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The success of internet businesses relies on several things. Of course, the products or services you are offering should generate a healthy amount of consumer interest. Another important factor is marketing and sales activities such as advertising and promotion. It is no longer a secret that affiliate marketing is one of the most cost-efficient methods in the industry today. There are many merchants who swear to the long-term positive results that affiliate marketing can offer.

Because of this reason, it is not surprising that merchants look for an affiliate marketing network which can genuinely provide them what they need. These networks act as a third party between the merchants and affiliates, ensuring that communication channels are open consistently and running smoothly.

One of the most important criteria you should use when looking for a partner affiliate network is personal support. You will be amazed at how many networks will promise to help you with your internet business but do not deliver on their promise. Unfortunately, this is something that many merchants experience.

In order to avoid this, it would be best if you would choose an affiliate network provider who has been in the business for some time and has earned a reputation for being professional, reliable and trustworthy. It is also very important that the affiliate network is able to provide both merchants and affiliates with an excellent support service. You will be astonished to learn that the human factor in affiliate network is actually crucial to the success of your business. Your provider must make you feel that you indeed have a partner.

Among the affiliate networks today, you need to work with a network that cares about you and provides you with an advanced customer support that gives new meaning to the term ‘personal’. There should be forums where merchants and affiliates could discuss different concerns and issues related to their affiliate network program. Such network should have to have a good support team that would help all the members to participate – it should be a community.

Such network should also take all responsibilities seriously by making sure that the Frequently Asked Question Library is constantly updated. This way merchants could find answers to the questions more conveniently and they can run their affiliate network program without any hitch. In addition, both affiliates and merchants can should be provided with the downloadable user guides to better understand how all the system works and this way to maximize an income.

Aside from outstanding personal support service, one of such companies is Click2Sell.EU (http://www.click2sell.eu). It offers merchants numerous payment gateways including PayPal, Google Checkout, Moneybookers, WorldPay and Authorize.net. Internet-based businesses will be able to accept payments in different currencies (EUR, GBP and USD). Merchants will also enjoy an affiliate marketing network program that features a comprehensive reporting system that will help them track their sales performance, affiliate performance and traffic. The best thing of all is that merchants are able to have control over the commission percentage that their affiliates receive for every successful sale. Unlike other affiliate networks, you will be able to choose the affiliates you want to work with in order to ensure success for your internet business, you need a network who could personally devote to you.

Egidijus Andreika is a creator of Click2Sell.EU Affiliate Programs Network. Click2Sell.EU is a client oriented

Although coined only 3 years ago by O’Reilly Media, Web 2.0 is quickly becoming a common practice in our internet experience, but many people do not know what it really means. Its name suggests that it’s an upgrade from the original Web 1.0. As such, web 2.0 would point to the next generation of the internet, truly an enormous thing. But what is the real essence of web 2.0? This article is meant to provide a broad overview of web 2.0, what it is, how it came about, and how you can recognize it.

What Web 2.0 means?

Web 2.0 is changing the entire focus of internet surfing. With web 2.0, you are no longer passively reading through pages and clicking to other pages. Instead, you are contributing with each click, modifying search engines with your own vocabulary, helping to improve your own future online experience, and communicating with, sharing with, and teaching others throughout the world. Web 2.0 is still quite new, but it promises to be the next big generation in internet communications.

The phrase “web 2.0” itself is a catchy phrase with questionable inherent meaning. O’Reilly Media, working with Media Live International, initially coined the phrase when naming a series of internet conferences in 2004. Since then, the phrase web 2.0 has been adopted by developers and marketers alike, but some people question whether each use of the word adheres to the original definition, or whether a rigid definition even exists. The expert Tim O’Reilly has said, in effect, that web 2.0 includes all applications, using the internet as a platform, that improve in quality and content as more people use them. To put it more glibly, web 2.0 is “the intelligent web,” where the internet and the collective intelligence combine.

The Levels of Web 2.0

As explained above, Web 2.0 has a lot to do with human interaction in the web; therefore, these levels of interaction have been set at 4 as follows:

Level 3. Applications can only be used with an internet connection, and they are nothing without the human-driven network. These applications require human participation to improve in content and quality. Level 3 applications include the ubiquitous eBay, which would of course be useless without people offering goods and other people to bid on those goods; Craigslist for much the same reason as eBay; Wikipedia, since readers are responsible for editing content if they know it to be incorrect or outdated. Also a member of Level 3 is the application Del.icio.us, where bloggers can increase traffic by submitting their blogs for other readers to comment on and tag based on their own vocabulary. Del.icio.us is especially promising as a new way for searches to work, where readers use their own methods for determining searches. This is expected to help the internet community in general search more effectively and productively.

