Authority Sites On The Rise

By Nelson Tan (c) 20

As Web 2.0 becomes less of just a buzzword and more of a reality, the types of sites webmasters need to publish will increasingly become more important. In other words, mini-sites are slowly dying and cookie-cutter article sites are on the way out as well. Web surfers will become more value-focused and web companies will become larger.

Over the next few years expect larger conglomerates to be buying up profitable websites in their chosen markets. Expect smaller sites to either be bought or driven out of business. My intention is not to scare you, but this outcome is inevitable.

Large businesses have always taken two approaches to their desired markets. They either buy their competition or they push them out of business. You want to be prepared when this trend begins on the Internet.

Being a webmaster and online marketer, you should be preparing for one of two scenarios. To position yourself for a buyout to a larger company or to become the larger company that dominates your chosen market.

Whichever route you choose is entirely up to you, but I would suggest that it would be in your best interest to begin focusing on authority sites. You can either start building them or turning your current sites into them. Whatever your approach may be, I assure you it will help you sleep better at night.

What Is The Definition Of An Authority Site?

A fairly comprehensible authority site definition was put forward by Jason Dowdell of Global Promoter. Jason defined it this way: "Authority sites are sites that have been linked to and referenced on other web sites covering the same subject matter and they also will have hundreds if not thousands of pages covering that subject matter and nearly every facet of it."

That definition is one man's opinion, albeit a good one, but let us go directly to the source. Many search engine optimization and search engine marketing experts believe Google has derived their primary algorithm from a document titled, "Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents".

The PageRank formula as we know it today was derived from this paper, and the authors, Bharat and Mihaila, define an authority site in the text below:

"We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if and only if some of the best experts on the query topic point to it. Of course in practice some expert pages may be experts on a broader or related topic. If so, only a subset of the hyperlinks on the expert page may be relevant."

"In such cases the links being considered have to be carefully chosen to ensure that their qualifying text matches the query. By combining relevant out-links from many experts on the query topic we can find the pages that are most highly regarded by the community of pages related to the query topic. This is the basis of the high relevance that our algorithm delivers."

What we have reprinted above is the foundation of the PageRank system and the determination for deciding which sites will be authorities. I highly recommend you read and re-read the full document until you understand every aspect of it.

What Are the Components of an Authority Site?

Allow me to present you with a diagram (http://www.contentdesk.com/authoritymap) that dissects your typical authority site. As you can tell from the diagram, a considerable number of components and systems must be in place for the authority site to function profitably and reap the benefits of the "Authority Site Formula".

The Authority Site Formula = Visitor Optimization (VO) + Content Optimization (CO) * Creative Marketing (CM)

A simple question must be asked. What do 99.9% of authority sites provide? In a sentence, an incredible amount of original content and a superb visitor experience. The search engines want you to succeed and they want you to generate revenue, but you have to play by their rules. In the future, focus your efforts on visitor optimization and content optimization instead of search engine optimization.

What Is The Anatomy Of An Authority Site?

About.com is the definition and was the original authority site. Their site has a generic domain name and hundreds of subdomains on different topics.

Your authority site should take the same approach, but not on such a general level. If you launch an authority site, it should be geared towards a well-defined and large market. After you launch the site and generate some traffic, you should create subdomains that cover specific areas inside that larger market.

For example, Diabetic-Resources.Com is not an active site; but if it were, then a typical authority site setup would be something like:

• http://supplies.diabetic-resources.com
• http://diet.diabetic-resources.com
• http://insurance.diabetic-resources.com
• http://symptoms.diabetic-resources.com
• http://treatment.diabetic-resources.com

Using this approach, you are able to target your general market while generating more targeted traffíc pertaining to related sub-markets.

As a rule of thumb, the index pages on your domains and subdomains should be more focused on content, but the article and commentary pages should be more focused on advertising. Just do not ever lose sight of the most important aspect of your site, which is visitor experience otherwise known as visitor optimization.

What Does It Take To Create An Authority Site?

You want to create a site that generates thousands of visitors a day mainly through the major search engines, and would ultimately be the one-stop source for information in that particular market.

