Perhaps the most crucial thing for your Internet marketing business is finding the right keywords. Though it make take some trial and error, and a bit of effort, keywords are critical for search engine rankings and when you have those, the traffic to your Internet marketing website will soar. More traffic equals more sales, and so the better you are at choosing the right keywords, the better your Internet marketing business will perform.

Though Overture was the tool of choice in the past, it’s no longer viable because it hasn’t updated since January 2007. The stats aren’t as current as they should be for deciding something so important anymore.

SEOBook.com, however, has a great keyword selection tool, and what makes it special is its comprehensiveness. You get results from all three of the big search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and you get information on trends, traffic estimation, and a link to Quintura, a search engine that groups results in tag clouds as well as providing site results. But because SEO Book has become so popular, it’s often busy, as Overture was in the past. If you plug in a very general term and it comes back with 0 results, it probably means that the tool is too busy. Go back later and try again.

The first thing you should do when selecting keywords for your Internet marketing business is to plug in a very broad term. Let’s say you’re in the dog niche. You sell dog toys, dog food, and other dog-related products. When you plug in the word “dog,” it comes up at the top of the results list with 3,627,544 for the month. That’s a lot of searches! What it means is that the term is much too competitive. You could perform every SEO trick that you know and still not rank for that term, if your page has no Google page rank and you’re just starting out. So, let’s look down the list. There’s dog bed at 147,609, but that’s still pretty competitive. Yet, keep going down, and you find “dog supply” at 63,872. That’s more like it. It won’t be an easy term to rank for, but it’s still better than those higher on the list. With a bit of work, you could probably rank for “dog supply” over time.

Your Internet marketing business should be based around the keywords you choose, if you want to get free search engine traffic. Choose keywords that are relevant to your niche, but wait until your site has some search engine clout, as when it’s a Google page rank of 4 or above, to go for the harder terms. That way, as your site matures, you’ll still be ranking and getting some of that search engine traffic. SEO isn’t a strategy that will work overnight, but it’s worth the effort. Free traffic that converts is a great benefit that you should definitely consider.

Tellman Knudson, CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc., is a master list builder and well-known for his List Building Club. Tellman teaches students how to build a successful online business. Create your successful business from his step-by-step videos at: http://listbuilding.com

Popularity: 39% [?]

One of the most important terms in search engine optimization is “anchor text.” Anytime you see a word or phrase that is hyperlinked, that’s “anchor text.” So, in theory, the text anchors the hyperlink on the page.

Why is anchor text important to my Internet marketing business? you might wonder.

Search engines follow anchor text to other parts of the Web. So, anytime you use anchor text it should be comprised of words or phrases that are keywords appropriate to your Internet marketing niche. When spiders follow those keywords from other sites to your website, they will see the same keywords in your copy on the page. For example, if you have “dog training” hyperlinked back to your site about training dogs from an article you uploaded to EzineArticles.com, and spiders follow it, they’ll see the same words and phrases at your site. They’ll understand that your website is about dog training. Use anchor text and point it back to your website enough times from other places, and over time, you’ll see your site rise in the search engine results pages.

But this will happen with any word. For example, when you search the phrase “click here,” you’ll find Adobe Acrobat Reader in the number one spot at Google. Why is this? Because so many webmasters use .pdf on their websites and usually put a link underneath that says, “If you don’t have Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here, to download the current version.” Or something like that. The important thing is that the words “click here,” are usually hyperlinked, making it anchor text leading back to Adobe.

This makes keyword research very important, if you want search engine traffic. When you choose inappropriate words, you won’t get much time or traffic because you’ll be out of your element. If you use Internet marketing as anchor text to your coin collecting website, not many people that search for Internet marketing will be interesting in collecting coins. So, the keywords you choose need to be appropriate to your niche, and they have to be words that you have a chance of ranking for. If you try to rank for a widely used term, like “click here,” your chances of success are nil.

One great place to do keyword research is at SEO Book’s keyword research tool, but you can use any number of others. Plug in a very broad term to start, and then, look down the list to find less competitive terms. When you’re in the 10,000 searches per month range, it’s probably time to stop. Terms below that might be easier to rank for, but they don’t get much traffic. Choose 3 to 5 keywords that you may be able to rank for, and make those words and phrases your keywords. Use them in articles, blog posts, forum comments, etc. and in each case, use the words as anchor text leading back to your website.