Level 2 applications. They are different from level 3 because they are operable without an internet connection, but their greatest advantages are realized online. These include Flickr, a photo sharing database which is improved by the photos that are uploaded by the internet community. Without the internet, Flickr can still be used, but it quickly stagnates when no new photos are uploaded.

Level 1 applications. They are similar to level 2, but gain less in quality by going online. Such sites include Apple iTunes, where you can listen to music offline, but can only purchase new songs by going online. Again, like with level 2 application, the means of updating is dependent on an internet connection.

Finally, Level 0 applications work as well offline as online. These applications are the “least web 2.0 of all.” Some of these applications include MapQuest, which readers do not contribute to, but rather use only for passive reference. Similarly, Yahoo! Local and Google Maps are also level 0

In general, Web 1.0 is now thought of as “Web as Information Source,” whereas web 2.0 is thought of as “Web as Networking Platform.” Among these Web 2.0 sites we find the so called Social Bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Digg, Stumble Upon and many more, and the Social Networking sites like MySpace, You Tube, Facebook, Yahoo Answers, Twitter, Squidoo, etc, just to mention the most common ones.

Finally the internet-savvy community has found a way to make money from these social sites. In fact, experts say that the greatest money making schemes on the web are in Web 2.0. But that will be the topic of another article.

If you want to learn more about Web 2.0 and how you can use this new technology on your marketing efforts, for a limited time, I have made available a suite of ebooks and resources for a Free Download at this link: http://www.marketingsoftstore.com/web2.0/socialtoolkit.html

Do you want to earn money easily using the internet? There are many fast and easy ways to make money on the internet. One among them is affiliate marketing.

What exactly is Affiliate marketing?

In simple terms, 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.

Currently the rise of blogging, interactive online communities and other new technologies, web sites and services based on the concepts that are now called Web 2.0 have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. The new media has allowed merchants to get closer to their affiliates and has improved communication between each other. Affiliate marketing has grown rapidly since its inception and as the Web expands daily so does affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing has already been hailed as a highly effective form of online marketing overseas. If used ethically and efficiently affiliate marketing is one of the most effective strategies online today.

The advantages of affiliate marketing are plenty:

1 Affiliate marketing boosts market penetration

2 Affiliate marketing enhances existing sales efforts and marketing channels

3 Affiliate marketing gives an extremely attractive ROI and affords unlimited opportunities for cross-marketing.

4 Affiliate marketing is cost effective in nature; as a merchant only has to pay once a lead has been generated or a sale has been made. This ensures no income is lost and results can be tracked.

5 Affiliate marketing also provides benefits to smaller companies by exposing their products on well known websites that already have an audience. Affiliate sites also benefit substantially from this type of marketing as they are the ones who receive a commission every time a sale is generated from their website. Affiliate marketing is a win-win situation.

Affiliate marketing also has a reverse side. Some of the disadvantages of affiliate marketing are given below:

6 There is the possibility that some merchants may incur high commission costs and costly set up and maintenance fees due to affiliate facilitators/brokers.

7 The affiliates may engage in false and misleading advertising in order to get sales commissions. Unscrupulous affiliates may make claims and promises regarding the product and services, which are completely wrong or extremely exaggerated. In cases like these, the merchant usually receives complaints and may lose potential customers.

8 Unscrupulous and dishonest merchants may arbitrarily close down programs without informing the affiliates and without paying commissions.

9 Merchants may promise high commissions to attract new affiliates then drop commission rates after a week or two.

10 Link hijackers can hijack affiliate links and get paid for the commissions instead.

11 There is also false advertising, unlawful use of trade names, logos, or brands.

12 No matter the disadvantages, affiliate marketing still remains as one of the best ways to make money online. Marketers simply have to understand that by doing their homework and research before hand and by implementing simple security measures, they can easily negate all these disadvantages in order to enjoy the advantages of the affiliate marketing program.

