How to Create Internet Marketing Success

Submitted By: Max Shana

When people decide they want to make money online they generally dive in head first and aren't really prepared for what is involved in setting up an income stream from the internet. We have all heard the saying that to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher or even a brick layer that there are certain things you simply must learn before you can ever begin to be successful - you don't just dive in unprepared.

This same strategy also applies to the internet marketing industry - even though there are unreputable people out there that would have you believe that you can do the job in your pajamas and with little or no effort at all. While it may be seen as a relatively easy concept internet marketing still requires you to follow rules and to be able to avoid certain pitfalls in order to become a successful internet marketer.

Although passion isn't the only necessary thing for you to make money online with internet marketing - without it your chance of success instantly reduces. If you don't have passion for the company or its products and services then you will not be motivated to do the work that is required to make an income online via internet marketing.

Many people who decide to attempt an online career with internet marketing will never make more that a few dollars, while there are a select few who will make a years salary in one month. Why do you think this is so?

The answer is quite simple: Passion. People who have passion for the company or the product they're marketing. Passion derives from the research you do about the company and it's services and products. The more research you do, the more interested you are in the product - the more your passion for it will develop.

Internet Marketing is not an overly hard task nor does it take up a lot of time. But it does take a lot of motivation purely due to your passion to get you started. There a several resources available to you to start your internet marketing career - the biggest one being the Internet search engines. You should first start off by researching the company whose services or products you wish to market. It should be a good solid company with excellent principles with top products that are sellable with your passion for them.

Having said that - if you cannot find a company with these attributes - simply move onto the next one, don't waste time. Once you have found the company that you feel passion about it is time to put in place all the other steps you must make in order to become a successful internet marketer - but remember if you don't find the right company to be passionate about then all the other steps you have to follow in internet marketing will bring you a lot of frustration and misery instead of creating success. This is a pitfall any internet marketer simply must avoid.

How to Manage Your Reputation Online

If you've ever Googled your name, you know how important managing your reputation online can be. Each day, thousands of individuals are searching online for information about others simply by searching on Google or other leading search engines. With information being so readily available, managing your reputation is more important than ever.

How to Manage Your Reputation Online

Fortunately, managing your reputation online isn't all that difficult, but it does take work. Here are 7 basic steps you can take to ensure that your reputation doesn't become negatively impacted by what's being said about you online.

1. See where you stand. Start your reputation management initiative by Googling your name. Try it with quotes and with out (first and last name together). Look through each of your results on page one and page two of Google. Are there any there are are negative or you wish to remove?

2. Set up a Google alert. Visit Google and set up an alert for your name. After setting up the alert Google will send you and email to confirm that you wish to receive the updates. Accept the alert and each time your name is published to the Web, you'll know about it.

3. Contact website owners for name removal. If there are sites that include your name and commentary that is less than desirable, contact the appropriate websites requesting that the information be removed. More often than not, website owners will agree to remove your name and/or inappropriate information.

4. Purchase a domain with your name. Add sites and webpages associated with your name and watch negative search results get pushed lower on Google rankings. Visit GoDaddy or another provider of website URLs and hosting, and purchase a domain that contains your name. Even if your name is rather common, experiment with variations until your name can be established in the form of a dot com. Once you own a domain, publish a webpage with your personal profile.

5. Start a blog under your name. Blogger is a great tool for setting up your own blog which can be used to publish information about yourself. Popular blog sites are often picked up by Google and you can control the content. Be sure to sign up for Technorati after your blog has been published. Submit your blog for review and its popularity will increase, improving search rankings and continuing to push down negative search results.

6. Free press release. Use free-press-release.com or a similar free press release site to publish favorable information about your and your reputation. This form of reputation management is easy and costs nothing. Be sure to use your name throughout the release and in the release title.

7. Author articles in your field. Publish article relative to a particular topic or area in which you've done some work or have experience. Use article distribution serivces to build online references to your content. Make sure your articles contain an about the author section that links back to your main website.

There are a variety of strategies you can use to manage online references about you, your family, or others that need to manage their reputation online. Other online sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, and Squidoo, offer ample opportunity to deliver favorable search results that can push unfavorable results down in search engine rankings. The key is to start today - proactively manage your reputation and put yourself in a favorable light.

About the Author

Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert and founder of MarketingScoop.com. He has more than 13 years of marketing experience and has appeared on the TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. Michael is also the author of SEO Made Simple: Strategies for Dominating the World's Largest Search Engine and The Webmasters Book of Secrets: Improve Search Engine Rankings.

Thinking About SEO For A New Website

Are you launching a new website? There's no better time to think about search engine optimization than prior to launching a new site. By giving consideration to your on-page optimization factors, you can increase your chances of achieving top organic search results.

To prepare your site for easy indexing, be sure to follow these basis guidelines:

1. Design your site in html or similar format that minimizes the use of java script and flash. The more complex you make your code, the more difficult it becomes for the search engine spiders to read your content and prescribe the appropriate Google PR to your web page.

2. Make sure that your meta tags are coded properly and include the Robots.txt tag. Many individuals downplay the importance of meta tags. Although meta tags themselves won't drastically change the organic ranking of your site, they do create the display text users will see when your site appears in search results. If your meta tags are search engine optimized and compelling, you increase the changes of improving click-throughs.

3. Apply the proper tags to your page. H1, H2, and H3 tags are a great wall to call attention to your content and promote your keywords and keyword phrases. Try to use each tag at least once, but don't force the issues. You want your text to flow and appear normal.

In addition to ensuring that you've made your page easy to access and presented text that is optimized, you also want to consider other factors that can help long-term with your SEO efforts. So often, web designers get caught up with on page factors, that they overlook the requirements for establishing a foundation that supports long-term initiatives.

In particular, consider adding pages that you can add to over time that support link building and accessibility for search engine spiders. Be sure to include:

1. An html sitemap and an xml sitemap. Including a sitemap on you site makes it easy for search engines to access all of your website pages and index your site accordingly. Your sitemap should be in both html as well as xml. Although users would not access the xml sitemap, search engine spiders use this version to crawl websites. Additionally, key search engine submission resources like Google's Webmasters Tools require xml site map versions.

2. Include a partners page. Previously referred to as a links page, the partners page is essential for reciprocal linking. This strategy isn't as powerful as developing one-way links, but until your site has been assigned a Google PR, one-way links can be difficult to acquire. So begin your link exchange program with a partners page that allows you add or remove link quickly and easily.

3. Submission pages that encourage new content. One of the most powerful seo techniques is the addition of new content. Make it easy for your users to add or submit content to your website. When search engines see new content, they rejoice. Don't underestimate how important it is to make it simple for your browsers to add or submit content.

When focusing on search engine optimization, especially with a new website, follow the basic ideas outlined above. There are a number of other factors to consider as well. However, you should always start with a strong foundation - a site design that meets basic SEO standards but one that also supports your long range search engine optimization goals.