Your site must employ 3 traits to become an authority site. Let's discuss all 3 necessary aspects:

Dynamic: You should have as many RSS feeds as you can muster to incorporate throughout your site. Your visitors need to be able to receive RSS feeds for any keyword, category or archive as well as create their own. One feed is no longer enough to satisfy your visitors.

Interactive: You should be engaging the minds of your visitors at all times using surveys, commenting and feedback. Make these features easy for your visitors and your site will grow exponentially. Why? Because they feel like you actually care about them. Interaction is a powerful tool and creates a sense of community on your site.

Consistent: You should post to your blog often, and you should always provide quality and original content. That doesn't mean you need to produce 800-word articles 3 times a week. Your goal should be to become a news master. You need to be an "authority" on the news happening in your niche.

If you follow the steps and guidelines listed above, then you will be on your way to being the owner of an authority site.

About The Author
Nelson Tan is the webmaster behind Internet Mastery Center.

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Making Money Online at Your Fingertips

By : Internet Marketing Tips


Making money online is an opportunity that surpasses the traditional way of business, and that is a given fact. But making money online the fastest way is something that cannot be achieved overnight. It not only takes an extreme desire to succeed but also takes a lot of discipline and dedication to achieve and attain it.

The most popular and surefire way to earn big bucks through the World Wide Web is to be able to provide informational products or programs. It should be something that everybody wants and will be willing to pay for at all cost. The products could be software, an e-book, or a program that can make money online.

It is a given fact the most, if not all, online marketers sells information over the Information Highway. In actual fact, the majority of all the highly successful businesses online are selling information in any form they can provide. A very prominent person who does this is Mr. Bill Gates himself. He is one of the richest men in the world, and one of his business ventures is selling software, which is of course an informational product.

Informational products or programs are not limited to just giving information, they can also be information on how to make money online the fastest and surest way. The Web is full of products or programs that promise you one thing and that is to earn big-time. Some may say that it is hard to achieve that, who says it is not. Of course it is true, that anything with regards to making money should be treated as hard work, which is why it is so much more gratifying when someone succeeds in it. However, extreme care should be taken in choosing the right one, especially if it requires any fees in any form, because ideally your purpose is to earn and not to loose money.

Here are five reasons and benefits on why you should consider marketing informational products or programs online:

1. Very Low Investments: Compared to the traditional way of making money, a business done online requires very low investments. For instance, starting a traditional business such as a restaurant can cost you up to $250,000 or more, and that is just the cost of setting it up, you may still need contingency funds to ensure that you will have extra funds when things get rough the first few months. But with informational products or programs you can get things rolling, in just a few hours for less than $500 as your initial investment.

2. Inventory Cost? Who needs it? Since informational products or programs are compiled and or reproduced in electronic format, there is virtually no need for inventory storage, and it follows that you will not spend a dime on inventory cost. Nowadays informational products or programs are in a form of an e-book, software and applications. Basically, you do not have any inventory cost, except maybe to invest on some good application tools for it, but even that cost so little and sometimes it is provided. Try to compare that to the traditional restaurant business that will cost you thousands in fees for storage, labor and a lot more.

3. No Shipping Cost: Shipping costs should not be taken for granted especially in traditional businesses. Just think about the costs that you will spend on a returned order, customer refund, or even replacement of damaged product. Then again, in informational products or programs delivery is done electronically online, safely and instantly in real time.

4. Higher Re-selling Rights: Informational products or programs have high re-sell values, because for some the value of the information it contains is what's important. Production costs are immaterial with these products.

5. A 24/7 Business: This is, by far, the best advantage in this kind of online business, a business that runs on autopilot. From customer inquires, taking orders, to payment processing, and product download. A business that runs 24/7, while you do other things or spend time with you family. Now that is what I call a dream business made in heaven!

http://mail.google.com/mail/h/h0wjpgzb6iki/?v=c&th=1218cb3d57f71a45

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Ten Ways To Get Web Traffic Fast - And Free

By James Gladwin (c) 2009

There are several ways to get website traffic fast and free, and I'm going to share ten niche ways with you

Article Submission

You don't need to be an award winníng expert on the topic you are writing about - just pick an area that is related to the theme of your website, do a bit of research using a search engine and before you know it you will have more knowledge on that subject than most. Write in a relaxed, straightforward way. And, of course, when you add your details at the end of your article, make certain that you include your web address as well.

