Create An Authority Site With Articles Content Marketing Now!

This chapter is meant to act as a guide for helping you create content for your site.  You will also learn some of the secrets of the trade when it comes to “content acquisition” that allows you to add content to your site that you didn’t even write yourself.

Let's say you have decided to start your first article for your Content Site site.  You have decided to make it a general article, an overview about parrots.  You have two options here. You can do up an outline, do the research and write it yourself, or you can use an article directory.

An article directory is, in plain English, a source of well-written original articles that are free for the printing on your web Content Site.  What a time saver!  Here's an example of a parrots article from an article directory that you could use on your parrot Content Site.  This will give you an idea of the quality and detail of articles you could source for your site. 

You will notice the article has a good overview of some of the areas you wished to cover in your map.  A word about article directories.  With some of them you cannot alter content and must use all links mentioned in articles.  You must also leave the author's name on the article.  This may work for you so long as it is a quality article, as your whole point is to provide good parrots information for your parrot Content Site site. 

Before we continue, here's another suggestion for article content that you do not have to write.  You can source private label rights articles from writer's groups who specialize in writing good, stand alone pieces for web site publication.  Generally a "package" of articles is 25 on a variety of things relating to your chosen subject.  For instance, you could source a package relating to parrots, and get everything from training to speak to care for the senior parrot.  

Private Label rights articles do come with a price tag, but are not horrendously expensive and may be well worth considering.   For instance, if you join a PLR club you can get hundreds of PLR articles for as little as 15 cents or 20 cents each. Also, with these articles, you can alter them in any manner you want.

Example starts here: 

I have a 6 yr old Senegal parrot that I hand fed. My Senegal is named Sunni and he has a vocabulary of about 6 words. He can imitate many noises such as, the microwave, smoke alarm, running water and telephone. He has a sweet little personality and has bonded very well with me. I am able to handle him anytime, day or night, and he has only bitten me once when he was a few months old. He will let others handle him, but has bitten on quite a few occasions. Most Senegal parrots are as friendly as Sunni. I have learned alot about parrot feed and nutrition while caring for my Senegal parrot.

The most important thing in raising a parrot is their nutrition. Most people are led to believe that a diet of just seeds is adequate for these birds, but it is not. In the wild Senegal's will eat different foods such as fruits, vegetables and nuts. I feed a variety of foods to keep my senegal parrot healthy. His main diet consists of commercially made parrot pellets. There are a few different brands of pellets out there is different shapes, colors and flavors. Some parrots will take to one kind and not another. Check out this website Caring for a Senegal Parrot for a list of companies that sell parrot pellets to get free samples. Care must be taken when switching over from a regular diet to pellets. You should only change their diet about 10% each week.

I supplement my senegal parrot's pelleted diet with fresh fruits and vegetables. Avacodos and chocolate are POISONOUS to parrots and should never be fed. Sunni's favorites foods are grapes and apples. It is very interesting watching a parrot eat a grape. Sunni "unzips" it with his beak, sucks out the inside, and drops the skin. This also keeps him pretty busy. Parrots like to "forage" for their food so it is recommended that you put bowls in various positions in the cage.

Senegal parrots are drawn to colorful foods and also like things in different shapes and sizes, so experiment!! You can cut up carrots into sticks or squares. Some birds will only eat cooked or steamed veggies and some like them fresh. I like to stick some broccoli in his cage bars and make it look like a tree. Sunni has a blast picking through it!

Noodles and grains are also good for parrots. I do give him meat every once in a while and he eats that heartily! I feed corn bread, wheat bread, whole wheat or white noodles, and white or brown rice. An easy way to get a parrot to eat some veggies is to puree them in a blender and use the liquid with a little water to make a batch of cornbread according to the box directions. I cut these in little "bars" and freeze half for easy thawing.

Seeds and nuts are an important part of a parrots diet, but should be given in moderation as treats since they are high in fat. They love sunflower seeds! I also give some spray millet as a treat. I have also purchased some treat dispensers for birds where they have to work a treat through a maze before they can eat it. It is very important for parrots to stay busy and not get bored as they tend to develop bad habits such as feather picking.

Erin Kurwicki is a wahm making money online to pay off her debts and achieve financial freedom. Her and her husband live in Southern Illinois and raise Whitetail Deer. Check our her blog http://moneymatters2007.blogspot.com for more financial tips and ways to earn money online. A well rounded, diverse diet is the best thing for a Senegal parrot. Making new and fun foods for them is something that should be done and is actually enjoyable. 

End of example!

If you would rather write your own articles, then plot your article in point form before you start (much like plotting the Content Site articles).  Once you know what you need to research, find what you need on the Internet or other sources, add in some personal experience, and you will have a quality, finished article. 

And why are articles just so darned important?  You can do wonderful things with them.  Whether or not you write them yourself, or have someone write them for you and you re-write them to make them your own – content IS KING! And content is what feeds search engines.  Look at it this way.  Why do people go online (aside from gamers and people just checking their emails)?  They go online to search the Internet for information.

Well, as luck would have it, they can find that information on the aptly named Information Super Highway. And that information highway is paved with articles chock full of?  Right - information.  Who supplies this information?  Well, lots of people do, but so should YOU!

Ok, we know search engines love content, so if you give them articles on a regular basis, guess what?  They stop by your site more often. Translation: higher rankings in the search engines.  So find or create an article and feed the spiders.  Remember though, that if you find one in an article directory, try to personalize it, unless the directory won't allow you to do that.  If you have one written for you, make it your own with your own slant on things.  If you write it, again, use your own unique voice.

Why feed engines with article food?  Another reason is website owners and people who send out newsletters always need them frequently to keep their submissions fresh.  And get this, these articles once up and fresh, will be archived when new stuff comes along.  But, your article will have life long residual traffic because of that.  This is of course if you put your website information and URL into the resource box at the end of the article. 

