SEO Blog

Make Money Online (part 9) - Directories Submission I

2008-12-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

It is longer time from my last post. At last part I wrote about Entrecard as possible source of traffic for your blog. For better traffic it is also important to have backlinks on your pages. Only web with existing backlinks is visible on internet and has some value for search engines. Usually backlinks are more important to mark your page as valuable source, than good source for traffic.

There is more possibilities to gain some backlinks for your pages. I will show you more ways, how to gain them. In this part I will show you the basic one. I will show you how to submit your blog to various directories. It is not easy to promote your blog. Submission to directories is very time consuming process. There are many important questions, before you start to submit your blog. I will try to define them and answer on them.

When to start to submit my blog? Answer on this question is simple. You need to have some content before submitting your blog. Owners of directories usually approve only submissions with some valuable content.
In how many directories I need to submit my blog? Simply said more is better. It is good to submit your blog to directories permanently.
Where to find directories? You can find them of course on my pages. Go to my SEO directories list. There you can find thousands of them.
How to choose right ones? There are more opinions on this question. It is good to choose directories with high Google page rank of course. But many directories has high page rank only because they were created on strong domains. These domains usually drop down in short time. Sometimes it is better to choose new directories, because they usually grow faster and you will be approved sooner. There are of course very strong old directories. I recommend you order my list by Website Force. It is my own complex rank for pages.
How to automate submissions? As I said above, submission is very time consuming process. You can do it yourself, or you can choose from thousands of submission services. Many of them offer you submission to thousands directories for very good prices. But usually quality of these services is very poor. These submitters usually use some software to automate this process. The software can submit your blog to many directories but with low success rate. Owners of directories hate these SPAM submitters and usually decline such submissions. I can offer you truly manual submission service for affordable price, but here is not place for ads. You can also try to submit your blog yourself using some software. You can do it with better success rate. The best way is of course manual submission. You can do it with help of online tools and add-ons for Firefox. How to do it I will show you in the next paragraph.
What are important data for submissions? When you are submitting data to directories, you need to enter data to submission forms. Some from them are very important, and they must to be chosen very wisely. Especially anchor text (Title in forms). Anchor link content have to be keyword for which do you want to be visible in search engines. It is rule not to use the same anchor text for all submissions, but vary it with more keywords. Also description can be important. Sometimes you need to enter keywords in submission form. These keywords help you find your page in directory itself.

At next parts of these series I will show you, how to prepare your submission data, how to install add-ons, that will help you with your effort, and how to submit your blog or web to directories.

Used terms and abbreviations
Backlinks
are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (though other measures, such as PageRank, are likely to be more important). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.
Add-ons
are installable enhancements to the Mozilla Foundation's projects (and compatible variants such as Portable Firefox). Add-ons allow the user to add or augment application features, use themes to his or her liking, and handle new types of content.
The anchor text
or link label is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the Anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.

Make Money Online (part 8) - Entrecard Phenomenon

2008-05-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

In my post How to use widgets for increasing traffic I described 4 basic social networking sites. BlogRush, BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog and BUMPzee. Main source of traffic from these sites was from Last visitors widget, except of BlogRush with Other blog posts widget. In this post I want to write about next social networking site Entrecard.

You can see Entrecard widgets on many blogs now. It is phenomenon of last year in the blogger world. From my experience, Entrecard can very successfully increase traffic, especially for new blogs or sites. Entrecard has 3 basic ideas:

Earn credits from adding link on my site to another site.
Earn credits from dropping other widget cards.
Earned credits I can use to buy ads for my site.

It is very simple view on the system. Entrecard has much more possibilities how to earn or spend credits. More info how to work with it you can find bellow or in Entrecard Official E-Book .

After pressing Sign up now! on Entrecard main page you have to fill registration form. Before filling data prepare your card, 125*125 image, that represents your blog. Make it as attractive, as it is possible, because it must attract visitors to click on it. After filling data and pressing button Signup it is time to add a widget on your blog.

To add the widget on your blog you need code, that you can add on your blog. To do it, click on link Get code in header of page. Then choose type of widget and copy the code to clipboard. To add it on your blog, go to Blogger pages and add code to template just as you did it while adding AdSense code.

After successful adding widget on your blog it is time to earn some credits. You can do it simply by dropping card on another blogs, or approving ads on your site. Ad will be shown in your widget for 1 day. Go to Dashboard page, where you will find all necessary links.

When you want to advertise your blog to spend your credits, go to Campaign page. There you can choose blogs where your ad can be shown. There is important how much credits you can spend. Each blog has own price for advertising. This price is generated from blog popularity. You can advertise on more blogs, but your add will be shown only after approving by owner of site.

Now I want to describe main advantages and disadvantages of Entrecard.

Advantages

Excellent source of traffic
New feature: Add more than one blog to an account
It is register also new blogs or pages

Disadvantages

You have to spend a lot of time by dropping cards
Not very well targeted traffic. A lot of visitors visit your page only for dropping card.