Knowing the importance of anchor text will help you to boost your search engine ranking. Just think of it as any word or phrase (text) that is hyperlinked. Once you begin placing links back to your site, using your keywords as anchor text, you’ll see your site rise in the search engine rankings for those keywords. If they’re relevant to your Internet marketing website, you’ll see not only more traffic, but targeted traffic that brings more optins and sales. Of course, this won’t happen over night, this process of continually linking back to your site will provide great results over time.

Tellman Knudson, CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc., is a master list builder and well-known for his List Building Club. Tellman teaches students how to build a successful online business. Create your successful business from his step-by-step videos at: http://listbuilding.com

Popularity: 17% [?]

Perhaps the most important aspect of Internet marketing is getting traffic to your website. But how do you do that, without spending a fortune? If you haven’t even considered article marketing, you’re making a big mistake. Writing articles and posting them to prominent directories gives you some great benefits. “I hate to write,” you say? Hire someone at eLance.com to ghostwrite for you. It can be very inexpensive. There’s no excuse powerful enough to wipe out the benefits of article marketing.

Here are three reasons why:

First, there’s not a doubt that a well-written article will give you status as an expert. Don’t think that you’re too new at this to write something! If you’re in the right niche, you should have a passion for what you’re doing. You’ll know something, which is more than most. So, write about what you love. Do it in a conversational tone, and tell them what thrills you about your Internet marketing niche. Just write about the aspects of it where your excitement lies.

Second, when you solve problems, people will want to see your website. So, for example, say you’re in the crafts niche, but you are really passionate about knitting. So, you must be a knitter, right? OK. Prepare a special report that gives 5 to 10 tips about knitting that you can teach new knitters and put a link in your author’s resource box (the byline information and a short bit of ad copy) that leads them to your squeeze page to get it. If they read your article and liked it, they’ll come to your website and they’ll opt in to your list to get those 5 to 10 tips, too.

Third, articles provide one-way links to your website. This allows some SEO (search engine optimization) advantage. Each link you get from another website is a one-way link, as long as you don’t point back to the other site, as well. These links are seen as “natural” by the search engines, meaning that one webmaster just saw another webmaster’s site and wanted to add a link. Search engine spiders like that. However, when you write articles, you get the advantage of each of them pointing back to your site. Very valuable links, indeed.

There’s no argument… Article marketing is extremely powerful, and it’s not just a traffic generation system. There are at least three great benefits that we discussed above. Think about writing an article or buying some from ghost writers. Then, get them into a good directory. You’ll see the results in the traffic to your Internet marketing site and in optins and sales because the best aspect of writing and marketing with articles is that it gives you the credibility you need to succeed in the Internet marketing world.

Tellman Knudson, CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc., is a master list builder and well-known for his List Building Club. Tellman teaches students how to build a successful online business. Create your successful business from his step-by-step videos at:  List Building

Popularity: 14% [?]

Are your squeeze pages up to snuff? I mean, do you have a killer headline? What about a compelling image? Some knock-out bullet points? OK. Great! You’re almost there. But what about that all-important opt-in box? Did you think a little about it before creating it, too? It’s a very important facet of any Internet marketing squeeze page, and there are some things to consider.

The first thing you need to realize is that the more information you ask for from people, the less likely it is that you’ll get it. People are leery of intrusive questions, especially if they’ve been in Internet marketing for a while, and if you ask for more than just name and email address, you’re probably going to get far fewer sign-ups than you would by asking only for the bare minimum. If you add a free special report or ebook or something to give away, then watch your opt-in rates increase. If you give away something of value, people will give you at least their first name and email address just to get it.

Second, think about your “call to action” button. Unless you change it, it will default to “submit.” Not terribly exciting is it? In fact, if you really think about it, nobody wants to submit to anything. You’re hurting yourself, if you leave it that way. Change it to something like “Click Here for More Information,” or “Instant Access” to that free special report. When you have something a little more thrilling, watch your opt-in rates soar. That one small Internet marketing trick will give you so much more power.