And while we're on that subject – resource box use that is – when you offer free information (in your free content article) along with reprint rights, and it gets into the article directory of a site with a high popularity ranking, guess what happens?  YOUR site gets a popularity ranking boost because it is linked to the site that already has a high popularity ranking.  This is piggy backing at its very best.  Actually, there's another word for this as well.  It's called viral marketing.  Simply put – because you offer reprint rights, when the websites/newsletter people publish them, they go all over the place – like a virus.  Hence – viral explosion causing traffic to come to your site (thanks to the resource box again)

We are not done yet with reasons to have fresh content.  You can syndicate them via Real Simple Syndication (RSS).  If you write regularly set up an RSS feed for surfers/site owners to opt in to – so you'd be syndicating your content to them.  You can also submit your RSS feeds to RSS search engines and directories.  Isn't the web an exciting and challenging tool?  Opt ins of course generate free traffic. 

Let's look at blogs.  They need information on a regular basis as well.  If you provide quality information to a blog, the owner might just post your article(s) for all to read and bingo – more traffic to your site/Content Site.  By the way, blogs use RSS to syndicate content to search engines, RSS search engines and directories.  Yup, MORE free traffic.

Who else needs content?  Info Product developers do.  That's when you get an E-book with related articles inside it from other authors.  A free E-book that is.  If your article winds up in one of those?  Well, you've just become another part of the whole package of viral marketing for the E-book.  And when that book makes the rounds on the Internet, you get more traffic. 

Last, but hardly least, is the fact that when you post articles on a regular basis, you will become a recognized expert on your subject (your parrot Content Site is looking really good now isn't it?)  Chock full of those great articles you are posting.  Remember, with every article you post, you get all of the above happening, with just that one article.  Think about what could happen if you posted more than one article.  Incredible isn't it? 

The Best Article Directories…

Now you have a great grasp on how to create content yourself as well as a path that you can follow to find content that you can publish on your site without having to write a word.  Whether you love writing or hate it, content creation or acquisition shouldn’t be a problem now!

In the next chapter we are going to go over ways that you can generate income with the content on your new content site. 

Content Monetization

The number on objective of getting your site loaded up with content so that the search engines can find it and send you traffic so to make money right?  That’s right!  You will learn how to make that happen in this section!

Now that you are mostly up and running, we need to talk about how to make money with your Content Site.  First and most obvious would be advertising.  Having said that though, what you do not want to do is have ads on your site for everything under the sun and none of it relating to parrots (or whatever your chosen Content Site topic may be).  Choose wisely and choose ads to complement your Content Site contents.  For instance, if you are talking about cages, you don't want an ad on the page for graduation dresses.  

So what can you do to generate money with your Content Site?  There are lots of ways to accomplish this.  We will cover a few here so you get the idea.

One of the best known ways to make money on your site/Content Site is using Google Adsense – however, you need to think outside the box and be innovative to make some serious money.

You need to select and focus on one format of Adsense Ads.  That one (and this has been proven through research) is the large rectangle – 336x280.  It seems this size ad results in higher click through rates.  Why not use other sizes?  Well you can, but experience shows they do not work as well as the Large Rectangle.

Why don't other size ads work as well?  It's simply a matter of what people are used to.  The Large Rectangle ads look like regular web links – in other words, they look familiar.  So because they do look familiar, people will click on them.  This is to your advantage. 

Make sure you take the time to create a custom palette. Choose colors that blend well with the background of your site/Content Site.  If your site is blue, use blue as the ad-border (the same color blue if you can) and background colors.  What you're trying to do is make Adsense look like it's a part of your web Content Site.  This too will also boost your click through rate. 

Put your Adsense ads at the TOP of your page/Content Site, not the bottom.  No sense in hiding them.  The more people that see them, the higher the click through rate – and that's a bonus. 

Relevance, relevance, relevance – make your links relevant.  Link to sites that are relevant to your Content Site content and if they are really good sites, list them first. 

And last but not least, see if you can automate inserting the Adsense code into your Content Site.  You'd want to use Server-Side-Includes and check with your host provider to see if they support this.  They will be able to tell you how to implement this.  It can save you a lot of time.

Warning: make the ads fit what people searching your site want to see, read, and buy.  Focus on a specific topic and make that's your primary target.  Don't jump all over the place.  

It's quite possible you may have other ads on your Content Site side that deal with the same topic you do.  That's fine, but you want to strive to make your ad a bit different and unique.  Every click through is a point for you, so make your Adsense really stand out. 

There are hundreds of PPC search engines you can buy traffic from. 

 

This chapter is going to cover the fact that running a site with hundreds or thousand s of pages can be a pretty daunting task.  You are also going to learn about some of the solution that ease this burden.

We can go two different ways here in managing content for your Content Site site.  But first you need to know what a web content management system (CMS) is. Without making it sound too simplistic, it is a content management system to manage content on your web site, but one that has features to make it easier to publish web content to web site.  

These types of systems are usually used for storing, controlling and publishing documentation specific to an industry – i.e. news articles, technical manuals, sales guides, marketing brochures etc. Thinking in terms of your parrot Content Site then, you would likely want to use news articles and perhaps marketing brochures.

But, just what does a content management system do?  Among other things it can import and create documents and multimedia material.  It can identify all key users and their content management roles – for instance if there was more than one person managing your Content Site/site.

A content management system can also assign roles and responsibilities to different content or types.  It can handle content workflow and also let you know when there are changes in content. 

A good CMS has the capability to keep track of and manage many versions of one particular piece of content; publish the content to a repository so others can access it (search and retrieval); and separate text from formatting. i.e.  the CMS may set default colors, fonts, layout.

There are several ways to create a blog, but a lot of it depends on the amount of time you want to spend setting it up/configuring it, and what types of customizations you want for your blog. Here are several places you can either get a blog, or the scripts to build one yourself. 

Blogger.com 

http://www.blogger.com - This one is the easiest to learn and use.  You can get set up in no time flat and do not even need to know any HTML.  If you're more advanced and know what you're doing, you can use their phenomenal knowledge base, learn how to add to the template they give you when you sign up and personalize it. Bonus – it's really search engine friendly. 

WordPress 

http://www.wordpress.org - Word Press is considered to be the most popular blog script on the Internet.  It has a candy store of goodies for features, and is definitely search engine friendly. 

Some of the features are plugins so you can create an mp3 player on your site so you can use it for podcasting. There are also Technorati tags, photos, sitemaps, and an outstanding collection of templates so you can change the look/feel of your blog. 