If you try Entrecard is on your decision. And it is also your decision how much time do you spend by dropping cards. My opinion is, Entrecard is very good source of traffic, especially for new blogs.

Used terms and abbreviations
Social Networking
Communities of people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.
Widget
is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box.

Make Money Online (part 7) - Monetize Blog with AdSense III

2008-04-02T11:24:00.001-07:00

In the last post we generated ad code for your blog. Now, it is time to add this code on your pages. From Google AdSense Program Policies you know, that you can add up to 3 ads on each page.

You can do it in 2 manners:

Straight to blog post With this approach you will add ad, while you are writing new post. Advantage of this manner is, that ad is better inserted into existing text, and can be on the hottest place of blog, as you can see on the heat map from previous post. You can also change position of ads in various posts. Disadvantage of this approach is, that you must know basics of HTML, and your post will be worse editable in Blogger. Next disadvantage is that visitors don't like ads composed in text, and can reconsider, if they return back to your pages in the future. You also must check number of ads for each blog page.
Update template of blog Second manner is to add your code to template, and it will be shown on each page of blog. Advantage is that you must do it only once. When you add code to header of your page, there are still on good place. In your posts will be only text and not ad code. Disadvantage is, that you will gain probable less clicks like with first approach. If you want to add more ads in template, you must find next places for them in template. It means, that you must know basics of Blogger template code and HTML.

I prefer second approach and in this post I will show you how to insert ad into header of page, what is one from the best places on page.

To find right place in blog template is not easy. Various templates can have various template code, but there is possibility of Preview and it will help you a lot.
Go to Blogger.com pages and login there. Select your blog, and click on link Template. You will see simple editor with your template. There, you have to find right place for your ad code. Template is divided to more parts. On top is usually CSS styles code.
HTML code with body of your page starts with text <body>. You must add your code somewhere between this tag and </body> tag.
To find header of your blog in template, try find something like:

<div id="main">
...
<Blogger>

If you will you find it, then with high probability you have right place for your code. It will be placed between these 2 tags.
If not, find only:

<Blogger>

and try ad your code bellow above this tag.

Insert on this place code:

<div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 3px 3px 3px 3px;'>
Your ad code here
</div>

Then press button Preview. In new window you will see your blogger with changed template. On place where you can see text
Your ad code here
will be your ad. If you think there is not right place, try to change code above, until you are not satisfied, with place of your ad. When you will be satisfied replace text Your ad code here with your code from AdSense. Then press button Save Template Changes. Your changes will be saved. If you are noticed that you must republish your blog, do it by clicking on the link for republishing.

I hope, that you found right place for your ad code with help of this post. If you want to add more ads on your pages, do it similar and carefully choose right place for them. Pages filled with many ads are not very interesting for visitors, and you can harm your blog. Less is sometimes more. After ads publishing you can check your AdSense reports in next days. Time shows you, if you choose right ad formats and places. If not, you know how to change them now.

Make Money Online (part 6) - Monetize Blog with AdSense II

2008-03-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

On last post you learned how to register in Google AdSense, I hope that your registration was successful. If yes, you can read this post, and you will learn how to create your first ad for your blog. This it the simplest way, how to do it yourself.

Login to your Google Account and click on AdSense service. Ther you choose tab AdSense Setup. On first page you can choose from more AdSense format. Choose AdSense for Content ads. you have more possibilities, but it is the most used format and you can earn more money from this format than from others.

I recommend you to choose on this page option Ad Unit with Text ads only. Then press button Continue >>.

On next page you have to choose size of your ad and their colors. Size of your ad is related on place when you want to add your ad in your blog. It exists some heat map where it is good to place your ad on page. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). As you can see the best place is above your primary content. That means to choose format with width equal or near to size of your main content area. Usually it is 486*80 Banner Format or some others horizontal formats. Choose one from them. Now you must do second important thing. Try to hide your ad on your page. This method is called blending. It means try to choose colors that are similar to colors of your primary content. There is also possibility to save chosen color to your own color palette. And also choose corner style like is used in your template. I read good advice, that people like to click on blue colored links. It is good to choose this color for links in your add and also for your template for blog. Press button Continue >>.

Now it is time to create channel where you can see your stats for created ad. Press link Add new channel and choose name for you channel. Then press link add >> on right side of your created channel. It will move to right list. Press button Continue >>.

Now only choose name for your ad. Later you can change features of your ad from menu Manage Ads. Press button Submit and Get Code.

You are on last page now, and you can see your ad code. Select this code in clipboard.

How to place this code in your blog, I will show you in next post. You need to change your template, to show ad on your pages. This way is good, because you will see ad on all pages of your blog.

Used terms and abbreviations
Blending
To synchronize ad format with other content on your page. Usually it means set the same color for ads like they are used in other content.