Top Positions in the Web's Largest Article Directory

URL Submission

This sounds so obvious, yet so many people overlook it. Website URL submission is about getting more links to your website to help your website get ranked high on major search engines, thus getting more visitor traffic by, well, submittíng your website URL to the major search engines. You can buy or subscribe to software that will do this, but it is quite possible to get a good return by submitting manually.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a way for internet users to store, classify, share, search and discover Internet resources that they find useful. Since social bookmarks are saved online, users are able to access them from anywhere - at home, at work or while travelling.

These lists can be accessible to the public by users of a specific network or website. What you need to do first is register with a social bookmarking site which allows you to store and tag bookmarks. Most social bookmarking services allow users to search for bookmarks which are associated with given "tags", and rank the resources by the number of users which have bookmarked them. This means that other visitors and members of social bookmarking sites can search for resources by topic, category, keyword, tags, or popularity to see what others have saved. As a user, social bookmarking sites let you find useful, informative resources through pages that have been tagged because others have found them to be valuable sources. Voila - more web traffíc. Free.

Forum Posting

Forum posting is a hands down alternative to paid advertising methods. For just a few hours of work every week, you can capture batches of interested leads everyday. The more forums you contribute to, the more you will gain traffic. If you are an active forum poster, you will also get a good feel about the kind of products that are hot on the market.

Visit SiteProNews for the Best in Webmaster News, Tools and Blog Posts!

Please don't overlook the forum signature or commonly called resource box - it's a powerful free advertising tool for you. What you must do is edit your forum signature. Basically, a curiosity inducing one-liner and a link to your website is great. Once you have edited and saved your signature, it will appear at the bottom of all your comments in the forum discussions. That means, the more you participate in the discussions in the forums, the more people see your semi-ad written on your signature. I promise, this will encourage people to visit your website, and hopefully buy from you.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to get the word out about your website and can be done with very little technical expertise and therefore is easy to start up. If you have a product or service you believe in, visit a site such as Clickbank and open an account. Follow the simple instructions to gain affiliates - and traffic.

Press Releases

It's a fact that a well-written Press Release can dramatically improve your sales, expose your company to the masses, and greatly enhance the image of your business or products. Publicity is the most cost-effective web traffic building marketing tool there is, and, surprisingly, web traffíc can be generated by ink and paper!
Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!

Classified Ads

Again, it's easy to associate Classified Ads with yesterday's technology, but they are extremely cheap and a one line product or service description, together with your website, will pay dividends.

Blog Comments

If you are an avid blog follower, you have to include Blog Commenting in your web traffíc arsenal. You will almost always find a "comments" link at the end of each post. Good blog commenters add to the discussion and are known as knowledgeable, informative, friendly and engaged. Join them!

FaceBook

Don't forget that you can use Facebook to its full potential to attract more visitors to your website. You can get away from just interacting with your school or college friends and start interacting with people within your industry or other industries that you want to get into.

An easy way to do this is to join groups that interest you as well as make friends with people that you want to get to know. Fill out your profile (fully) - the best profile on Facebook is a complete one.

Videos

Finally, why not make a video and post to video sites too! This is not a Warner Bros. effort! Your PC or Mac may well have a webcam, or you can borrow a camcorder or Flip. Write a brief script - lights- camera - action - and upload to YouTube. (Just remember to be sure to link it back to you.)

Well - there you are. Not all of the ten suggestions I've outlined may appeal, but if you select three or four, stick with them, and implement them on a regular basis, you will see your web traffíc grow significantly. My best to you.

About The Author
Did you find these suggestions helpful? Is your website making you money? Go to UltraSimpleWebTraffic.com to find out more and claim your free visitor traffic mini course by James Gladwin.

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How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business

By Mike Tekula (c) 2009

If you own a business, chances are you do. But don't pat yourself on the back too quickly.

