20 Great Ways to Increase Your Directory Traffic

Directory owners know how frequent marketing of their
directories is extremely important for both bringing
targeted traffic and boosting sales. But most directory
owners are not using all the possible resources for
creating more traffic. I have compiled the top 20 tips to
help make your directory better known to your prospective
customers.

1) Accurately produce a detailed description of your
directory, using between 20 to 30 words before submitting
to directory lists.

2) Resist the temptation to exchange links with websites
which have themes very different from yours.

3) Spend serious time brainstorming to find the most
significant keyword phrases for using in your directory
submissions. Then make a list of three to five link titles.

4) Become friends with directory owners so you may request
a link exchange.

5) Write articles on directory promotion and be sure to
submit them to the top 10 article submission sites.

6) If you can, never make it a requirement for prospective
customers to register in order to submit a link.

7) Make it an option to allow deep links in your directory.

8) At major forums where website promotion is discussed,
announce your directory and its web address.

9) Make it a regular daily habit of joining directory lists.

10) Work on your directory to make it more attractive to
website owners.

11) Start a new blog by writing tips that are helpful to
directory owners.

12) Resist the temptation to display ad sense or banners on
your directory.

13) On a regular basis answer questions on Yahoo answers or
forums. Remember to include your directory in answers.

14) Leave genuine comments on blogs that relate to website
promotion; in your comment include your directory url.

15) If possible, offer a one month featured link for free.

16) Provide practical information at your directory that
all website owners would love to read if they stop by.

17) Submit your directory to major directories such as
DMOZ.org and Yahoo.com

18) Promote your directory as a text ad on newsletters that
relate to website promotion.

19) Only submit to high quality directories; do not waste
your time submitting to questionable and poorly designed
directories.

20) In order to increase your link popularity for ranking
higher at the major search engines, get as many one-way
links as possible by submitting to quality directories,
adding the url to your forum signature, etc.

There are other ways to create buzz for your directory. Be
creative and have a lot of fun.

----------------------------------------------------
Author runs http://www.bullseyelistings.com -- an
affordable quality directory with a high approval rate
where you can add your directory.

Strategy for Cable Broadband Data

Strategy Paper for Overcoming DTAG Market and Technology
Advantage

This paper was created for a venture capital company and
subsequently used to target cable accessible markets in
Germany. The paper has been parsed in this forum to
separately cover Digital TV, Broadband Data, Video on
Demand, Telephony, Interactive TV, Gaming and Colocation.

BROADBAND DATA

Broadband Data, otherwise known as ISP, is currently
dominated by DSL offered by DTAG. Substantial penetration
and marketing hurdles are inherent in offering this
service. Another consideration is that this service is
offered "across the board" by DTAG, i.e. to residential and
business consumers.

We suggest pursuing Broadband Data consumers because of the
competitive nature of the enterprise, and the constraints
inherent in DTAG's position. DTAG's upside – Customer
recognition, excellent DSL operations reputation, tie-in
capabilities for telephone, mobile phones, etc. DTAG's
downside – Size i.e. DTAG cannot make quick decisions or
quickly respond to challenges, governmental constraints,
high overhead, slow installation, price. DTAG's downsides
make them a very vulnerable target, while their upsides can
be overcome by establishing a great reputation by
performance, offering Broadband Data as a package within
the group of products the enterprise offers, and partnering
with stellar companies which offer Broadband Data services
as their core competency.

The consumer ISP portion of this enterprise should be
outsourced. Sourcing partners should be done by
establishing x considerations.

1. Market reputation – Rather than taking the time to
establish a reputation for excellence, quality and service,
it would be much more economical to use existing companies
which have already established brand recognition. This
offsets DTAG's advantage in this area.

2. Quality of Service – Working with a company with a
stellar "Quality of Service" lowers the probability of
alienating potential customers, garnering adverse
publicity, lowers the cost of doing business through the
low percentage of rework and high percentage of successful
implementation.

3. Scalability of Infrastructure – The company the
enterprise partners with will need to be able to
transparently (to the consumer and the enterprise) add
millions of customers while offering an excellent
experience. This will take an infrastructure design built
to scale well when additional resources, forecasted and
unforeseen, are needed.

4. Staying power – The companies selected must be
financially sound and able to operate under increased
workloads throughout the period of our contract. Having to
convert customers from one ISP to another is guaranteed to
adversely affect the reputation of the enterprise even
though the enterprise is not operating the ISP. The ISP
and the enterprise are considered one and the same in the
customers eyes. In addition to this, the enterprise would
face a financial hit, in some scenarios quite extreme.
Sourcing financially sound companies has no downside.

5. Competitive bidding - The enterprise has a potential
customer base of millions to offer ISPs. This is an
extremely strong negotiating position for awarding bids.
Competitive bids should be accepted for contracts of fixed
length extendable for fixed lengths indefinitely. Through
bidding the enterprise can realize some of the value of
it's customer base, be "pre-financed" for some upgrades and
help lower uncovered CAPEX expenditures.

6. Amount of control the enterprise will have with this
partner – Control of the quality of customer experience,
and technology interfaces is imperative to make this
strategy succeed. Hence, responsiveness to the concerns
and fiats of the enterprise is imperative. The customers
serviced by the ISPs are owned by the enterprise, as such,
the enterprise must be extremely proactive in projecting
the image it wants the world to see, and extremely
protective of it's reputation.