Make Money Online (part 5) - Monetize Blog with AdSense I

2008-02-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

Before you start monetize your blog with Google AdSense, you must be sure that you have some content on blog. Simply spoken, you must have enough posts on your blog. There doesn't exist necessary number of posts, but I think that 10 posts is optimum count to start using Google AdSense on your blog (5 posts is minimum). Before you can add Google AdSense ads on your site, your page will be checked by AdSense team.
I am not sure, if to start monetize blog, before attract some visitors. When you don't have visitors, you can't earn money from blog. But on the other side, it is better to have AdSense ads on blog, and you can earn some money also with small amount of visitors. I will show you in next posts how to attract people to visit your blog. When you check your stats in Google Analytics you can have some visitors from Google or other search engines, some from blogger.com site, and some visits from your friends. How much, depends on your niche.

Now I start with introduction of Google AdSense program. Google AdSense is system that shows adverts on your site. Big advantage of this system, that ads are relevant to content of your pages. You are paid, if somebody click on your ads. After clicking on ads, is visitor redirected page on clicked ad. Sometimes you can be also paid, when you show ad a lot of times. But main earnings are from clicks on ads on your site. This is why is this system called PPC (Paid Per Click). Google AdSense is the most used system on sites of the world. And usually it is the best system, how to earn some money from your site. Google AdWords other side of this system. There webmasters create ads, they want to show on other sites (This is paid system of course).

From previous information, it is important to know that Google made this system fraud click safe. If you think, that you earn money by clicking on your own ads, or your friends will click on your ads and you will profit from it, don't use this system. Because you will never see money from Google. Big Brother, Google, has many possibilities to collect information about each of us. Google AdSense check various patterns to prevent invalid clicks on ads. Once is your AdSense account checked as suspicious, it is only question of time, when you will be banned. After banning from Google you will lost all money on your account, and it is almost impossible to register to system again. There are some alternatives, but usually are these alternatives worse that Google AdSense program. You can earn more or less money. Your earnings will increase, only when you will be patient and hard-working.

Before start with AdSense, you have to register your blog to program. For registration you will use your Google account. But you must fill more informations. It is important to enter correct data, especially your address. These data will be used also for sending checks. Keep in mind, that when you will enter false information, your registration can be declined. At last you must check that you read their policies (Read them carefully!!!), that you will not click on your ads and that you don't have another account. Then press button Submit Information. It can take 24 hour to AdSense team accepts or refuse your site. In case, that your site will be refused, read carefully reason, correct mistakes and resubmit your application. Now, the most important information: You must earn minimum 100 USD, to be paid. You will be paid 30-th of next month, when your balance reach 100 USD. More info you can find in Payment Guide. I hope that it will be soon, you will receive your first payment.

In next post I will show you, how to create ads, and how to add them to blog.

Many webmaster forums are full of posts with titles I am banned from Google AdSense. Why? Because most of them didn't read Google AdSense Policies. Don't do the same mistake.

Used terms and abbreviations
PPC
Pay Per Click is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites/blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website.
Google AdSense
Ad serving program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, more recently, video advertisements on their sites. These ads are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-impressions basis.
Google AdWords
offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads.

Make Money Online (part 4) - Check your traffic

2008-02-12T06:21:00.000-08:00

At last part you have created your first post in blog. I hope that you write more posts to your blog. It is nothing worse than dead blog or dead forum. Before you gain some traffic to your blog, it is good to know how much traffic it is. And how to do it, I will show you in this post.

You must use your Google Account, that you created while creating your blog. This account you will use for more tools available on Google. One form best free tools for checking traffic, is Google Analytics. At first click at link above.

After signing you will see screen like this. Here you press button Sign up.

On next page you have to enter info about your blog. You must enter URL of your blog, country and time zone. Then press Continue button.

On next page you have to fill some your personal information. When you do it, press button Continue. On next page you have read GOOGLE ANALYTICS TERMS OF SERVICE.After reading it (if you agree, of course) check checkbox Yes, I agree to the above terms and conditions. Then press button Create New Account.

Now you will see code that it is necessary to add to your page. I recommend you to add New Tracking Code (ga.js). Otherwise you will not be to use some new features. I am using on my pages old one. But for my new blog I want to use new one. Copy code into clipboard.
Now open your Blogger.com in new window or tab. From Dashboard click on Template link for your blog.

In text area with content of your template go to bottom area. There you find line with text </body> in it. Above this line insert your code from clipboard. Then press button Save Template Changes. After changing your template you must republish your blog. Now you will find on every source page of your blog your tracking code.

Return back to Google Analytics page. There press button Check Status. Google Analytics check presence of tracking code, and if it is everything OK, Google Analytics will track your visitors. Next available data you will see tomorrow, because it take some time to collect enough data. You can now check data on daily basis. To have good data it is good to filter your own visits. You can do it in Filter Manager where you can exclude from result your IP address, city, or country.