Plug-ins for polls, calendars, tagging, "send to a friend," and "print this," are unique and well appreciated additions to WordPress blogs. Optimizing your pages and posts with unique page titles, meta tags, and page names is easy and manageable using plug-ins.

 

Video sharing/photo sharing is easy with a blog. Some plug-ins let you put a photo feed from Flickr on your Web site. You can even embed videos from YouTube or IFilm, into a post.  This makes your blog look like a multimedia site, and the good news is – you didn't spend much on it.

Drupal 

http://www.drupal.org - This isn't a blogging system.  It's a true CMS.  With it you can create a community of blogs, or a complete community, including forums, group meetings, and more. There is a rich text editor so you can code your posts. 

It doesn't matter what system you pick to create your blog, just so long as you are happy with it and it does what you need it do.   Blogs build relationships with your customers, as well as disseminate your site content.   Building, writing and maintaining a blog shows your expertise on your topic.  How much better could that get? 

Here are some tips and tricks to getting people to your blog:

A. Use your targeted keyword in your blog post titles

B. Optimize blog categories – use keywords in the titles, choose multiple categories on each post (if appropriate), default to a general category that's relevant no matter what the content of your post is about

C. Syndicate your blog – make subscribing to your blog easy.  Use a free service and create a syndication area on your site. (Try Feedburner)

D. Offer RSS (conversion) to email – free services include FeedBlitz, Zookoda and Squeet

E. Ping blog search engines using blog software like Movable Type or WordPress (automatically) or do it manually if you're using Blogger.com with Pingomatic.com etc.

F. Comment on other blogs.  Your name is linked to the blog URL you enter.

G. Submit your blog to directories with categories for blogs.

H. Have targeted ads on your site – no this doesn't drive traffic to your blog/site, but it will make you money (see Google Adsense/Adwords etc)

I. Grab the latest and hottest keywords – relevant to your site.  Place ads relevant to those key words on your site.  Want a  good tool to find relevant high pay off keywords?  Try Keyword Elite.  http://www.seojuice.com

J. Leave track backs on other blogs that are directly relevant to your site/Content Site/blog. A TrackBack is used in a blog to show, around an entry, a list of other blogs that refer to it. 

Well, you may have it all together now, but having the blog itself is no substitute for the content.  Content is indeed king.  And that content must be quality, or you will not retain visitors. It's just that simple.  

If budget is a consideration in the management of your Content Site/site/blog, then you will want to consider whether or not to manage it by hand or use a content management system.  One of the things you need to think about before opting to perhaps buy a content management system, is what do you really need it for.  Yes it has all the bells and whistles and can make your life easier – or can it?  Do you really need everything a content management system provides?  If you happen to be a very large business with a very large site, you might want to think big.  If you happen to be a very small business with big dreams, you may do well to update by hand for quality control. 

Aside from control and hands-on editing of your site, the very real point here is your finances.  With a good CMS running about $10,000 USD, you would have to think long and hard before justifying that kind of expenditure for your Content Site.  That being said, that doesn't rule out switching to a CMS later as your Content Site grows more profitable.  

In the area of expertise, if you have a lot of advanced knowledge about blogs and Content Sites, etc, then a CMS may not make you even bat an eyelash (price aside).  The technology would suit you and you would have no difficulty with running your Content Site with a CMS.

If you happen to just be starting out, doing it by hand is the best route to go, as you will learn how to do things properly as you grow.  Doing things by hand also gives you a different kind of control over your site.  It's more personal and more of an investment for you to make it work.  

Which Content Management system is a good one?  That is an excellent question, and one that really cannot be answered.  The number of content management systems available would make your head spin.  Each of them has good points, and bad points.  Which is the best, is the one that suits your needs the most. Do the research on CMS if that is the route you want to take.  In the meantime, do your start up Content Site by hand and watch how much pride and satisfaction you get out of it when it is done. 

The next chapter is going to teach you how to create some social buzz at your site so that people interested in the topics that you present content for can interact and grow your site for you.

 

If you want to take your site to the next level of “content acquisition”, this is it.  By using social technology on your site, you r visitors can literally grow your content site FOR you!  In this section we are going to talk about how you can make this happen and the options available to you.

Adding interactivity to your site will only make it more popular for your visitors.  So how do you do that?  There are several ways, adding a message board, or perhaps a chat room or internal messaging system. 

There are two ways to get a message board on your web site: 

 outsource a pre-created board

 create a message board from scratch on your own server.

Third Party Message Board Hosting

If you outsource, another site builds and hosts the board on their servers and give you certain administrative rights (change the border and background colors, etc.)

The Pro’s Of Using A Third Party Provider…

 message board is created for you

 convenient  - for web sites hosted at free places like Yahoo/Geocities, etc. because many providers don't have the resources that allow you to create a message board from scratch

 no worries about files/messages taking up space on your web server 

Cons Of Using A Third Party Provider…

 not as much control over the look and feel of the board

 if your web host goes down, so does your message board

 some companies limit traffic and/or board content

Hmmm, well outsourcing doesn't sound too appealing does it?  Well, then, you have the alternative of building a message board from scratch, and house it on your own domain.

Setting Up Your Message Board Yourself

Pro’s Of Creating Your Own Message Board:

 More control over look and feel of board and no limit on how to edit, configure or reconfigure 

 You can make board design match your Content Site in looks

 No shut downs, because you own the board

Con’s Of Creating Your Own Message Board…

 Manually uploading files to your web server.  You need a basic understanding of how to change permissions on files as most message boards are built in other languages (cgi, PHP, asp, etc.)  Not sure how to do this?  Ask your web host.

 You must have your own domain name and be hosted by someone before you can upload scripts.

 You will need to make sure your host gives you the right kind of access to host the board. For instance if you write the board in PHP, find out if the host supports this.

Bottom line?  

Find a message board that you like, download the files needed to make it work, edit a few things (if you are able to) and save them to your web server.  Many of the boards do come with help files for installation and configuration, so it's not as if you would be on your own struggling to figure the message board out.  

