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Are You Making Your RSS Feed Submissions?

By keith on Friday, August 27th, 2010 | No Comments

: Image by Chesi – Fotos CC via Flickr

One thing high on the list of things we neglect to do is to make the most of our RSS feed submissions. It is one of the easier ways to make sure our pages get indexed fast, and it does not take very long at all to accomplish the task, yet it always seems to be put at the end of the to do list. Here a few reasons why you may want to reorder that list!

First, as I mentioned, having your RSS feed in the RSS aggregators, especially for a new feed, is a slam dunk way to get indexed quickly. The search engines, particularly Google, spider these aggregators every day, looking to be the first to discover new sites worth taking a look at. having your RSS feed listed just once on these sites ensures that they will be coming around whenever there is new content to be seen. You only need to submit your site or page one time. One of the few one and done propositions on the Web.

Second, you can get some direct traffic from these sites. You’ll often see listing from sites like FeedAgg, FeedAge and others on the first page of search listings. They get clicked on just like any other listing, and the visitors that come from there are just as curious. It’s important therefore, to make sure the titles and descriptions used in your submissions are enticing.

There are around 50 RSS Feed aggregators that matter, and you can create accounts at them and submit manually, or use a tool like RSSBot, which automates a lot of the process, and once set up will enable you to submit any new feeds you create, like articles, Web 2.0 sites, or video URLs. It’s easy to use and cheap, too! They need love too!

However you do it, make sure it gets done, It’s an easy way to let the search engines know you around and need a looksee!

~Keith

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Is Submitting To Directories Worth Your Time?

By keith on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 | No Comments

: Image via Wikipedia

You may be wondering , as was I , whether or not submitting to directories is worth doing anymore. There was a time, in the not so distant past, when you would regularly hit the web directories with hundreds or even thousands of submissions, and get a good return of linkage. The landscape has changed a bit nowadays.

While the web directories are still out there, and more than willing (especially if you are using a paid directory) to take and put up your link, the search engines have gotten smarter. Now they take a good look at the directories in question, and determine whether they are nothing more than a latter day version of a link farm, or actually have an amount of value for the searcher. Niche directories often have a better chance.

So the question now is, does it make sense to spend time and resources into submitting to directories? My answer is a resounding yes! When it comes down to it, a link is a link. The possibility of a lot of links very cheaply is enough of a reason. You can help yourself by making sure the directories you are using are not only live, but active, have some Alexa rank, and if possible are niche oriented. (This last one isn’t absolutely essential; just nice to have. Link relevance is a bit overblown.) If you are looking to have a presence in your niche for a long time, or hope to establish an authority site, it may be worth it to look into submitting to DMOZ and Yahoo. You’ll spend some time and money on those, but in the end it may be worth it.

Take advantage of automated directory submission software, as it can save you many hours of time, and can find one’s that you’ll miss. Here is the best tool for submitting to directories that I have found. It is fast, submits to more than 500 active directories, solves CAPTCHAS and supports spinning and much more. Plus, it’s dirt cheap and can be given to your outsourcer!

Two important things to remember when it comes to directory site submission: first it takes some time to see them show up. Many of these are not updated as fast as you might like, and it can take a bit for the links to start showing. Second, you should remember to promote your link in a directory page once you get it. This can be as simple as pinging it, social bookmarking it, or throwing a link at it. Remember, promote your promoters!

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Internet Marketing and Social Media Mentors – Who are You Listening To?

By keith on Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 | No Comments

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Having a mentor to help you through the often muddy waters of internet marketing and social media has undergone a shift from the way we used to view a traditional mentor/grasshopper model. With instant communication and voluminous content just a click away, it’s easier than ever to grab pearls of wisdom them most.

It is perhaps less prevalent that we have a single mentor anymore. We are more likely to be listening to a pastiche of voices that meet out various needs. However, a single, cohesive voice who you are frequently in contact with is always a good thing, particularly in terms of accountability. If you can develop a relationship like this, it can serve you well over the years.

The next best thing in this day of social interaction is to consort with as many of those whose work you admire and can learn from as you have time for. You can follow them on their social channels, subscribe to their blogs, newsletters or in some cases, their membership sites. You can ask questions, get involved, be of help yourself, and before long, there will be a small circle of people you would feel comfortable asking for help. These may have been people you would never have thought would have given you the time of day before, but you’ll be surprised.

So, since I’m in a sharing mode, some of the people whose business sense, models, wisdom , and genuine helpfulness impress the heck out of me would include Kim Roach, Dave Tropeano, Michael Campbell, Michael Fortin, Chris Brogan, Jack Canfield, and a few others. These folks all have a specific gifts Iwant to learn, and all are great teachers intheir own way. Some I have personal contact with, and others I just read everything they write!

Make sure to include time for this in your day. It’s far too easy to get buried under a mountain of tasks and shelve this part for another time. The thing is, another time never comes! Add their feeds to your RSS reader, subscribe to their newsletter, read their blogs, books and whatever else you can find. The times you spend with those who have something to teach you will enrich your life and in time, your bottom line!

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Niche Market Research – How To Find Profitable Niches To Plunder!

By keith on Monday, June 14th, 2010 | No Comments

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One of the more enjoyable tasks for me as a marketer is niche market research. ( I know, I know; Mom and Dad said the same thing!) It’s perhaps just the fun of digging around and discovering hidden little markets you can target that is exciting.

So much of the niche marketing business model involves technical aspects like setting up blogs, sites and writing supporting content, as well as all the promotion that goes with it, that when you get to go on a treasure hunt, it’s a welcome break.

To manage good niche market research, set aside some time, a clear mind, and perhaps some tools. This kind of keyword research can be done for free, and indeed that is where most of us start. However when you want to scale this in any meaningful way, you’re going to need some power tools.

But for now, let’s look at how we can find profitable niches for free!

The first thing to decide is on a market. Many times you hear people tell you to market your passion. Well, if you’re building niche sites for a living, very soon you’ll be out of passions! I’d personally rather focus on giving hungry markets what they are looking for! Health, wealth and relationships will always be at or near the top of the list as far as consumer demands, so start there. Some great places to find niche markets include looking at Amazon, eBay and Google Trends. Each has features that will tell you what’s hot now, an in the case of Amazon, even offer you affiliate solutions to boot!

Once you’ve found a market, (and hopefully a product you can sell within that market) we want to dig down and find keyword phrases that are getting a decent amount of traffic, but are not overly competitive. For me this means at least 1000 searches a month, and less than 100,000 competing pages. Your numbers may be different. You can pry this info out of free tools from Google, or other free sources online. Or, if you don’t feel like spending weeks doing that much work, give either Market Samurai or Micro Niche Finder a try. Both give you more useful information than you can possibly use, and in minutes.

Beware of spending too much time researching and not enough time putting your plans into action. Understand that nothing happens until something moves!

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Are You Making Your RSS Feed Submissions?

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ReadWriteCloud

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Are You Making Your RSS Feed Submissions?

Is Submitting To Directories Worth Your Time?

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Internet Marketing and Social Media Mentors – Who are You Listening To?

Niche Market Research – How To Find Profitable Niches To Plunder!

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