Google Analytics is complex traffic tools with many options. To Describe all features in this blog is impossible. How to use all its features, is best to study from context links on right side of screen. I am sure that you will find a lot of useful info there.

Used terms and abbreviations
Web traffic
is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site.
Google Analytics
(abbreviated GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website.

Make Money Online (part 3) - Write your first post

2008-02-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

At last part you have created your own blog. Now I will show you how to write posts to your blog on Blogger.com. It is on you, what will be your first post about. In your first post on blog people usually introduce himself, and introduce niche of their blog. Now let me show you some parts of your blog page.

After logging in to blogger you will see screen like this. This screen is called Dashboard. Here you can see list of your blogs. You can manage your blogs from there. Link New Post shows you screen for creating new posts, link Posts shows you screen with all posts in blog. After clicking on link Settings you can set options for your blog. Link Template is for advanced users, because here you can edit appearance of your blog. How to change template of your blog I will show you in next posts. Now click on link Posts.

When you click on link Posts you will see all posts written in your blog. Our blog is empty and we must write new post to fill our posts list. Let click on blue link New Post.

Here you can write simply your post.
  At first fill Title for your post. Think carefully about it. Title is most important thing. It must be short but it must simply describe content of your post. Title will attract people to read your post. Title is also important from SEO view. And title is also distributed with your RSS feed.
  In middle field you can write your post. You can simply paste it from Microsoft Word, or write it online in Blogger. Try to write your post as interesting as it is possible. If you want to earn some money from your blog,, it must attract visitors. It is good to add some photos or images to your post. And it is also important separate your posts to paragraphs. Try to use Preview link to look on your post how it will look.
  Blogger do autosave of your new post. If you want to be sure you will lost nothing, press button Save Now for saving your changes. When you will finish with your content, add one or more labels to your post. At last check your post and carefully read its content. When you think, that it is OK, press button Publish Post.

You create your first post in blog. If you wanna see how it looks, click on link View Blog. You will be redirected to your blog. In next part I will learn you how to check traffic for your blog. I will show you how to insert stats code for your blog, and how to check your traffic. Now you can continue with writing next posts to your blog.

Used terms and abbreviations
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it ranks, the more searchers will visit that site.
RSS Feed
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.

Make Money Online (part 2) - Create your own blog

2008-02-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

In this part I will show you how to create your own first blog. In previous part you had to find your niche, topic of your blog. If you have found any, try to write list of words that best describe your topic. If you didn't find one, try to think about your topic now, or simply create your personal diary blog.

As host for our blog we use the most used free host for blogs Blogger.com. Blogger is owned by Google company. We will use much more tools from Google and you will need to register on Google and create your Google account. If you have Google account log in it on Blogger on top right side of page. Otherwise you will create one on Blogger pages. Press button Create your blog now. If you don't have account, you will create one on first page.

Now it is time to use your list of words for your niche. If you want to create your personal diary blog try to use your name or your nickname for Blog Address (URL) field. Otherwise you try to find most simple word or words combination from your list, write it to field and click on Check Availability link to check if you can use this URL. Now you can fill Blog Title field. It is also good to use words from your list. Title of blog it is possible to change also in future. At last fill Word Verification field and press button Continue.

Now only choose some template for your blog. It is on you which one you choose. It is also possible to change it later. Press button Continue again. On next page press button Start Posting

Now you have your own blog and you can create your posts to blog. But there is a long way before you. You can prepare some posts for your topic straight in your blog itself or you can only write it simply in Microsoft Word editor. In next post I will show you how to write your posts in blog.

I wrote you in this post how to create blog in easy and free way. There are also other choices. You can register your own domain and pay hosting company to host your domain. This is much more complicated process, and I will not write it here in this post. In that case you will spend to 10 USD/year to domain registration and about 100 USD/year on hosting. I can recommend you Namecheap.com for domain registration and Hostgator.com for hosting. I am using them and I am satisfied with them.

Used terms and abbreviations
Niche
A niche market is a focused targetable portion (subset) of a market sector.
Domain
A machine or virtual host on the Internet; the name of a domain (the "domain name") can be confused with the domain itself.
Hosting
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own websites accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity.

Make Money Online (part 1) - Write your own blog

2008-01-24T11:58:00.000-08:00

In this part I want to describe you exactly, what you will learn in next parts of this serial. In introduction I described some methods for earning some money on internet. I next part I will better describe some of them. And I will also write you here something about blogs.

At first I will learn you how to:

How to create your own blog
How to write posts
How to add AdSense ads on blogs
How to promote this blog
How to check stats for this blog

And all that without spending a penny. I will show you of course also alternatives, or methods where you will need to pay some money, but these methods are not necessary and they will be good marked.