If you do decide to outsource your message board rather than build it on your own, then you'll need to find a Remotely Hosted message board provider.  Which is good if your site is hosted at Yahoo/Geocities, Tripod, Webspawner, AOL, or some other free web space providers that do not let you to create a message board on their server.

Self Hosted, Pre-Exisitng Message Board Scripts…

We cannot emphasize this enough – always have your own domain BEFORE you download anything, and check to see if your host provider supports the scripts you are thinking about installing. 

Here are some places you can find message board scripts:

 Website Tonight

This host provides a pre-created forum with your hosting account. No setup involved and you can host it on your own domain.

 VBulletin

This is rather expensive ($160 +), but likely worth the price if you take a look at all the features you receive. If you're familiar with doing an FTP file upload/download, this isn't too hard to install either. 

 PHPBB

This is really easy to set up and it's also free. Download the files for the board, upload them to your web server using some type of FTP program and change a few permissions to some files.  Bango, done! Yes, there is on site documentation. You need to know if you host supports PHP and to be able to create a database (ask your web host)

 WWWBoard Message Board

This is another free option, but it's not as easy on the eyes to read or follow as PHPBB.  Having said that, the layout is really simple with the messages listed in one long list.  There are fewer files to upload with this option and it loads quickly. 

Third Party Services For Message Boards…

 ProBoards.com (Free Message Board)

o You can customize just about anything on this site and have an unlimited number of messages on your board.  It also tracks how many members join your board, total posts, and shows the title of the latest post on the homepage.  With your Admin privileges you can edit and delete posts, create and edit categories, and ban members if you need to.  This actually offers a LOT for a free message board. 

 EzBoard.com (Free Message Board)

o This board is really one of the most popular and has many of the same features as EZBoard but with a few extras like a profanity filter, ability to rate members, ability to screen posts before they go live, etc.

Obviously the choices are pretty much endless, but in the long run, you need to do what you think will work the best for your Content Site.  There's lots of help available on the Internet, all you have to do is ask.

You might want to consider adding a chat room to your Content Site.  Be aware though they can and do bog a server down if there is a lot of traffic. That means you would need to invest is a higher bandwidth – another expense.  So analyze your options carefully.  Since you're just starting out, you may not want to blow all of your budget at the start of your new venture. 

Let Your Visitors Chat It Up

First ask your hosting company if they provide/support the right kind of platform to have a chat room installed.  It depends on what type of chat room you are considering, but the one that we will use for an example would need Perl 5.0 with read/write access to a CGI bin.  If you are paying for hosting, chances are your host will support this script – however – always ask first.  Better safe than in a mess.

 

If you don't pay for hosting and are using a free hosting service, this example script will not work, as free site providers don't give access to run PERL scripts. 

A Solution That Costs Nothing…

The example you're about to go see and/or download is called Ralf's Chat.  Research shows this is one of the easiest scripts to configure and install.  Go here to have a look:   http://ralfchat.sourceforge.net/

After having checked with your host provider, you know they support PERL, so you can download if you wish, or just check the script out online. 

You may need an extracting utility, if so, you can download a Winzip evaluation copy at: http://www.winzip.com/ddchomea.htm

If you're running Windows XP, you have the capability to unzip and do not need to download any software. Instructions are in the download file.  It will teach you how to edit the script to suit what you need for your Content Site site.

Installing The Software On Your Website

A. First create a folder on your server called CHAT inside your server's cgi bin.  Then, upload chat.cgi, chat2.cgi and config.pm (all in ASCII mode) to that file folder.

B. CHMOD the chat.cgi and chat2.cgi files to 755

C. Create a sub-directory called DATA in the same directory

D. CHMOD the data folder to 777 data

E. Want logs?  Then mkdir logs; chmod 777 logs

F. Run the script with your server – see following and insert name of your server where is says yourserver – http://yourserver.com/path/chat.cgi

G. CHMOD means to change modifications.  And if you get stuck on the upload, you can ask your host provider for help.  If you have experience uploading files and changing modifications you should be fine.

On Site Messaging…

One of the best private messaging software packages around is Drupal at: http://www.drupal.org

Oddly enough, this is not a blogging system, nor is it a private messaging system per se.  It a content management system, that will allow you to create a community of blogs, or a complete community, including forums, group meetings, and more. There is a rich text editor so you can code your posts. We read about this earlier in this e-book in the content management system section.

Dupral's private messaging module lets its user to send messages to each other without sharing email addresses. What happens is an inbox link appears in the navigation menu. 

A "write to author" link is included in posts, letting users type a private message instead of commenting openly. As you may already know, letting users have the ability to communicate directly with each other is an important part of building your Content Site community.

There are a few other bells and whistles you can take advantage of – for instance: users can choose to receive email notices of new messages by simply editing their user profile. Your contacts list only shows users you've messaged before. If a user in not in your contact list, you would need to know their local user name.

There you have it, a few other ways to make your Content Site highly interactive and establish a good sense of community.  Will these additions help draw in traffic?  Yes, and they will keep people returning to talk to their friends and share information about parrots (or whatever topic you have chosen for your Content Site). 

Allowing all these extra features not only gives people a true sense of ownership of the community, but also builds a rapport with everyone on the Content Site/site.  Just imagine what you could accomplish with these amazing tools.

What you definitely want to do is price your options out, do a list of pros versus cons, talk to others who have these extras on their sites and then do your homework.  Only you can decide what will work for your site. 

The next chapter is going to show you how to make your site newsworthy so that you can capitalize on media coverage and get tons of traffic from it.  This could send floods of traffic to your site over night!

 

The News Factor

This section is going to load you to the teeth with the strategies that you need to create buzz at your site that makes the media and big websites take notice of you.  This section could help you generate thousands of visitors almost overnight!

To make your Content Site a success, you want to respond to what visitors want.  Offering them things that interest them, and keep them coming back for more is the foundation to your success.  How do you find out what your visitors want? 

You'll find out by asking them questions, taking a poll, having them fill out a survey etc. You can do this yourself, or you can hire it out.  Hiring it out, while a good idea, can cost you a big chunk of change.  Change that would be best used to improve your Content Site with tools that make it work well for your visitors.  