By now it's widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It doesn't matter what your company is selling - a website, however modest, has become a standard.

The real question is: what is your website doing for your business?

As a web marketer I often put this question to the business owners I meet. Not because I'm trying to lead into my sales pitch, but because I'm intrigued to hear the answer.

Most people get a certain "deer in the headlights" look in their eyes when I ask this question. To be fair, it's not a question we're used to hearing. But that's not all that's going on here.

Traditional advertising mediums - print, TV, radio, etc - are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you'll know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don't know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed.

Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to advertise - it's a necessary cost of doing business - so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle) and we hope for the best.

This has been a given in marketing since the beginning. But the web, and analytics, changed the game.

So how should you be using your web analytics to grow your audience, and your business, online?

Track Everything

With web analytics on your site you can track:

• Where your traffic is coming from by
  - The referring website and page
  - The search engine and keyword used

• Your website visitors by
  - Their location
  - Their operating system, browser and monitor resolution
  - Their network

• Visitor behavior and actions by
  - Duration of visit (time on site)
  - Pages per visit (number of pages viewed)
  - Bounce rate (percentage of users who viewed only one page before leaving)
  - Conversion rate (percentage of users who completed a preset task)

If you're planning on doing any kind of web marketing, be it through search engines, email or advertising on other websites, information on your past and current traffic is crucial. Not to mention you'll want analytics in place so you can properly track the new traffic your promotions will, hopefully, bring in.

Tie Your Traffic Sources to Your Users' Actions

When looking at your analytics data the behavior and action metrics mean little by themselves. If the bounce rate of your site overall is 75%, what does that tell you? Well, this is a pretty high bounce rate - you should at least be shooting to have a bounce rate lower than 50%. But does this tell you exactly what is wrong?

Likewise, if you have secured advertising or a listing on another website, the number of visits coming in from that site only gives you part of the picture.

Tying your bounce rate to a specific traffic source, on the other hand, can tell you a lot.

If a given traffic source is generating a bounce rate of 85% or more, for example, this indicates that users are not being satisfied. There are a few possibilities as to why:

• The users may not be well-qualified - or the site where you are listed or advertising might not have the best audience for your content/offer.

• The listing/ad may promise something that the entry page does not live up to (or, at least, the promise is difficult to locate once the user arrives at your site).

• Your site is simply not usable, is unattractive or unprofessional, causing users to leave immediately (and most don't come back)

• Your users are not connecting with your content/offer.

There are other possibilities, but you'll want to find the most likely answer here - and try to fix it. Then, using the same metrics (traffic source + bounce rate), you can see whether things improve moving forward.

Using metrics like these you can also get a sense of which advertisements are bringing you a return on your investment and which aren't. With goal tracking in Google Analytics, for example, a conversion rate is added to just about every traffic metric, including referring websites. If you're finding that a website is sending you plenty of traffic but none of it is converting, re-examine the referring website's audience, how your site is being presented and the user's experience when they click through.

The Point

Your website is more than a brochure. It's an interactive tool for your users. The only true way to find out how they're using it (or not using it) is to get web analytics set up properly on your website (including setting goal points to track conversions).

And the best way to improve your website in the aim of building your business is to use the information your web analytics give you.

The age of blind advertising - of throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best - is dead.

If you aren't tracking everything, taking time on a regular basis to understand what the data reveals about your users and adjusting your efforts based on this information, you're missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get a better return on your budget.

In this economy, is that something you can afford?

About The Author
Mike Tekula is the President of Unstuck Digital - a Long Island, NY web marketing company that offers proven solutions and training for growing your business online.

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The Best Online Marketing Strategy

Tips for Starting a New Online Business

One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses online and offline make is that they do not have a plan for success. Even though it is an online business, you should still have a business plan and you should have a search marketing strategy and know that you are targeting a large enough market. You should do searches online on Google, and Yahoo, and MSN, and see which of your competitors come up for that search term.