Blog
What is blog, you can find in Used Terms section of this post. I am sure that most of you know meaning of this word. Why I prefer this method of earning money? Because it is the easiest method for amateurs. You don't need a lot of knowledge about internet and HTML or other "programming languages" to write some internet content. Before you start your own blog, think about topic, style and language of your blog.

Topic for blog

Style

Language

If you are afraid that you are not good writer, it is also OK. Me too, only some happy individuals know how to write in such style, that they write books. We others, can only try it. On internet you have big audience, and when you will find right topic, you will gain some visitors.

Before we will continue with next part of our serial, think about possible topic for your blog. In next part I will show you how to create your own blog and I will show you also some interesting places on internet. I want to learn you new things, and for better understanding I will also start my new blog, and I will show you all on real example.

Used terms and abbreviations
Blog
Webmasters are practitioners of web communication.
A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. Usually is written as some kind of internet diary.
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages.
Required money icon
I will use this icon to show you, that this method need to invest some money with approximate amount.

Make Money Online - Introduction

2008-01-16T12:28:00.000-08:00

I want to show you in this series how to make money online on internet. These articles will be written for normal people, not for professionals. I want to show you that it is possible to make some money online, without being professional webmaster. Not wealth presented on millions pages or spam e-mails, but stable month small sum of money. This is a way, where you need some effort, but it will be good invested time. Many people earning money from internet today, started similarly.

First of all I want here to describe here some good methods how to make money online, and methods that doesn't function.
Good methods are:

Google AdSense ads (or another PPC programs) on own pages
Affiliate products on own pages
Paid banners or links on own pages
Internet e-shops
Selling own programs
Selling own services
Paid advert posts on own pages
Freelance writter
Freelance programmers or graphic
Paid posting to forums

These methods help you make some money, some of them in short time, some of them later.

Here are some bad methods are:

Fraud clicks on Google AdSense ads
Buying e-books that promise you earn thousands bucks a day
Spamming
Using not checked affiliate systems
Receiving e-mails with ads
Browsing on internet pages for money
Winning in internet lotteries
Help finance minister of Kenya to defraud some money or etc.

Using this methods you with high probability don't make money or lost money. Especially last 2 methods are very dangerous and be sure that you lost a lot of money.

In next articles I want to describe you some from good methods, especially I want to show you how to earn some money from you own pages on internet in step by step description. Description will contain all necessary inputs, how much money do you need to spend of this method and necessary knowledge and possible earnings. I will give you also some good tips on pages that can help you. That all with images and description in clear points.

Used terms and abbreviations
Webmaster
Webmasters are practitioners of web communication.
PPC
Pay Per Click is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites/blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a web-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.
Google AdSense
Ad serving program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, more recently, video advertisements on their sites. These ads are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-impressions basis.
Spam
Unsolicited or undesired bulk electronic messages.

The last day of Bill Gates and Bill Clinton

2008-01-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

I think that this blog is not only about serious things. I want to introduce you also another side of life. And from time to time, I want to also show you some funny things. Today I found two very interesting short movies. It is possible that a lot of people, these movies knows. I have never seen these movies before, and I love these them. It is fine that also serious people like Bill Gates and Bill Clinton are doing funny things. I hope you will love these movies also. I promise that, when I will be famous as Bill I will also record similar video.

The last day of Bill Gates

The final days of Bill Clinton

Webmaster Forums List

2008-01-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

Forum is worldwide discussion on specific topics. Many webmasters have forums on own pages, but only some of them has successful forum. Every clever webmaster knows that forums are very important source of traffic. But not only good traffic source. Forums can be useful in many ways.

Here I write some of them.

Forums can be a good source of informations.
Forums can create new business partnerships
You can find here friends with the same interests and problems.
You can advertise (not spamming) your site in discussions.
Traffic increase from signatures.

In this post I want to introduce the best webmaster forums list.