Paul Majestyck is the publisher of EZAffiliate Profits - 100’s of Great Articles Top Notch Resources Product Reviews Free Downloadable e-Courses & Videos To Help You Shorten The Online Learning-Curve And Start Generating Income . Also be sure to visit The #1 Digitital program and product store on the internet eNetMall.Net

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently criticized the US military for not doing enough to support soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, singling out the Air Force for adapting too slowly to the new enemies on those battlefields. He blamed military leaders who are “stuck in old ways of doing business”. That may sound strange to hear coming from a senior government official who knows full well that the military is steeped in the tradition of command and control leadership that creates a top-down management style and fosters orderliness and predictability, rather than innovation and adaptability.

But in a world of chaos and ever changing conditions, Mr. Gates realizes that the ability to change and adapt is key to military success: What worked well in the past may now be an outmoded and ineffective approach.

Mr. Gates is pointing out a truism that US business organizations of all types and sizes have witnessed and/or experienced during the past 75 plus years: Unadaptive organizations underperform and/or fail in the long run. Companies like Sears & Roebuck, K-Mart, Pam Am, Howard Johnsons, Armour & Company, Westinghouse Electric are examples of businesses which were once at the top of their industrial sectors only to be toppled by competitors who looked into the future, adapted and out performed them. And the way their competitors did it was with adaptive leaders, not top-down managers.

So what’s the difference between the two?

Consider top-down managers first. These managers, for the most part, are predominantly linear thinkers. Linear thinkers are rational, logical and analytical. They are mainly concerned with the present, not the future. They tend to stick with things that have worked well in the past as opposed to experimenting with the unfamiliar.

They are very organized individuals who value orderliness and predictability. They favor rules and procedures to ensure that orders from the top are followed through to the lowest level. Their mentality is that managers think, workers do (as they are told)….an idea generated by the father of management science, Frederick W. Taylor during the early 20th century. This approach worked fine back then, during the early US industrial economy. But today, things are quite different. We are now living and working in a knowledge economy.

If you have ever worked for one of these authoritative managers, you know first hand how autocratic and controlling they can be. Gather a group of these linear thinkers and place them at the top, running the organization, and guess what you get? A very rigid top-down organization that does everything by the rules, creating a bureaucracy that stifles innovation and creativity making it short-sighted, inflexible and unadaptive.

Enlightened, adaptive leaders are much different from top-down managers. They tend to be more non-linear in their thinking. These leaders are more intuitive, have greater insight, and are more creative. Being more conceptual, the see the “big picture”, are futuristic oriented, possess holistic insight and emotional intelligence.

They have greater spontaneity and flexibility—a balanced integration of rational analytical and unconventional imaginative processes. They have the ability to take a new perspective to an old complex problem and reassemble interrelated parts of the problem in novel and unusual ways leading to a viable solution. They are much better at coping with the non linear complex nature of the competitive context of our global business environment.

One would think that most of these adaptive leaders head up the newer hi-tech companies like Apple, Google, Nintendo, Microsoft and Amazon.com. But if you look at the recent list of the top 25 innovative companies recently compiled by BusinessWeek (4/28/2008), you may be surprised to find more traditional companies such as General Electric, Toyota Motor, Hewlett Packard, Wal-Mart, and Proctor & Gamble included on the list with the newer hi-tech companies. These more traditional companies have adaptive leaders who are building cultures that value creative people in good times and bad.

The good news is that managers can change and become more adaptive leaders just as traditional companies can become more innovative. As a corporate executive leadership coach, I have worked with hundreds of managers and executives for the past 20 years and I have witnessed a transformation of many individuals who have changed from top-down managers to adaptive leaders. All thinking and behavior can be changed…it is called learning. Through assessment, self awareness, action learning, and coaching, managers can become more effective and adaptive leaders.

In essence, my experience, research and observations have led me to conclude that the assertion, “Leaders are born, not made,” is a myth.

Stan Truskie,Ph.D. is President of MSD Leadership Consultants Inc. a Pittsburgh based firm specializing in executive coaching, change management, and leadership development with Fortune 500 companies.He is author of Leadership in High Performance Organizational Cultures and has appeared on TV/Radio. http://www.msdlead.com

Online marketing could really benefit from a night at the movies.

For the sake of illustration let’s start at the end of this process and work backto the beginning.

10) A movie grosses more than two hundred million dollars. This means investors are happy, the movie going public is satisfied and in all likelihood there will be a sequel. There continues to be buzz about the film as the DVD is set to sell at retail.

9) The movie is released to the public to strong opening weekend ticket sales. Analysts predict big things although critics never seem to get excited about anything.

