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Most webmasters are familiar with the concept of reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the exchange of links between webmasters with the hope of improving their site ranking with the search engine. However, as more and more webmasters use reciprocal links to increase their site ranking, the search engines are also getting smarter and more demanding.

Search engines are increasingly becoming more selective with the in-bound links to your website. They are looking not just for the number of in-bound links your site may have, but also for the quality and relevance of those links to your site. In other words, webmasters can no longer arbitrarily exchange links with others if they wish to improve their site ranking with the search engines.

Thus was born the concept of value exchange.

I first heard this concept from Ken Evoy, the author of “Make Your Site Sell” and the creator of the amazing All-in-1 “SiteBuildIt!” webhosting. Ken has always been in favor of building websites that are search-engine friendly. This means your website should aim for the same kind of criteria search engines look for in ranking sites. Instead of wasting time figuring shortcut ways to beat the search engines, design your website with quality content in mind. That, according to Ken, is the only consistent way to rank high with the search engines.

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MSN finally unleashed its new search technology to the world on Monday. The official announcement coming from Bill Gates introduced the New MSN Search engine, ending with a personal invitation to visit www.msn.com and â??type in your question.â??

Here at WebAdvantage.net, we consider ourselves to be veteran internet searchers, often able to easily find the information we’re after. Considering we spend all day every day online, we should be. Even so, we rarely venture to type search queries in the form of questions on search engines, except for the handful of times we visit AskJeeves.

The thought of being invited to type in a question at MSN’s new search engine intrigued us. We decided to follow the trail of links to learn more about what they were offering. We were, at first, impressed with the pages singing the praises of the new “more precise, more powerful” MSN Search service. We were impressed, that is, until around page five of the “learn more” series of MSN’s site pages. That’s when we started to get tired of clicking “next.”

Turns out there were ten pages devoted to learning more about what MSN Search offers (which perhaps could have been explained less painfully). But at WebAdvantage.net, we’re dedicated online marketing professionals, so we hung in there.

Would you like to accelerate profits at your website?

Here are the website marketing tactics to do so:

1. Make copies of your web site in many different languages. This’ll allow foreign speaking people to read your web site and advertisements.

2. Give your customers a surprise bonus for buying. When you give customers more than they expect, there is a good chance they will buy from you again.

3. Send greeting cards offline or online to customers on holidays. You’ll get the chance to increase your orders by including your ad inside the card.

4. Market your products or services to your target audience. For example, don’t try to sell a football in a cooking magazine.

5. Give people the option of buying other products or add on products when they decide to buy your main product or service at the point of sale.

6. Think of new ways to attract people to buy your products or services. You could add on extra free bonuses, delivery options, payments options, etc.

7. Give other businesses the option of selling your product. It could be a simple joint venture deal or an affiliate/associate program.

Here are 5 questions to flex your mental muscle to. The answers and explanations are at the end - no cheating now!

RULES:

There are no trick questions. You cannot ask the audience but I welcome you to ‘Phone a Friend’ (and forward this article onto them!).

*Question 1:

“What happens if you submit your website to Google more than once?”

A. Nothing.

B. You are at risk of being penalised for multiple submissions

C. Your submission is bumped to the back of the queue

*Question 2:

“According to a survey conducted by AC Nielsen in December 2004 what did people state as their primary reason for doing their Christmas shopping online?”

A. Saves time

B. Better prices

C. Ability to find a more personalized gift

*Question 3:

“In Internet terms, what is a ’spider’?”

A. It’s a virus that spreads using loopholes in certain web technologies

B. It’s a software tool that search engines use to retrieve information from websites

C. It’s another word for a person that browses websites

*Question 4:

Every webmaster who has personally tried promoting his or her site understands in some sense the value of reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking refers to the agreement between website owners to mutually link to each others’ sites in order to increase both exposure to each others’ visitors as well as link popularity to search engines. Traditionally, this process has been very labor-intensive involving a number of steps to initiate contact, establish acceptable link parameters, and verify and police the reciprocal linking arrangement. Now, a controversial new linking tactic has emerged called "the cooperative reciprocal linking network."