Digital Point Forums
PR 6	Alexa Rank 173	WebSite Force	Signatures
For me this is the best webmaster forum. I found here a lot of useful informations, I found there a lot of new friends, and also gain good traffic from this forum. Forum contains 621,975 threads and has 127,773 now.
V7N Forum
PR 3	Alexa Rank 5,136	WebSite Force	Signatures
Also very useful webmaster forum. Digital Point forum is sometimes overcrowd, and such amount informations it is difficult to find correct one. In such cases I visited V7N forum.
SitePoint Forums
PR 7	Alexa Rank 711	WebSite Force	Signatures
Nice forum with a lot of webmaster information. There are severe moderators and it is not allowed promote own pages in posts. Forum is more oriented on web design and programming.
Webmaster World Forum
PR 7	Alexa Rank 978	WebSite Force	No signatures
I am not registered on this forum. But forums contains a big variety of topics for webmasters and milions of posts. Forum looks to have worse readability.
The Warrior Forum
PR 5	Alexa Rank 1,086	WebSite Force	Signatures
68,534 Members have create 107,687 topics. Forum with wide area of topics, with worse categorization, but still with very good informations.
Web Hosting Talk
PR 7	Alexa Rank 2,847	WebSite Force	Signatures
Forum contains 648,311 threads and has 178,821 registered members now. Forum is oriented mainly on web hosting but it includes also other webmaster topics.
Name Pros
PR 5	Alexa Rank 2,895	WebSite Force	Signatures
Forum contains 648,311 threads and has 178,821 registered members now. Forum is oriented mainly on web hosting but it includes also other webmaster topics.
Ozzu Webmaster Forum
PR 7	Alexa Rank 13,156	WebSite Force	No follow signatures
Forum contains 55,029 threads and has 33,281 registered members now. Standard webmaster forum with all most wanted webmaster topics.
DNForum
PR 5	Alexa Rank 4,241	WebSite Force	Signatures
Forum contains 239,274 threads and has 48,371 registered members now. Forum is oriented on domain business. In this ares it is the best forum.
Webmaster-Talk.com Forum
PR 3	Alexa Rank 9,291	WebSite Force	Signatures
Forum contains 102,598 threads and has 42,717 registered members now. Smaller webmaster forum with a good content.
Kirupa Forum
PR 7	Alexa Rank 9,722	WebSite Force	Signatures
Forum contains 245,182 threads and has 99,772 registered members now. Forum is mainly oriented on programming and web design.
Earners Forum
PR 0	Alexa Rank 27,365	WebSite Force	Signatures
Forum contains 16,437 threads and has 10,052 registered members now. Relatively small webmaster forum with good informations, mainly oriented on internet business.

I know that exists much more good webmaster forums. If you know some good one, please write me URL to comments. If it will be good enough I will add it to this webmaster forums list.

Could any SEO company guarantee a first page on Google?

2007-12-18T04:44:00.000-08:00

When you will google internet you will find a lot of SEO companies, with this promise on their sites. Competition in this field is very big. SEO experts with good references earns thousands of USD for simple projects. And good SEO experts know answer on question from title.

Here are some facts from SEM (Search engine marketing).

SEO is long process, better to said lifetime (for page of course) process. In case that page will be shown on first page, without next effort, page will dismiss from first page in a short time

Competition on internet is unbelievable. Myriads pages are on internet, and thousands or million pages are competing for your keywords.

Competition for one word keywords, as viagra, loan and etc. is endless, and today it is impossible to reach good position for one word keywords.

Competition for many words (5 or more and one from them is name of your company) keywords, is very poor, of course, and you will reach first page or first position on Google without problems. But first position for these keywords is worthless, and you will have no traffic from this keyword position.

For very competitive keywords is SEO only question of budget. Be on first page, or on top means to buy a lot of strong links on high PR pages from your niche.

Very important off page SEO means for most SEO companies submitting your page link to directories, blogs and forums with automatic spammy submitters program. Your back link will be cleared soon by moderators or webmasters of these pages.

Many SEO companies ignore on page SEO factors. Page with bad designed structure and keyword density has bad position in struggle for first page. Usually improving page structure and optimization of page for selected keyword can rapidly improve position in Google search result.

Google changes its algorithm for selecting and ordering pages in search results very often. One from factors is also age of domain, and new page are disadvantaged.

There is a lot of SEO rules to improve your search engine position. Some are very important, some less. Sometimes comply with most important onpage SEO rules can rapidly improve position of page for free. Important is also choosing right keyword for page. For most SEO experts is choosing right keywords most important part of SEO process. It is better to have hundreds visitors from weaker keyword on first page, than ten visitors from strong keyword on third page.
If budget is no problem for you, you can hire a professional SEO expert, to help you with your effort. To find good one is another problem. Here are two important rules, check carefully his references, and prefer SEO experts with money back guarantee.

Answer on question from title is simple. Yes, exists one company that can guarantee you a first page on Google. As you can suspect, name of this company is Google.

How to increase traffic for blogs? Use blog widgets.

2007-12-12T03:55:00.000-08:00

Blogs are nowadays a big fashion. Blogs are also easiest way how to start with own internet business for everybody who is connected to internet. With help of pages as Blogger.com, WordPress.com is blogging availaible for everybody without knowing something about web development. To be successful, means a lot of visitors on blog. I want write here some tips how to increase traffic on blog pages for free. Some tips how to increase traffic I wrote in previous post My traffic is terrible. What to do? First of all I want to choose some important steps from previous post good for blog traffic:

Good content
SEO
Social network sites
Social bookmarking sites

In this post I want show you how to increase your traffic with help of some useful widgets from social networking sites. Using widgets is relatively new way hot to increase traffic for blogs. Widget is Web 2.0 component generated on external page, and it is presented on as image or as iframe.

After installing widget on your page, widget shows headlines from blogs registered on BlogRush. Headlines from your blog will be shown as many times as your widget is shown. It is a good source of quality traffic from blogs with the same niche. BlogRush accepts only quality blogs. After declining you have possibility to resubmit blog after month. I read from other sources, that it increase traffic for blogs, especially for blogs with more traffic.