Stars of the movie visit the talk shows and red carpet events to talk about the forthcoming movie.

7) It is announced that the movie has finished filming and the editing process has begun. All major news groups make the announcement and teaser trailers begin showing in theatrical previews and on YouTube. The clip is downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

6) Filming is underway and the media is invited to drop in for a preview and talk to the stars. The public is finding themselves very interested in the movie.

5) Filming will start soon. Primary stars talk about reading for the script and, as usual, refuse to provide any spoilers although they toss in a few tidbits to tease the audience.

4) Production company announces plans for a new movie and rumors are leaked about who will be playing the lead roles.

3) Script is optioned and purchasing production company researches what possibilities exist for making the film into a movie.

2) Screenplay is finished and marketed to Hollywood.

1) A screenwriter has a really good story idea.

Okay, feel free to read that list from one to ten if you like. There is a progression to the story of Hollywood success and it started with one individual who had a great idea. That idea grew as the individual began to network with others who could help the idea to reach its full potential.

In each step, except for the first, there is some form of marketing that takes place. The story is marketed, the production company explores and enacts methods to make the film a reality, the actors are enlisted to help keep awareness of the project in the minds of the media and public, the Internet is used to help secure public support, movie theaters are used to play previews of the attraction, and in the end there is an incredible buzz about the movie leading to a successful launch of the film.

Too many businesses approach marketing as an afterthought. They throw something together last minute and wonder why it doesn’t seem to go anywhere as the critics say, “I told you so”.

I honestly believe that if a film could be made in a week the production companies would still wait several months preparing the marketing soil for an incredible movie going harvest. Hollywood doesn’t rush releases. Why? Maybe because they know that if they push it too soon there will be inadequate knowledge of the product and it will fail for lack of interest.

Use online marketing as a long haul strategy. You won’t manage success through hasty marketing.

Even when you don’t like a Hollywood movie you have to give them credit for making sure they can gain every last penny from their marketing dollar – as long as they exercise great patience.

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No matter how I may personally feel about paid surveys they do have tremendous marketing potential. When a company ventures into the field of online surveys they tap into the hope many have for a way to make quick money. This means there is an immediate flood of participants hoping to ease financial woes by filling out surveys.

Having immersed myself in the world of paid surveys I wanted to write an article that dealt with the subject of paid surveys from the standpoint of the marketer.

Marketing has always been about finding a way to tie your product and or service to the needs of the public at large. In the case of these surveys that tie comes in the form of the perception of money for nothing.

There are very few truly legitimate paid surveys. What I mean by that is there are very few that will actually pay you a cash reward immediately upon completion of your survey.

The stories most people hear about paid surveys is that you complete a survey and a check arrives at your door in a few days. Most paid survey sites do not operate this way.

Marketing experts are working to retain survey takers for a longer period of time. They have done this in two primary ways. The first is to replace an actual payment with points. These points are used to either enter sweepstakes or exchange accumulated points for goods or services. The second way in which marketers keep people coming back for more is to provide cash, but they also place a minimum amount at which a member can request funds. These methods have proven useful in keeping survey members around for a longer period of time. Because most will want to collect the funds they will stay involved in filling out surveys until they have met the minimum.

Many paid survey sites make additional money available by allowing members to read emails for a small reimbursement. Often that reimbursement is as little as a penny per email, but in most cases the recipient will open the email and read the marketing message. The intent of this strategy isn’t just to reward recipients for reading an email. It is a form of email marketing that provides a small incentive to actually open an advertisement that will hopefully encourage them to take the next step and make a purchase.

Many companies have seen positive conversion rates from this process. The businesses will contract with a paid email company in an effort to improve site traffic. Some paid email companies will also provide a greater payment to members if they either sign up for whatever is being pitched in the email or if they actually make a purchase.

One of the common themes in paid surveys is that the participant is rewarded only when they make a purchase or sign up for a tree trial. In most cases this transfer of information or assets offsets itself long term which is why so many companies continue to offer free products as part of the paid survey marketing strategy. The customer may actually pay for the product through accepting and paying for other required offers.

From a business standpoint the option of paid surveys can mean enhanced networking opportunities and, while this approach may not work for all who sign up, there will likely be enough interest to keep this marketing program working.

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Can a graphic designer design a website? Of course!

But there are risks involved when someone who thinks in terms of paper and inches starts creating designs for screens and pixels.

In this article, we’ll look at what makes web design so different, and we’ll talk about what to look for in a site designer.