Getting People To Move

Here are some ideas you can use for your Content Site to make it interactive and give you the answers you need to give your visitors what they want.

What we're going to cover here is soup to nuts, from simple polls you can create and place on your web site to much more elaborate options. Many of these options let respondents see the results as they complete the survey. 

Just a quick over view before you hit the list and the short detail provided with the options.  Some companies offer a set of services for free and paid services (the full meal deal); others have free 30-day trials of their complete offering. 

Some are for smaller businesses, others for larger companies with thousands of employees. There's a wide range between letting you design and add your own surveys/polls to your web site, versus having them create a survey, find your target market, query them, and report back the results. Onward and upward.

 SurveyMonkey.com

Large mailing list?  Sent lots of surveys? Opt for the professional subscription ($19.95 month) Send unlimited surveys, receive up to 1000 responses per month. 

 Zoomerang.com

Offers basic product (free) plus paid packages. Can send surveys in several languages, no limit on the number of responses you can receive. 

 SnapPoll.com

Free. Offers an easy way to put a one-question survey on your web site and receive results. No sign-up, you can choose colors for the form, and prevent multiple votes from the same person. 

 phpformgen.sourceforge.net

Free survey generator written as open source code. Choose as many questions as you'd like in any format - check, text, drop-downs, etc. You have to create your own stats.

 OneMinutePoll.com

Software - available for a yearly subscription. Teaches you how to write surveys correctly to find out what your customers want. Software automates polls, generates code for your web page, and shows results in real-time. 

 AdvancedSurvey.com

Both free and paid services that offer web page surveys/email surveys. You can ask multiple questions, yes/no questions, open-ended text questions, customizable number scales, and multiple choice. 

 QuestionPro.com

Sophisticated system for surveying customers. 30 day free trial.  Pre-designed templates for common surveys: Customer Satisfaction, New Product/Concept Testing, Product Surveys, Conference Feedback, etc. Surveys can be designed with branching, where the answer to one question is used in a subsequent question

 HotScripts.com

For programmers and webmasters. Lots of scripts in various programming languages constantly updated by programmers around the world. Search surveys for scripts you can use.

 NetReflector.com

Sophisticated self-serve solution for the do-it-yourselfer, and assisted, automated solutions for companies who need to survey customers and/or employees worldwide on a regular basis. 

Set up and monitor your own surveys or pay someone to do it for you, either way you go, it's a great way to figure out what your visitors want to see on your Content Site. The results may surprise you, or send you in a new direction you hadn't thought of.  If you don't ask your visitors, they're not going to tell you.

Hold puzzles, quizzes and games, the more addicting the better.  It will draw people back to your site like flies to honey. And while they are there, they will be looking around, chatting, emailing, buying and checking out your survey.  It just doesn't get any better than that.

Do you provide visitor/customer support on your site?  Is that another option you will add to your Content Site?  Well, consider that personally answering the phone (if you provide and 800 number) and replying to emails, will take valuable time that could be spent in more profitable ways. If you offer an 800 number, every minute spent on the phone decreases the profits you generated per sale, regardless of whether you are talking to those who have made a purchase or not. If you have someone else provide customer support, there's more money spent from your profits. 

How do you utilize the technological advances available on the Internet to decrease your time spent on customer support?  Answer is: by providing customers with solutions to their problems on your website.

You might already have the FAQ section and the instructions and the manuals and just about every known piece of information you could possibly lay your hands on.  What more can you do?

People are lazy when it comes to reading. There's lots of information on the Internet right there for the reading.  However, many take the easy route and call the 800 number, or email for help.  Given a choice of reading instructions on a website versus emailing or calling, many chose to email or phone rather than hunt for them.

Here are two solutions: Audio and Video.  Audio lets the lazy browser listen to what you have to offer rather than read. Many skim read and miss important points - using audio and video will get your point(s) across.  An audio introduction to your Content Site on parrots helps increase interest in your site.  Sure, you might have good headlines, but if people don't take time to read them, they've missed the boat and will go someplace else.

Hearing about your site will definitely snag your listeners attention.  You can even use audio to answer the most common FAQ’s and prompt visitors to use the FAQ section before emailing for support.

Having visual aids on your Content Site will boost its popularity enormously.  Images, power point demos or video – it's an easy choice to make.  Video can be created in a snap. You just need a headset with a microphone and PC video recording program to begin. Small change now, to save large change for later.

With video, you can show your visitors exactly what they're looking for – say for instance, a short video of a talking parrot.

Basically, you’re showing/speaking the same thing you would in an email.  But it's visual and even lazy visitors will stop to look at the magnificent parrot(s).  The bottom line is, it’s easier to listen and watch, than to read and think. 

For just about every topic you could come up with relating to parrots, there will be an expert that can answer your questions.  Many of them are online and would agree to a short interview via email.  Then you post it on your Content Site.  Oh, ask their permission first.  Bravo!  Your Content Site just got even more interesting.  

There is nothing more powerful than to see or hear a well-recognized expert speaking about a topic you are interested in.  With a good variety of interviews and audios, you will be too hot to handle. 

 

On Site Publications For Instant Download

There are many thousands of great e-books online you can use on your website instantly.

Here is a good website to get ebooks you can rebrand with yourself as the author. http://www.NakedPLR.com  

You can even rebrand one of these to sell as your own on Amazon.com

Break Up An Interview Into Articles

Interview people related to your Content Site and the parrot industry and get their legal permission to convert it to an article. Promote your Content Site/web site by submitting it to E-zines. 

You can get some great article and blog content at www.NitroBlogger.com 

These are powerful hints and tips, and if followed faithfully, you will see good things happen on your Content Site.

The next section covers a way to get indexed and noticed by the search engines without pay for pay per click advertising or doing tons of SEO work which we all hate to do.  Just by using this idea you can generate all the visitors that you can handle!

In this chapter you are going to learn all about getting traffic and exposure fro your website at no cost.  This is the Web 2.0 style of getting visitors to your new content site!  You have probably seen tons of people using Web 2.0 to grow their businesses and website traffic.  If that interested you, this is the 2.0 portion of this manual!

You may have thought as you were going through this course “Where’s all the Web 2.0 Stuff?” and that is a great observation.

