, including misspellings—even for easy-to-spell words.

Each search engine will provide keyword planning tools, potentially for a fee—you can check the keyword relevancy in Google, Overture, Yahoo, and others. It's not a bad idea to check how keyword popularity compares in different search engines. You should be looking at potentially a hundred or more keywords—though this can vary according to the site. If a site sells a variety of different products, or provides different services, you're going to be able to multiply that keyword list.

Each keyword list should be tailored to a specific demographic. Once you have the keyword list together, it is time to optimize content so that the site provides relevant content surrounding that list of keywords. The most important part of content optimization is the title. What this means is you should title the article with a specific keyword in mind—the HTML link for the article is vital for page rank. This keyword should then be repeated in the article—but not so much that the text becomes unnatural or, worse, unreadable.

If that's the case, you could risk the site being banned by search engines outright. In addition to keyword popularity tools, you should also use keyword density tools for your site's content. If the keyword density is too high, the site could be red-flagged as offering unnatural, inorganic content. All of these issues are core to keyword planning.

Five Reasons Your Company Needs A Solid SEO Plan

2009-06-17T11:49:00.001-05:00

Here's the major reason that your company needs a solid SEO plan: profitability. Search Engine Optimization is just another way of marketing. If you don't market a product, you can't expect name recognition or sales to come pouring in. Most people surfing online go to search engines to find information or new products. Without a decent search engine ranking, your site, and products, will be passed over time and again.

There are five core reasons that SEO is important, all of which can help a business's profit margin. Let's begin with what is the basis of SEO marketing: content. The idea of providing unique content is so that the site becomes a trusted resource on a set of topics. So how does content help profitability?

First is search engine ranking. Search engine spiders love content. If the content matches the HTML title tag, an important optimization technique, and the content contains common keywords plugged into a search engine, there will be more opportunities for the site to land in the top listings of search results. Providing quality, targeted content will draw in potential customers looking specifically for what you have to offer.

Driving traffic has a two-fold purpose. Not only does a content-rich site help search engine results, but the content will leave a lasting impression on visitors. Imagine a site that's in the top three results that provides no useful information. Traffic can be useless if the site doesn't have some sticking power. Web surfers will come back to the site time and again. SEO will lead to both new and repeat visitors. Inspiring repeat visitors is reason number two for a solid SEO plan.

An offshoot of this is number three: referrals. The more content-rich your site, the more you'll be able to get referrals. Web surfer one goes to a site and finds useful information, he then refers web surfer two—it's a type of traffic that works independently of search engines, the basis of viral marketing. Part of SEO is providing an easy way for people to refer other web surfers, possibly with a reward system.

Fourth is linkbait. Again, this has two purposes. Quality content can lead to other sites linking to the original article. This will both drive traffic from the linking site, as well as help elevate search engine ranking. Search engine spiders love relevant links.

The final way SEO is useful is general: it improves the site. A website is a form of advertising--it represents the company. A site should be feature-rich and informative in order to increase brand recognition and ensure repeat visitors. Too often, website owners are caught up in how to "fool" search engine spiders. You might fool a spider, but you'll rarely fool an actual web surfer. SEO should be about providing a content-heavy site that will become a trusted resource in your industry.

Why Organic Real Estate On The Web Is So Important

2009-06-17T11:41:00.001-05:00

When it comes to real estate, people usually shout out the mantra: location, location, location. When it comes to web real estate, you could say the same thing: location, location, location in search engines. Organic real estate on the web refers to the positioning your website has on the web landscape. A solid organic real estate design and SEO strategy will make a website as necessary a destination as the corner market. In short, organic real estate keeps a website from languishing unseen in cyberspace.

So how does Organic Real Estate work? What makes Organic Real estate, well, organic? The main feature of Organic Real Estate is quality, informative content. This is what sets quality SEO plans apart from those that are merely trying to trick search engine spiders. Content should be natural, not written as if composed by a machine. Natural, well-written web content will increase page rank at a faster rate than content that is written only with keywords in mind.