You should also do some market research analysis so that you know which search terms people are searching for the most. Some search terms might only produce a couple, 10 or 20 searches a day, and other search terms might have several thousand a day. You will need a big enough market to target because you will be sharing that market with your competitors.

What it all comes down to in the end is that you have about 10 or 20 competitors on the front page of Google, Yahoo and MSN. You need to do the following well, to compete with these competitors.

1. Your website needs to have a better presentation than your competitors. This means a more engaging demonstration of the products and services you sell.

2. You need to come up as high as possible in the search engines either through search engine marketing or paid sponsored ads also known as pay-per-click.

3. Optimize your website so that search engines can find you organically. This is also known as search engine optimization.

Common Mistakes Beginners Make

1. They start targeting and promoting keywords before they know the value of the keywords they are promoting.

2. When using pay-per-click advertising, they direct everyone to the front page of their website. As much as possible, direct your ads to a detailed web page which matches up to your prospective customers search term.

Tips for a Successful Online Advertising Campaign

1. Have a customized landing page, which takes the prospective customer to the exact product, or service page for which they are searching.

2. To have a cost effective online marketing strategy there needs to be enough people searching for your product or service.

For example, if someone is searching for a particular type of guitar, your ad should feature that particular type of guitar. The more specific you are and the less searching the perspective customer has to do once they get to your web page, the more likely they are to contact you, buy your product, or take the action you want them to take.

You will need to research which search terms or keywords are searched on more frequently than other search terms so that you can make sure that you have the largest audience possible. You can do this using Google's keyword tool. Doing just this small amount of market research can make the difference between success or failure of your online business venture.

For example, if you're selling Widget A and there's only ten people a day in your area searching for Widget A, you are not going to be very successful. If however, there are 100,000 people a day searching for a Widget A and you only have two competitors who also sell Widget A, then there is room for you in that market.

Google's Keyword Tool and How to Use it

The first place to start with researching your keywords is the Google keyword tool, found here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Below are some useful features of Google's keyword tool:

1. You can enter various phrases describing your businesses products or services into the search box. The tool will give you results on different phrases and synonyms matching your description. It will also tell you which search terms produce the largest amount of traffic on a monthly basis.

2. If you are targeting the entire United States then the monthly traffic column per keyword is very accurate. If you are targeting a particular state within the United States then you would need to divide that number by the percentage of population in that state.

3. Google's keyword tool also has a column that indicates the average cost per click for each search term. This can be helpful for forecasting how much to price your product or service. For example, if you are selling something for $10.00 and it costs you $10.00 to get enough people to your website before anyone buys your product then you need to rethink your pricing model. If however, your product sells for $20.00 and it only costs you $5.00 in advertising before someone buys your product, then you have a cost effective marketing campaign.

Other Search Engine Marketing Strategies

In addition to pay-per-click, you can pursue search engine marketing techniques such as:

1. Article Marketing

2. Directory Marketing

3. Community Forum Marketing

4. Channel Partner Marketing

The goal of all of these marketing techniques is to get a higher search engine ranking for the search terms you are targeting. All of the methods above include backlinks to your website. Backlinks to your website is the number one criteria used by search engines to rank your website.

Online Market Penetration

After you have done your market research, the next thing you will want to do is to determine if it is a growing market.

One of the ways you can discover if you are in a growing market is by using Google Trends. When using Google Trends, enter a search term which describes your business or industry into the search box and view the trend line in the results. If the trend line is moving up then you are in a growing market. If the trend line is moving down, then you are in a declining market. This will give you a good indication if it would be worthwhile for you to launch your business.

Another way to tell if there is room for you in a particular market is to look at your online competitors. Often times if their websites have not been updated in a while, it can indicate they are doing a good business. Also, if you have to scroll down to the second or third page of the search results before you find a decent looking web page, that can indicate a large market.

If you want a successful online business, follow these steps:

Do the market research, do a competitive analysis and research the market trends for your industry, then you will be successful in your new online business.

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About the Author: Kevin Kielty writes for Internet Marketing Advantage in Raleigh, NC. Online marketing, and web design are his areas of expertise. Internet Marketing Advantage specializes in bringing together web design, and Raleigh Online Advertising.

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