The most important things in Search Engine Optimization lie within the basics that you learned in the beginning of this course which is why you learned them first.   Once you have these basics down, you can move with the marketplace and take advantage of new trends in getting high search engine rankings much easier.

This section is absolutely packed with all the newest Web 2.0 stuff that you’ve probably been hearing about all over the Internet.  Now that you have a strong foundation, this section is going to multiply the power you have by 1000.  Get ready…

About Yahoo! Answers

After you understand the basics and technicalities of implementing your SEO strategy, you can focus your attention on generating traffic through social networking.  Yahoo! Answers is just one component of effective social networking and marketing as it stands on the web today, and once you understand the basics of how this arrangement works, you’ll see how it plays such an important role in your traffic-building strategy.  

Social networking is basically the process of becoming more visible on the web.  

Whether you are promoting your business, a blog, or even just an article, how you present and market this information is helpful in developing a strong following of readers.  Once the traffic is coming to your site through various initiatives, you have a higher chance of capturing the interest of these visitors through your squeeze page.  Adding as many of them as possible to your opt-in subscriber list will build your e-mail list almost automatically.  You can not only benefit from ongoing contacts, but you’ll be building a lead generation system that you can tap into time and time again.  

Participating in social media can do a variety of things.  

You will be able to:

A. Examine your target market, and learn about their likes, dislikes, tastes, and preferences

B. Focus on how you can capture their attention, and fine-tune your return on the investment

C. Measure statistics efficiently

D. Contribute to an entire network and participate in other subjects of interest

E. Protect your brand image and promote it in careful and targeted ways

F. Building trust through each and every social marketing initiative is a long-term goal.

G. You can start to develop friendships and building trust every time you post relevant content.

H. When people are looking for good product recommendations, for example, you will become a leading expert on how and where to go.  

Simply pointing people in the right direction can be a valuable way to build credibility for your posts, and will only encourage more people to learn more about you through the signature file, your profile page, or other contact information you have provided.

When you are participating in forums besides Yahoo! Answers, it’s important to always include anchor text within your post when possible, along with an effective signature file.  

You can contribute to multiple threads in order to solve a problem, and point your signature to relevant topics and posts as needed; the higher your level of participation, the stronger your chances of creating a long-term relationship with multiple readers and visitors.

Part of branding yourself for high Search rank is to use Social Networking tools and blog postings to your advantage.  Once you have identified your niche, it becomes much easier to conduct promotions that may lead to sales and higher traffic as a result. 

Carving out your niche and finding new networks to explore will help you do this in multiple ways.  Finding more people within your network will become easier as you expand your reach; by participating in forums, discussion groups, and social bookmarking Content Sites, you will be creating brand recognition in many ways.  The Internet has opened up many options for businesses and marketers to take advantage of increased interaction.  Each group member within a niche topic can interact anytime of day, and start to gain trust and increase credibility of their chosen brand as a result.

There are many social networking tactics available for your niche.  Yahoo! Answers offers one very valuable opportunity for direct contact, but your overall marketing strategy can encompass a variety of channels.  After you’ve decided on what you want to accomplish with online networking, it’s time to choose the different social networking websites to participate in.

Website marketing can be effective with the right strategy, and it’s essential that you learn how to communicate with your audience on a long-term basis.  

One of the keys to success with Yahoo! Answers involves credibility.  You will want to include contact information through your signature file in carefully crafted and effective ways.  Making sure that information that you post without sounding like spam is always important.  

You don’t want to take part in using automated software to post generic comments, since people will start to review your profile and see what is happening.  When e-mailing or messaging people, you will want to make sure you provide a clickable website or URL, and provide relevant information at all times.

Finding the right connections is an important part of online marketing.  You are effectively creating a long-term marketing plan, and you want to make sure that you have a variety of channels available to make this possible.  A critical component of successful online social networking and marketing involves finding quality connections. 

 You can review demographics to find your target market, make use of careful search engine strategies, study comments from other visitors of your site, and approach a variety of industries to promote your brand.  

You might start by sending friend requests to people you already know, and making sure you post useful and helpful comments on other people’s pages.  You might provide a set of valuable links to other blogs and websites to use; this can help direct traffic immediately to your site, and can continue to promote you over the long-term.  

Returning comments on commenter’s pages and providing relevant and appropriate feedback will help you develop relationships with ease.

After you have a set of solid online relationships and connections, you can provide valuable information and content to specific groups.  The newsletter lists and e-mail subscribers that you attract will help you during this stage, since you will have established a basic connection and can continue to provide news and updates whenever you wish. 

 

Working your network thus becomes much easier; you are giving people a reason to stay in touch, and each effort you make in marketing to this group will have a higher rate of success than a ‘cold’ set of users.  This is another reason why you will always want to add new content to your pages on a regular basis; it gives people a chance to view your site as a resource, rather than a static web page.  Just as with offline business relationships and networks, every connection needs to be nurtured.  

You will reap the rewards through increased credibility, steady traffic, and ultimately a larger pool of customers to benefit your business in the long-term.

MySpace.com is one of the largest social networking websites available, and it can help to search and refine your target group using the online search engine.  LinkedIn is a strong resource for professionals, and offers career-related online marketing options that let you connect with clients, customers, and even answer business-related questions.  

Gather is a network that incorporates articles into the system.  Users write up specific topic-related articles and post them throughout the site.  The articles can be helpful and insightful, and may even ask and answer a specific question.  Once this has been posted, a point system is developed so that the user can increase their social networking activities on an ongoing basis.

Learning about who you want to interact with is another important step.  Your options include customers and consumers, consultants, media and publishers, event representatives, and other people within your industry.  You can target each of these groups in a different way.  Approaching people in the right way is an important part of your online social networking tactics. 

 You will always want to send a friend request on some of the major Content Sites, and make sure you are leaving thoughtful and relevant comments on their pages.  

You will want to ‘work your network’ as often as possible.  Set aside some time to respond to comments and messages, and keep your profile as up-to-date as possible.  You will need to make sure your own pages are not being filled with irrelevant material, and add new content to your page so that people continue to visit your site regularly.

Engaging your audience as much as possible is an essential element of effective social networking and social marketing.  