BlogCatalog is for me very good source of traffic. It is social networking site. You register blog here and you can discuss with others. By making new friends, joining to groups and sending posts to discussion your blog is more visible on BlogCatalog pages, and you have higher possibility that somebody it visits. I like their Recent Visitors widget. After installing it shows avatars of last visitors on your blog that are registered on BlogCatalog. And after clicking on avatars you visit their profiles on BlogCatalog page. Developers usually want to know who visited their blogs. And the probably visit your blog in return. That means visits on your blog is comparable to your visits on other blogs.

MyBlogLog is similar site like BlogCatalog. Company is owned by Yahoo and it is possible to register there only with Yahoo ID. You can also add your blog and for registered blog create widgets. I also prefer Recent Visitors widget. Each blog represents community, where it is possible to join. You can also add friends there. For blogs with installed widgets you can view also good stats. Unfortunately after short time stats is switched to limited version, and full version is available only as paid feature. I prefer BlogCatalog system, but this page can also bring a good traffic to blog.

On this page I register only a day ago. It looks like they have less members like first 3 pages. After registration there is possibility to add blogs, join in groups, and find friends. They also provide Recent Visitors widget. I read from other sources, they sometimes it can be problem with speed of blog site where is widget installed. I don't have this problem on my computer, but I am not sure with other computers. I don't know how much can BUMPzee increase traffic, because I am new there.

All 4 widgets can help to increase traffic for your blog. How much it depends on you. How many friends do you find there and how many other blogs do you visit is source for gross calculation of your possible number of visitors. My opinion is to choose one or two from them, and there to be as active as it is possible. And of course to combine it with other sources of traffic, from my post above.

My traffic is terrible. What to do?

2007-12-05T14:00:00.001-08:00

In this post I would like to write about the most powerful traffic sources. Site without traffic lost its meaning. No traffic means, no money from site. But how to improve traffic for site? This question interests a lot of webmasters. Here you can find some tips how to improve your traffic. All tips are ordered by importance from my point of view.

1. Good content

Good content is most important source of visitors. Returning visitors are the best visitors. And visitors return to your page only when they find useful info on your page.

2. SEO

Search engines are very strong source of traffic. Well optimized page on first page of Google for strong keyword is treasure. It brings on site thousands visitors a day. Disadvantage of this source is that situation can change, and your page dismiss from first pages. Competition in SEO is very tough.

3. Social network sites

Social networks are pages grouping people with similar interests. People in groups usually make friends easier. And friends with similar interests visits their friends pages. It is very good source, especially for experienced webmasters. Similar like in real life, introverts can have problems to use this source effectively.

4. Forums and signature links

Forums are places where you can find answers on your questions. Similar like social networking sites forums group people with similar interests. Advantage of some forums are signature links. Every post written with you means new back link on your page. And you can also find here friends or possible customers. Good strategy for forums is: try to help others on forums every time when it is possible and you become authority on forum. And authorities are good source for information and source for these informations could be find on your page from your signature.

5. Directory links

This is not good source directly for traffic. Traffic from directories is not very high. But links on your page improve rank for your page. And better ranked pages can have better position in search engines.

6. Social bookmarking sites

Power of social bookmarking sites for traffic is unbelievable. People who like content of our page, can bookmark your page on social bookmarking site. More people bookmark your page, means more votes for your content and that means better position on social bookmarking site. People like to see pages that like somebody else, and it can make snowball effect for traffic. Disadvantage of this source is short lifetime of this effect.

7. Article directories

Article directories lost a lot of popularity from past. By writing a good article with biography containing links on you page, can be a good source. A lot of people used on their pages articles from article directories. Now when search engines punish duplicate content on pages, is situation worse.

8. Blogs

Blogs are good source of traffic also. Search engine pages prefer sites that are changed frequently. It is a problem for sites with static content. Blog describing topics for niche of page can improve traffic from search engines. And blog is also place for discussions. And some blogs have discussion with search engine friendly links. And free links from high PR blogs are good links.

8. Templates

Nice template for WordPress blog or PHPLD directory is a gold mine. You have back link from every page, where is your template used. That means hundreds links from standard directory or blog. Disadvantage of this source is that you must be very good and experienced designer.

9. Widgets

Web 2.0 widgets are also very good source for traffic. Nice graphics widget inspires people to click on it, and after click they go on your site of course. But you must find a good service and be a good programmer to create good one.

10. PayPerClick Traffic

Advertising, with AdWords for example, is excellent source of traffic, that brings you good customers. Very good source, but unfortunately not free.

Free Webmaster Tools

2007-11-28T02:11:00.000-08:00

In this post I would like to write about set of most useful free webmaster tools. Every webmaster who wants to have successful site use his/her own set of free webmaster tools. I am writing about set of tools which I am actively using. And I also try to categorize tools. What are necessary tools for webmasters?