Usability

Ever clicked on a brochure or a business card? I didn’t think so.

On the web, your visitors take an active role in their own experience—meaning that if they don’t enjoy the experience, they’ll take action and leave.

A user-friendly site provides clear pathways to tools, products, or information. It communicates in the target audience’s language, and it doesn’t leave visitors frustrated, confused, or lost.

Take load time for example. Many designers get so caught up in creating fancy-schmancy landing pages that they forget the user. If your web page takes too long to appear—or if it fails to update users on loading status—you’ll lose visitors.

Think of it this way: if graphic designers are warriors in the battle against ugliness, web designers are warriors in the battle against ugliness and confusion.

Accessibility

This goes hand-in-hand with usability: make a site more accessible, and you’ll make it more user-friendly.

Accessibility is also a key area of difference between print and interactive: a graphic designer might not consider how a print piece will work for blind people, but a web designer must think about how a site will work for every potential visitor.

It’s not only possible to make websites accessible to people with disabilities—it’s often mandatory, as in the case of many government projects. And it should be. The web is an extremely useful tool for those with physical impairments.

And keep in mind that accessibility serves all users: in the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, “accessible design is good design.”

Ease of Updates

Every print piece is frozen in time. Once it rolls off the press, the text on that paper will be the same forever.

The Internet, on the other hand, is all about change. Interacting with an out-of-date site is like talking to a wall: it feels futile, lonely, and downright silly.

To make sure your site continues to feel current long after launch, your designer should forego the cutesy, clever, or trendy in favor of the clear, classic, and lasting.

Important considerations might include text vs. graphics, links vs. buttons, horizontal vs. vertical navigation, or the need for standard fonts (critical for dynamic text).

And, with content managers like Mighty-Site putting updates into the hands of site owners, web designers must create templates and style sheets that will continue to look great every time you update content, add pages, or change images on your site.

Search-Engine Friendliness

If you’re concerned with your rank in search listings, you need to choose a designer who’ll help you speak to search engines.

Some of the elaborate, flashy sites we see these days are in fact invisible to search robots.

A good interaction designer won’t let this happen: she’ll respect your SEO needs and create an attractive, content-ready design that search engines will love.

Browsers and Monitors

It’s true that computers and Internet browsers evolve quickly, but don’t forget that consumers are slow to change. We all know that guy who bought his monitor back in ’96 and still swears by it in 2008. In fact, around 8% of all web users still have their screen resolution set to 800×600 pixels.

A website that launches today might be viewed on hundreds of different screen types, in any of 4 major browsers. This means that words will wrap differently for different viewers, colors will fluctuate from one monitor to the next…the list goes on.

It’s hard to plan for this level of variability. But an experienced web designer knows how to handle the challenge.

That’s why at Orbit, we check every web design on a variety of monitors and test site functionality across all major current browsers and platforms. It’s an essential step in effectively catering to online audiences.

To view the original article in its entirety, copy and paste the following link into your browser: http://www.orbitmedia.com/pages/april_2008/146.php. Please feel free to link to this address from your own web site.

As a principal and strategic director at Orbit Media Studios, Andy draws on his knowledge of marketing, usability, and interactive design to lead strategic planning for the firm and its clients. Orbit specializes in web, print, and video design & development. Orbit Media Studios.

The World Wide Web Consortium (also called W3C) is the administrative organization which drafted the rules by which your site and its web pages are supposed to be structured when they are under development. These rules, though not mandatory for your site to be viewed correctly in browsers, are considered part and parcel of the so-called “knowledge of best practices”. It is in the best interests of your site that you comply with the W3C best practices.

The three main reasons for websites to comply with the W3C regulations – first, the disabled get guaranteed access when you comply; second, the site you created can be accessible from different devices and software; and lastly, compliance assures you that your site gets a fairly standardized appearance and functionality regardless of where it is viewed.

To be compliant, you are supposed to lessen your page code so that the keyword-laden content will take precedence. Compliance allows search engine spiders to view your site more readily, while giving you enhanced control over which site pages will gain more importance among the search engines.

To create a site which is W3C-compliant, you need to get a site designer who can re-format the site so that it meets W3C standards. You should also anticipate having to adjust to these same standards so that you can sustain compliance.