Additional tips for your social marketing:

A. Consistently add useful content to your site

B. Join Google, Yahoo!, and Windows Live as soon as possible to branch out…

C. Acquire one-way or reciprocal links

D. Increase your Google Page Rank as often as possible

Social bookmarking is based on the concept of sharing information on the web, and has evolved rapidly with the growth of the internet communities and interactive sites.  As more people turn to websites to learn, research, and even read the latest news, the ability to track and monitor this behavior is becoming even easier.

Collective intelligence is leading the wave of sharing information based on specific keywords and subjects, and can help marketers and business owners in many ways.  Today’s social networking sites are incorporating many social bookmarking elements into the platform.  This allows users to learn even more about each other, and is engaging people online by building communities, opening up new networking channels, and giving marketers and business owners a chance to track behavior.

The Wikipedia definition for social bookmarking states: "an activity performed over a computer network that allows users to save and categorize (see folksonomy) a personal collection of bookmarks and share them with others. Users may also take bookmarks saved by others and add them to their own collection, as well as to subscribe to the lists of others. - a personal knowledge management tool."

Each social bookmarking site is designed differently, but ultimately allows users to create a profile, update their preferences, and share this information with friends and family.  Since they are creating this growing network of information, a pattern of tastes and preferences is established—and made publicly available.

This profile is the key element of interest to marketers; it’s created with basic registration and in most cases, an e-mail address and login name allow complete access to the social bookmaking platform.  The visitor can begin publishing their activity to share with fellow social bookmarkers, and this creates a network of categories. 

Discovering and sharing information with keywords in specific topic is what allows social bookmarking networks to grow; as more information is provided, the categories of interest also develop to provide key information.

Digg.com is a perfect example of social bookmarking that is growing rapidly.  Users can rate and comment on articles, video content, and podcasts on thousands of topics; the more popular items are posted on the Digg.com front page, while others are rated and logged for the community to review.  

While Digg.com is primarily a news site, it is just one example of a valuable social bookmarking network that has developed into a proliferating online community. Any articles or information that is posted on Digg.com has the potential of being viewed by millions of visitors.  Getting to the Digg.com front page ensures thousands of page views, all at a very low initial cost.  

Of course, the information that reaches this level must be valuable to Digg.com readers; since the votes are all user-generated, it allows anyone submitting information to learn about their audience from the ground up.

The fundamental reason why consumers build social bookmarking profiles is to create an identity to share. After doing so, they are able to interact on social networking sites on a regular basis, and marketers can use this behavior to their advantage by:

A. Monitoring their favorite brands

B. Reading about new products

C. Learning about competitor products

D. Identifying with other users

E. Seeing what friends and family find interesting

F. Finding out what the latest trends are

G. Identifying new products to purchase

In order to create a profile on many of today’s leading social bookmarking sites; a user simply creates a screen name, login information, and possibly uploads a picture.  Depending on the theme of the site, the user will then go ahead and ‘upload’ the relevant information such as links or products to their profile pages.  

After that, they can become a part of a community.

Community members and leaders rise to the top ‘ranks’ of the site based on a variety of factors including:

A. Level of activity

B. User feedback

C. Number of products reviewed or discussions created

D. Popularity within the community

E. Number of fans

In many ways, social bookmarking is considered to be a form of collective intelligence.  Collective intelligence based on a few trends in the marketplace, news, or other information can provide very important data to a third party observer.  Filtering data has become even more important today as it provides insights and information on direct experiences with many of the goods and services available in the marketplace.

  

Social media offers the latest roundup of online technologies that is based on the concept of community. Sharing opinions, posting comments, participating in discussion boards, and simply exchanging media files are all facets of social media on the web today, and social bookmarking and networking are just a couple of these online activities.

Knowing how to develop your website so that it is conducive to social media applications can help you interact with your customers in a variety of new ways, and ultimately, lead to the traffic levels you desire.  Increased traffic is a necessary result of innovation, and attractive websites that encourage user interaction are making the business of marketing much easier.

Social media sites encourage users to set up a profile and interact with other community members.  Communities and niche channels develop organically, with limited effort from a company or site owner.  By joining some of these networks as a business entity, you can create a valuable presence with a variety of customers and find out what they are most interested in.  

Submitting valuable articles and content, and then sharing it in a niche community, is an excellent way to create a positive presence in the world of social media, but there are some specific steps involved when publishing on the web.  SEO-friendly content is not the only way to develop a presence, as there is an element of interacting with community members involved as well.

But why is social media so important in your everyday business and marketing efforts?  What role does it play in reaching your target market?

These are both questions that many website owners and businesses ask, and determining the effectiveness of social media will be a part of your internet marketing strategy.

Social media is quickly becoming one of the web’s fastest growing online activities, a place for customers in a variety of markets and niche communities to learn, educate others, and interact with other buyers.  As a result, it is in your best interest to track and gauge different patterns.  Consider social media just one channel to accurately gauge your customer’s interests, tastes, and preferences.  Each contributor is essentially volunteering testimonials on products, likes, dislikes, and other information that was once only available from direct market surveys or interviews.  Social media platforms offer you some insight on what the customer truly wants at any given time. 

Social Media Giants

Developing your website so that it uses at least two to three of today’s leading social media technologies can help boost traffic with less and less direct marketing efforts.  Consider the value for social media activities such as:

 Wikipedia

 Social networking communities

 Video sharing

 Virtual reality and events

 Online audio episodes

 Livecasting

 Media sharing

Podcasting

Developing online audio episodes of content is quickly becoming a popular activity for bloggers and website owners, and including this type of media on your website can help you promote your work in a new way. The immediate attraction of audio on your website can also be submitted to social bookmarking sites and other media channels, and once you have a system in place for publishing these files on your site, you can start sharing the link on a regular basis.  Sites including Digg and Technorati now have a section for podcasts and audio files; more people are becoming interested in simply listening than reading, and you can begin to reach a much wider market by taking advantage of this trend.