Keyword research tools
Domain research tools
Design and development tools
Visitors statistics tools
Promotion tools
SEO tools for market position research
Blogger tools
Page monetize tools

Keyword Research Tools

Yahoo Overture Tool
The best online keyword research tool. After entering term tool shows you related searches that include your term and estimated number of times that term was searched on last month.

Wordtracker
Free keyword suggestion tool. After entering a starting keyword tool generates up to 100 related keywords and an estimate of their daily search volume. After registration you can gain more results for your term.

Domain research tools

Whois
Lookup registration data for domains. Very interesting data are usually domain age, registrator data and name servers. Tool also shows existing domains for keyword

Design and development tools

Sitemap Generator
Tool finds all internal links for page and from selected it generates sitemp for Google and Yahoo

HTML Validator
Tool checks syntax of selected page. Very useful tool to have clear code without possible error.

CSS Validator
Tool checks syntax of CSS for selected page.

Link Validator
Tool checks validity of all links on page.

Keyword Density Checker
Tool checks density of phrases on page. It is also possible to choose how many words phrases are checked.

Visitor Statistics Tools

Google Analytics
Very strong tool for checking your visitors activity. Very wide variety of checked aspects for visits.

Promotion tools

Website Promotion Services
More than 10 000 places where you can submit your page. After registration of possibility to submit project to directories for free.

Directory Critic
Very good list of directories and article directories.

Market Position Research Tools

Search Engine Ranking by Country
Tools find for selected keyword your position in Google, Yahoo, MSN in 12 countries.

Keyword Ranking Tool
Excellent keyword tracking tool for keyword position, backlinks and indexed pages with history.

Website Force Checker
Comprehensive tool that calculate value of site in points from 0 to 100 000.

Blogger Tools

Feed Stats Tool
FeedBurner is the leading provider of media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feeds.

Web Blog Ping Service
Pinging is used to let other websites know that your blog has been updated.

Free Blog
Best way how to start blogging without a penny.

Page Monetize Tools

Google AdSense
The most used PPC advertising system.

Link Price Calculator
Very good tool when you want to buy or sell links.

I describe in this article set of free webmaster tools most useful for me, and for other webmasters. I know that on internet exists much more tools. But I don't want to describe them all. It is impossible, of course. If you know other useful free webmaster tools not mentioned here write me about them in discussion.

Is DMOZ link still valuable?

2007-11-14T07:48:00.001-08:00

In this post I would like to write about importance and difficulty to gain link from DMOZ directory. Many of us are trying to gain this back link. And most of us are unsuccessful. Why?
Owner of ODP project DMOZ was Netscape Division. It was founded in 1998. In the past importance of DMOZ listing was axiom. All main Search engines as Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others used data from DMOZ as source for their results. You can see it on next picture:

But in January 2007 situation changed as you can see on next chart:

As you can see DMOZ as source for main search engine disappears. Why?
After system failure and editing outage from October to December 2006, DMOZ shows only older version of data in catalog. DMOZ has also problem with corruptive editors. It is not surprising. Editors are spammed with tons of submits, and possibility to earn some money for their services is very seductive. After ignoring DMOZ as source for search engine, importance of DMOZ decreased. But is link from DMOZ still important? It is not important for SERP, but it has historical value. Presence in DMOZ has for webmaster meaning. It is mark of "domain quality", because domain was approved in DMOZ directory. Especially while selling domain, presence in DMOZ can increase domain price. And how to gain it. Nobody knows. While submitting it is important read carefully all rules. And once, maybe, your page will be in DMOZ results.

Sources:
Search engine relationships chart
Bruce Clay™, Inc

What is important while submit to directories?

2007-09-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

Submit to directories is one from the most important sources to gain back links to your web project. Additionally do we control format of the link. That means that we are choosing anchor text and category of page where the link will be situated. This is very important from view of SEO, because not only power, respectively Google page rank of page with back link is important, but also category of pages with back link. It is important to have similar category with your content.

First of all, choose directories specialized for your niche. Back links from that kind of directories are usually more valuable than from general directories. And also traffic from these directories is greater than from general.

If your pages are specialized for specific region prefer submit to local directories. People from region usually know local directories and they are looking there, where the want to find something on Internet. This is important especially for other than English sites. This kind of directories has usually higher page rank than general directories.

Submit to directories is not important for straight traffic, you will not gain a lot of traffic from directories. But with increasing number of back links from right pages with good anchor text is page more powerful for search engines, and position of page on search engines for specific keywords is improving. A with good position in search engines are traffic to page rapidly growing.

Whiles submit to general directories it is important to choose right category. Sometimes are suitable for page more categories and it is good to choose correct one. It is better to choose category with less links. This is why I also prefer new directories. Your link is on better position on page, and page rank of these directories is usually growing, together with your link.