To pursue compliance yourself, you can take advantage of a variety of resources. One great resource would be the Firefox browser’s Web Developer extension. To use this resource, you have to install Firefox at the start before attempting to install its extension. The nice part about using this Web Developer extension is that it makes it easier for you to pursue W3C compliance. You can also view a list that tells you which errors you have made plus what solutions are needed to correct your errors. This extension allows for CSS, XHTML, and HTML as well as for Accessibility compliance testing.

There are more detailed steps you should follow so that you meet W3C compliance.

1. Try to download the Firefox browser. You won’t regret doing this because Firefox is a very good browser.

2. Install its Web Developer extension. You gain access to the testing tools easily from this point.

3. You can now bookmark these resources.

4. When all has been installed, then attempt to run their tests at your personal website. It is advisable to have a sample site around to examine which happens to be W3C compliant already – this allows you to examine that sample site’s code when necessary.

5. When trying to do validation, consider pursuing CSS validation first, followed by HTML validation then by XHTML validation. This reduces the amount of frustration for you, especially if you’re new at this and have a standard site. This becomes more important too if your site happens to be rather large.

6. Accessibility standards also have to be implemented to make your site Accessibility compliant. This means simplifying or even eliminating your code then re-formatting it into CSS format. If you don’t know CSS formatting, then you should learn or at least hire someone who is familiar with it. You may find there are some things about CSS that will make your site more pleasant and even interesting to look at. CSS can be a bit difficult to absorb at the start but gets easier to use over time.

Once your site becomes W3C-compliant, you will find your website can be accommodated on a greater variety of browsers. This is growing in importance nowadays because many new browsers are becoming more popular with a variety of users. At the same time, your website will have less code to clutter it up so that search engines will give it higher ranking in search results.

One word of caution though – in the website and search engine paradigm, getting the top ranking in search results seems to be the true test of SEO friendliness. However, you should not expect that being W3C compliant will automatically render your website more popular among search engines. As SEO techniques become increasingly accepted by many website owners, you may actually find competition for ranking from search engines to heat up even more.

This means simply that there is no magic solution that will give your site instant popularity among Internet users and importance on search results of most if not all search engines. You should exert all effort to use the right methods to get better rankings. Once you reach the top page ranking in the search results, then it becomes vital that you do everything legitimate to stay at that level so that no other website comes along, and bumps you off the list.

Moe Tamani is a consultant with Dallas based Internet Marketing Company specializing in Organic SEO.

Though there are many SEO companies being set up nowadays, not all of them have been set up the right way. You might be surprised how many SEO companies set up lately are on shaky ground because: a) their brand name lacks any brand recognition; b) the SEO professional in charge (namely, the owner) lacks recognition in the industry too; c) and the owner has no idea how to change the situation to make it better.

So what are the factors you need to consider when putting up a sound SEO company? Here are some ideas:

1. Acknowledge that you are at a disadvantage, being a newcomer to the industry.

2. Check how much of a budget you can afford to put up your business and keep it running for a reasonable length of time. You may have to forego paying yourself any wages at the start, just to keep your business afloat during that period. You also have to consider what expenses exist that you have to pay for, and which ones you can do without for the time being.

3. It is equally important to rely on a strategy for getting clients immediately. This program of action will require anticipating how you can foster growth much longer down the line. This means you have to know what correct marketing tactics to use to promote your business and get clients to trust you with their projects.

4. You really have to build a name for yourself because in the online world, a good name is always your best marketing tool. So think of investing into building name recognition as well as brand recognition as an investment into the future.

5. Try participating in SEO contests. These help you hone your skills against your peers while being able to put your name out there for people to learn (and hopefully recognize later on as your reputation precedes you.) Oh, and you might win prizes too but that’s just a bonus. Look around in forums and by doing simple searches online to find out when and where these SEO contests are to be held.

6. If you lose the SEO contest, use the situation as an opportunity to find out what the winner did to win. Then learn from this.

7. Do write very good articles to post on your site. Good articles are informative and benefit your readers so that they remember who you are. This requires being able to balance the need to provide a service with your articles but letting the clients know they need you for the real service or product. You might have to give away some valuable data though so that the public knows you’re for real and not just any other SEO Company like the others.

You need to bear in mind three pointers that will help you come up with good articles that will also help you get better search engine rankings:

1. If you do intend to write articles about SEO for the public to read, remember that your usual web-page size articles cannot possibly encompass everything about the field in that minimal space. You do not intend to write encyclopedic articles anyway, just articles that provide tidbits of information that will help you get noticed among potential clients.