Web Casts

If you have a business or website that can create news, tips, or advice, then Livecasting may be another opportunity for you.  These segments of online video are designed to share an idea, showcase an event, or even stage a seminar.  The idea is to generate enough interested users who ‘join’ the session from anywhere; livecasts are online events that can be used to generate buzz.  A press release that highlights the event can easily be submitted to social bookmarking sites and directories for instant exposure.

Sharing Media

Media sharing is one of the precursors to social bookmarking and networking, developing from the concept of photo sharing and music exchanges.  As these sites have grown, more people are learning to share and create profiles so that they can fit into different communities naturally.  Flickr and Zoomr are just a couple of examples of these, and you can create a small profile of your own to join. Always remember to include al ink back to your main website, as this will be the ultimate driver of new traffic.

All of these social media platforms offer you an opportunity to establish a presence within a community, and then start to network with other individuals.  Always keep in mind that any piece of content that is published on the web has potential for sharing; the link is what will be submitted to social bookmarking directories and networks, and you can work on building a profile of your won, or counting on your customers to do this for you.  The goal is to create a valuable and consistent presence in a variety of social media outlets so that the chances of being bookmarked and shared are much higher.

Building a network of like-minded users and visitors is the basis of Web 2.0 applications on the web today, and social bookmarking is just one element of this growth.  Web 2.0 sites are based on a few key principles that encourage interaction and sharing information with ease.  By using tagging and breaking down information into keyword structures, everything is organized in a way that makes it easy to search and find specific information.  From blogs to shopping sites, Web 2.0 has allowed new, media-rich applications to serve as platforms for all users.  Sites such as Digg.com, StumbleUpon, LinkedIN, ThisNext, and dozens of others are building communities and creating networks.  

Web 2.0 applications are essentially doing what market research departments have been working on for decades; filtering information on consumers, and segmenting the market.  Market segmentation is an essential part of consolidating demographic information, and has often been compiled through surveys, focus groups, and other market research initiatives.  Web 2.0 applications allow many marketers to simply skip these steps; if your consumer market is voluntarily sharing information about their tastes, preferences, and other ideas through social bookmarking channels, it becomes much easier to learn and develop new tactics to keep them engaged.  

Many industries can gain significant insights and information from experimenting with social bookmarking and networking tools.  This concept of creating a knowledge economy is growing rapidly in areas such as:

 Retail banking

 Pharmaceuticals

 Education

 Research and Development

 Communications

 Retail and Shopping

With Social Bookmarking You Can…

A. Segment and augment their market

B. Help with branding

C. Develop relevant RSS feeds

D. Open up a platform for visitor comments

E. Monitor and track how specific products perform in the marketplace

F. Increase revenues

G. Reduce expenses

Social bookmarking is influential, and many sites develop a format where similar products, articles, or items are conveniently located next to the current one for easier navigation.  This creates a more enriching experience for the visitor, but also helps track basic preferences for a variety of users.  This recommendation concept has been very successful on shopping sites such as Amazon.com, and is gaining speed in multimedia, articles, blogs, and other information hubs as well.

How You Benefit From Social Bookmarking

In addition to the marketing and branding benefits of participating in a social bookmarking network, there are other benefits involved.  The following metrics can be generated as a result of ongoing participation:

Increase Your Traffic; articles and submissions posted to social bookmarking sites can be tracked easily

Increase Profits:  customers that are continuously participating in a specific genre or community are more likely to simply buy something through this Content Site or channel.  This gives rise to increased revenue 

Increase SE Rankings:  determining how well a specific product is doing becomes much easier as it reaches the high ranks of a specific community

Decrease Expenses:  social bookmarking and marketing on the web offer the added benefit of reduced costs.  Businesses are more likely to reach a wider audience with minimal effort

Social bookmarking offers many benefits to bloggers, consumers, and visitors, but there are additional benefits for marketers and businesses owners.  Both of these groups can take advantage of a plethora of information readily available.  Social bookmarking allows users to share and promote their tastes, preferences, and brand choices.  Not only are they doing this without prompting, but there is an element of creating a network with like-minded users involved. 

The old ways of conducting market research and finding out more about target markets and customers are long gone; with today’s web tools and freely distributed information, tracking down the target market and identifying new trends has become much easier.

It’s interesting to compare and contrast the old and new ways of marketing on the web.  When website and internet marketing first became effective, the most common applications included:

A. Surveys

B. Online newsletters

C. Direct e-mail campaigns

D. Auto responders

E. E-mail collection services

F. Visitor feedback through comments

With the surge in Web 2.0 technologies, blogging, and a higher level of interaction on the web, the focus has shifted to interaction and community building.  As a result, the most common applications for marketers on the web today include:

A. Blogging

B. Social networking

C. Wiki-style site building

D. Online chat 

E. Vlogging

F. Online events

G. Social bookmarking networks

By seeing exactly what consumers are looking for online, a business or marketing team can even increase their own exposure in the right channels. Branding by increasing exposure is an excellent way to cut costs on marketing budgets; social bookmarking is an inexpensive way to simply ‘insert’ and include a brand in a growing consumer activity.

At a very basic level, social bookmarking allows users to create a profile and share information.  When building a profile, users are looking for other people with similar interests.  Any business or brand can create an identity and join various communities.  By doing so, they can reach well beyond their target market and join various networks after a few simple steps.

It’s easy to attract and maintain a steady presence by using the following guidelines when developing a submission:

A. Make the content easy to read and understand

B. Offer useful tools

C. Use keywords

D. Make the best use of tagging so users can find information with ease

What Tagging Is…

A large number of websites are implementing tagging systems in an effort to control and organize the information on their site, and categorize various pieces of data.  A tag is a relevant keyword or term associated with a specific piece of information; it can be used to describe or represent a picture, media file, article, or product and is used by social bookmarking sites to organize and categorize the data.

In most cases, each media file or piece of information will have one or more tags associated with it.  Tags are essentially a way for categorizing data, and are the critical first steps in developing a niche subject.  Even though there may be some contextual issues involved with specific keywords, most tags become a part of a collaborative effort to organize all data available. 

After collecting and organizing this data, the following options exist:

A. Facilitating networking

B. Analyzing source tags and keywords (essential for article marketing)

C. Increasing branding

D. Improving user communications and interaction

E. Developing new products

F. Developing new blogs or online channels