Also consider where to place the opt-in box on your page. With regular web pages or blogs, the top of the page is always best, but with a squeeze page, you want people to read the benefits of getting onto your list. So, you want the opt-in box just below the bullet points. Or, if you’re HTML handy, you might want to put everything into a table with two columns. Why? Because when you do that, you’re probably keeping the page “above the fold.” It means that people won’t have to scroll down to see the information. You may even want more than one opt-in box, if your squeeze page is very long and unless you have a very good reason for making it longer, then, you won’t need two boxes, but it can be done and has been done before in the Internet marketing world. For example, if you’re holding a teleseminar series and you have a long list of people to describe, you might want more than one opt-in box. There are only a few exceptions. Generally, it’s best to keep your squeeze page simple and tight.

What’s the object of a squeeze page in Internet marketing? It’s getting people to give their information to you so that you can get them onto your mailing list. Of course, once they’re on your list, you treat them very well by providing great content and only offers that you have tested and found valuable yourself. But to get that first contact, you have to ask them for limited information, jazz up your opt-in button, and put it on the page where it will be seen. If you can do these things, your list will build faster, and start working your income toward the roof.

Tellman Knudson, CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc., is a master list builder and well-known for his List Building Club. Tellman teaches students how to build a successful online business. Create your successful business from his step-by-step videos at: http://listbuilding.com

Popularity: 17% [?]

When you’re new to Internet marketing, terms are flying past you at the speed of light, and you have no idea what they mean to your Internet marketing business. I’ve been there and so has everyone involved in the Internet marketing world. You need some time to learn what you should know, and then, you’ll still need to keep learning because you’ll never know it all. However…

You can learn some things to get you started pretty quickly. You can have your Internet marketing business bringing in cash while learning, and it’s not that hard to do.

The first thing to understand is that Internet marketing success is based on list building. Without a list of subscribers, you have no one to sell things to. So, you need a list of people who you can build a rapport with, people who will trust you, and who will follow your recommendations. One way to make that happen is by building a squeeze page and setting an HTML code for your autoresponder service in it.

But, if you don’t have a clue about building web pages or HTML, there are ways to be building your list right away without a squeeze page. You may not be ready for that. There are other ways. Let’s discuss one of those today.

Co-registration is the fastest and easiest way to start building a list, and I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about. Well, have you ever ordered magazines from a list of magazines? Each one has a checkbox beside it and you choose the magazines you want to buy, right?

Co-registration works that way, too. In a co-registration form, there will be several different offers. Some will be newsletters, some will be special reports, and some might be ebooks or courses, or whatever. So, write for short articles about your niche and advertise them as an email course. At the end of each one, offer a product to the reader that applies to the email. Also be sure that it’s something you’ve tried and want to recommend to other people. Then, write a short ad for this series, and use that for your co-registration ad.

Your short ad will be shown with those from other Internet marketing people, just like you, and the co-registration service advertises the page for you. They also guarantee you a certain number of sign-ups per month. You will pay them according to how many people you want to add to your list each month, but the fee is usually nominal.

You will have to spend money for an autoresponder, too. Though you can buy your own software, keeping the names straight and making sure you’re in compliance with the law is a hassle you don’t need. Right now, AWeber is the best autoresponder for Internet marketing, but there are other services available. Whatever you choose, the service will give you an email address to use for your autoresponder, and you’ll pass that along to your co-registration service.

Autoresponder services handle confirmation of sign-up, which will help you to protect yourself from spam complaints. The laws in the United States are very specific about how we can collect names and verifying registration is a step toward that protection. People often forget that they signed up for things, but when there’s proof of confirmation, your Internet Service account will be well protected. Nobody wants to lose their ISP or to be fined because of a spam complaint.

There are many ways to be list building in the Internet marketing arena, and they don’t all involve using a squeeze page. Being a little creative can sometimes save you time, energy and money. Co-registration is certainly one of those ways. Try one of the reputable services and see how well it works for you.

Tellman Knudson, CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc., is a master list builder and well-known for his List Building Club. Tellman teaches students how to build a successful online business. Create your successful business from his step-by-step videos at: http://listbuilding.com

Popularity: 6% [?]