2. You need to stay abreast of what is happening in the SEO world actually. Even the most knowledgeable SEO professional probably missed out on some new developments that could prove crucial in the future. The information you mastered today could become obsolete just one day more around the corner – because the fact is, many new ideas are being developed and tested online. You need to have the discernment to weed out which of these ideas are pertinent and usable and which ones are out of date and need to be discarded.

3. Remember that time is money for your clients. The reason you get hired to be their SEO professional of choice is that your clients are quite busy people who just lack the time to do the SEO stuff themselves. Your clients also probably know where their talents lie and where you are pretty good at. So stick to doing what you know and then try to impress on your clients that you are the best pro for the job.

Sometimes, even the most experienced SEO professional has to attend SEO conferences so that they can let the world know that they are ready, willing and able to do the work.

Note too that each conference has its own nuances and type of contacts available for you to learn about. Though you may have to get used to the differences between conferences, each has its own value to your business.

Moe Tamani is a consultant with Dallas based SEO Marketing Company specializing in Organic Search Engine Placement.

Outsourcing to an SEO company for online advertising needs does not mean a company and its employees are left sitting all day waiting for results. A client still needs to participate up to a certain extent with an SEOs work so that the latter may produce more effective results. However, some actions on part of the client may do more harm than good to an SEO’s efforts of bringing in more traffic to a website. Understanding how SEOs work and how it yields benefits for a client should give the latter an idea about which practices they should refrain from that can decrease the efficiency of SEO.

An innocent site update may jeopardize an SEO’s efforts. Webmasters may overlook the fact that their website has been recently optimized and in the process of updating they revert to an un-optimized version of the site. Clients should be more conscious and sensitive about the fact that SEO technology is built into their site’s framework and may fall down like a house of cards if they carelessly tinker with their site’s inner workings. By no means is it suggested that clients should let their site’s contents rot.

Instead, clients should consult with their SEO providers how to go about in updating their sites contents. Clients may think that this may make them entirely dependent on their SEO, but this is not necessarily so. Once the client’s webmaster knows how to go about tinkering with the sites without affecting the SEO structure, they may go ahead with their usual business. After all, the strength of an SEO scheme lies in it being a one time thing and requires very little maintenance.

Clients should also understand that SEO providers are neither magicians nor illusionists who can turn around their client’s stats without modifying to a certain extent site content. Website content is part and parcel of an SEO site and clients that demanding in no case shall their content may be changed are not likely to hire a decent SEO provider. Ethical SEO firms need to alter to a certain extent a site’s content so that such can be optimized and anything short of this may call for the violation of a search engine’s TOS. Only mediocre or less than reputable SEO firms would agree to such conditions.

Another caution to clients and SEO companies alike, seeing how an SEO works does not make the observer an expert. Clients embarking on their own SEO tinkering in the given sites may result in the sites going kaput. It may even destroy whatever optimization the SEO has already adopted and integrated into their client’s sites. In this worst case scenario both the client and SEO firm is left with a rather unsightly mess to clean up and loss of whatever search ranking the site has already reached. This is an echo of the elementary principle to let experts do their work, but unfortunately many clients still lose sight of this fact.

Linking to other sites likewise affects site rankings but a client should be careful of the way they conduct their linkages. Search engines have recently been cracking down on sites that engage link trading and if caught such are often penalized. Clients should only link to sites which offer genuine help to their visitors or at least cover relevant content. Moreover, one could not be accused of being overly careful if they ask their SEO to review the link so that the latter may find out if the link does not engage in questionable SEO practices.

Any information regarding change given to a company’s marketing department should be immediately forwarded to the SEO provider. SEO is as concerned with the changes and flux with their client’s marketing situation as the in-house marketing department. This is so that the SEO may immediately adopt and implement the necessary changes in their client’s site so that the latter’s patrons are informed of the latest news and updates.

With all the things mentioned above, it may seem like the SEO scheme is overly delicate and is likely to crash with every little change coming from the client’s side. This is not so. Acting on anything with very little understanding regarding the thing or situation is an invitation to disaster. SEO frameworks are no exception to this. Even a basic understanding of how SEO works for the client can prevent any problems from arising and would allow companies to reap the full benefits of SEO marketing. SEO firms are their client’s partners in making online advertising work and as such, an understanding of how each one works is absolutely necessary to achieving in their joint endeavor.

Moe Tamani is a consultant with Dallas based Internet Marketing Company specializing in Organic SEO.