This is especially important for web entrepreneurs who run affiliate sites. Web surfers are getting savvy to the fact that many affiliate sites are just a dummy site set-up to "hopefully" bring in some sales. Experienced affiliate marketers know that you can make a site that is as competitive, and useful, as the affiliate's host site. The more quality content there is on your site, the better an affiliate site can separate itself from the crowded web marketplace.

But Organic Real Estate is about a lot more than content—and this is where a lot of SEO plans fall short. In addition to providing content, a site owner must determine a target audience. In one way, content and target audience go hand in hand. You have to figure out target audience and tailor content accordingly. In addition, you may have a different target audience for different products or services offered on your site. Content and keyword targeting must be tailored to each potential type of client and customer.

Without these strategies, what will you have: a site that looks more like a link-factory than a trusted resource in a particular industry. In the past, people stressed the need for quality web design. While this is no doubt important, it is now much easier for amateur's to design a high-quality looking site. It is far less easy for site owners to provide fresh and useful content. You'll find a bevy of nice-looking sites with little or nothing to offer in terms of content. In Web 2.0, content is what separates the great from the mediocre, and the organic from the artificial.

Web Site Optimization

2009-06-17T10:54:00.002-05:00

All optimization is not equal. There is such a rush to optimize a website for search engines that people don't realize that some SEO techniques can be self-defeating. Either a lot of work will go into a particular type of optimization that is fruitless or it can be downright harmful for search engine ranking. A high search-engine ranking is the holy grail of search engine optimization, but make sure you put your energy in the right place.

The first two issues involve web design: don't use flash or frames when designing a website. These won't get you banned by search engines;but the site might be ignored entirely. While you can use some flash animation within a site, overuse of flash should be avoided. Search engines like text, not fancy graphics. A flash-heavy site could be passed over. The same goes for a site written with frames;frame-heavy sites confuse search engines so the sites are not properly indexed. The text on a framed site is hidden within the frame, so even if there is ample content within the frame, it will not be read correctly. Verdict: avoid it.

When writing content, make sure the content makes sense. In the early days of the web, people went keyword crazy. They would cram a huge paragraph of keywords throughout a page. This worked for a little while. Now search engines are wise to it and this technique can lead to a site being banned. Website owners try to trick search engines by including the keywords within actual content, but if the keywords are too close together, this could also lead to problems.

Another issue is spamdexing. Never use keywords that don't apply specifically to a site. This can most often be seen with site owners using adult-themed keywords to bring in unrelated searches. This will cause a site to be quickly red-flagged. Using invisible text is a bad idea as well. Invisible text is the same color as the background. It can be read by spiders, but can't be read by human eyes. The problem here is that spiders now recognize this technique and it will be red-flagged.

Generally, content should be useful and informative. You can include specific keywords within content, but if you provide enough content, these keywords will be covered automatically without jeopardizing the site with picky search engine spiders. The use of quality content is two-fold: it's a better way to optimize with search engines and web surfers will spend a longer time on the site reading articles or other content. The trick is to create trust;both with spiders and real people.

Return To The Basics

2009-06-09T08:20:00.007-05:00

I must apologize to all my readers. All of my recent endeavors have been concentrated on one blog, and I've neglected the roots of my home business. This has allowed me to experiment with various ideas rather easily, but has caused a drift from the main goal. The main goal is, and always will be, to help others learn to be successful making money working at home, without spending any money.

Fortunately, the last couple weeks have not been without gain. I've played with a few ideas, made a little money (without spending), and am now ready to share the knowledge I've gained.

In the weeks to come, Alliance of Associates will be undergoing some significant changes. The site will be restructured some, and the majority of blogs brought back on site. But then again, I may just leave them right where they are. It's not that easy to decide.

On the one hand, Blogger, which is what this blog is hosted on, is a very nice and easy to use system for basic blogging, but future plans necessitate greater flexibility. Since blogger is free (I will always stress that you can succeed without spending money), it will still be recommend to those that are just starting out. However, if your plans include per page customization of various promotions, the better approach is to have your own site.

Anyway, I will discuss this matter along with much more on the main site. I look forward to sharing with you.

Best wishes in your future success, Steve Brooks.

Work at Home - Make Money

2009-03-12T02:08:00.000-05:00

Learn more about the free course that teaches you how to work at home and make money. Visit the Alliance of Associates.