The purpose of these reciprocal linking networks is ostensibly to utilize “unused advertising space available on the web.” Here’s how it works: the site owner puts a bit of code on each page of his or her site and it serves up hyper-linked text or graphic ads promoting the sites of other cooperative members. Each time a coded page is loaded, the ads change. This is much like how Google Adsense ads work except there is no correlation between the pages’ topics and what ads are served–in other words, the ads are not contextual.

If you are fairly new to the Internet, you have probably heard the word "Blog" flying around. But what is a blog? How does it work? And how can I use it on my website? These are all good questions, which I hope to answer for you.

What is a Blog?

A blog, in simplest terms, is a daily journal of your thoughts that is maintained by a blogger (which would be you) on the web. When posting to a blog you will notice that it is arranged in chronological order ? with the most recent additions on top.

You can choose to allow your readers to add their own comments/feedback to any issues you may have addressed on your blog. Or, you can add audio to your blog. Pretty neat, isn’t it. What a great way to have contact with your customers.

Can it be used on my website?

Can it be used on my website? Definitely. It can be a great tool for you and your contacts. However, I personally feel that it would be a greater benefit to the established website that has a following. In other words, start with a newsletter first, to build your mailing list, than go for the blog.

Definition: A doorway page is content created specifically for the purpose of garnering high placements in the search engines.

Issue: Google makes the following specific recommendation: Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content (http://www.google.com/intl/az/webmasters/guidelines.html).

This article addresses the issue of doorway pages, proposes an acceptable alternative and offers some insights into the basic principles of search engine optimization.

To frame the issue of doorway pages it is important to understand why content is so critical to search engine optimization. In order to do this we need to step back and take a look at the search engines themselves:

? Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all other search engines want to provide the same thing: A prioritized list of links that point to most relevant web sites satisfying the users search criteria.

? Relevance is defined as the "best content" with the "best fit" to the user’s search. That’s a search engine’s value ? providing efficient access to the information a user wants when they want it.

? The search engine that does the best job of delivering the largest quantity of the most relevant results attracts the most users.

If your website sales are down and you desire to spark it up, here the secrets to do so:

1. Spend money on targeted advertising instead of mass media advertising. You don’t want to waste your ad dollars on people who aren’t interested.

2. Increase your profits by concentrating on small details. Improving small things like text size, color, or graphics can really make a positive difference.

3. Keep your offers flexible. If you offer a set price for your product, you could offer the people that can’t afford it an optional payment plan.

4. Offer your knowledge or consulting as a bonus product. You could offer a free 15 or 30 minute consultation. This will add value to your product.

5. Personalize all your e-mail messages so they get read. Include the recipient’s name in the subject line. This will grab peoples attention quickly.

6. Keep your web site consistent. You don’t want to keep things on your web site that are unrelated to the theme of your web site.

7. Attract more subscribers to your free e-zine by giving them free bonuses like e-books, software, online services and other incentives.

Once you have built and uploaded your home business website the next step is to start promoting it both offline and online. Offline methods include putting your web address on your business cards, stationary, brochures, flyers, pamplets, home sign, automobile or whatever literature you can. Online methods generally start with submitting your home business website to search engines and directories.

For those of you who either have a website now or are planning to have one in the future, you will obviously want your website to be found in these search engines and directories.

You will therefore have to at some point decide whether you want to submit your site to each individual engine and directory manually, pay a submission service to do it for you, buy site submission software, or use one of the free submission services on the internet.

In an article based on research done by emaillabs, MarketingSherpa reports that on average, readers spend between 15-20 seconds reading email they chose to open.

The article also reports, readers span about 50 words, fewer if there are graphics to view.

It appears to me, the online consumer is becoming more sophisticated in their online behavior. This information indicates to me that online consumers are no longer tolerant of long-winded, fluffy email sales letters or sales letters disguised as newsletters.

I believe the online consumer is becoming much more discriminating concerning what they open and read in their email boxes. Remember, online consumers, on average are seeking information when they are online and they don’t like blatant selling.

One can assume, with some safety that when a consumer opens email they are doing so with some level of expectation; they have a goal and a motive for going online. Everything that is incongruent with the consumer’s goal and motive is probably going to get filtered and deleted.

Email is used by consumers primarily to communicate. Its secondary purpose is to receive news, product information, ezine information, etc. Many people like the convenience of ordering competing product information and reviewing it via email delivery.