7. Geographic location – The ISPs selected must be easily
accessible physically and datawise to the enterprise and
it's customers, on a "best in market" level. This means
that latency must be the lowest in market, bandwidth must
not be a contraint, downtime cannot be allowed, the
enterprise must be able to easily connect into the ISP
infrastructure without occurring extraordinary costs.
Performance provided must be better than anyone else in the
applicable geographic area for the customer.

8. Amount of funds the partners are willing to invest in
ISP infrastructure within the enterprise – As this is a
partnership, the ISPs will be expected to assume some, if
not all, of the cost of "plugging into" the enterprise.
Also part of the costs entailed in making (upgrading) the
enterprise infrastructure to carry data should be amotized
and charged to the ISP partners.

9. SLA's and guarantees – This should be outlined in the
RFP or RFB (Request for Proposal or Request for Bid). The
ISPs must go into bidding knowing that the enterprise will
allow 0 maintenance downtime, expects 99.999% uptime,
latency from consumer computer to ISP external router of no
more than 15 ms, will be mandated to work with gaming
networks using common ldap, certain protocols (e.g. tcp/ip,
mpls, QOS, etc.) are a necessity. Quarantees entail strong
penalties for not meeting standards. Penalties run the
gamut from financial up to and through summary termination
of contract.

10. Technology (ability to interface with enterprise) –
Technologies used by the ISPs must "play nice" with the
systems deployed in the enterprise. Interfaces should be
common and non-proprietary. In short, the ISP needs to be
able to "plug-in" to the enterprise, and in the unfortunate
event of ISP insolvency, contract breach, etc, must be able
to "unplug" from the enterprise. This should be
transparent if possible.

With the proliferation of ISPs, the enterprise has no need
to invest in systems, manpower, training, skills,
infrastructure, marketing, installation, etc. to offer
Broadband Data services. Email addresses must be of the
enterprise domain, as opposed to the domain of the ISP.
The ISPs would individually market this service.

----------------------------------------------------
Sean DAniell is a internationally seasoned I.T. executive
with highly effective technology and organizational
management experience that increases profitability. Mr.
DAniell has extensive experience in creating, managing and
guiding thriving, successful startup and Fortune 500
technology departments.

http://www.abilenegroup.com

Stop Making Excuses. Your Website Must Match Your Other Marketing Materials

At first glance the title of this article sounds obvious -
that your website would look like all your other marketing
materials. Of course that's just something that would have
to happen, right? But I run into more and more
entrepreneurs who want to break this rule. Creating a
website that looks significantly different from all of your
other marketing materials just tends to be a bad idea. I'm
going to review the most common reasons I hear for breaking
this cardinal rule. Then I'll tell you exactly why doing so
would hurt your brand rather than help it.

The 4 reasons that I hear most often from entrepreneurs are:

- The web allows you to use as many colors as you want,
without paying extra. Many forms of printing still charge
per color of ink used and using more than 2 or 3 colors can
get very expensive for small businesses. However the web
allows you to use all the colors that you want, for free!
Many entrepreneurs get very excited about this. They use
every color they can think of throughout the site. And
sometimes, they choose not to use the 2 or 3 colors that
they've used in their print materials because they're sick
of them. This results in a website that doesn't look
anything like their other designed materials. This creates
a "disconnect" for clients who come to your site from a
reference of another piece. For example imagine someone's
looking at your business card designed in black and red.
Then they go to your website where there's some black and
red, but also bright blue, gold, green and a touch of
purple. They may think that the website belongs to a
different company! It makes your visitor wonder if they're
in the right place. And that can make you lose their trust.

A better way to use color online is to use the wider
palette of colors available as secondary colors. If your
printed materials are mostly blue and gold, that doesn't
mean that you have to use only blue and gold in your
website - but they should be the main colors used. Adding
in highlights of khaki or green can look very nice and add
more visual interest to your website. But if you choose
green to be your main color for your website, it will be
confusing.

Also, make sure that the extra colors you choose fit in
with your brand. Make sure they communicate the messages
you want to send out about your business. In other words,
don't choose more colors just because you can. Make sure
that there's a solid design reason and the psychology
behind the colors you're adding to your palette makes sense.

Another way to add more color online is full-color
photography. Stock photography is quite cheap and
accessible to even the smallest businesses and can add a
lot of pep and pizzazz to your tired color palette.

- Many entrepreneurs get bored with their designs, and use
the web as an excuse to "mix it up". If you've had your
materials designed for a while, it's not uncommon for you
to be bored with them. No matter how innovative the design
or how excited you were about it when it was created, this
can happen. This boredom comes because you see your own
marketing materials almost every day. Whether it comes from
printing letters on your letterhead, handing out your cards
at a networking event, looking at proposals with your brand
on them, walking into your office and seeing your logo on
the same old sign every day, or giving presentations off of
your PowerPoint template - you see the same thing over and
over. And it's natural. But I can almost guarantee you that
unless you've been in business a very long time or you've
been harassing your clients with constant marketing
mailings, you're the only one who's bored of it.

Deciding to take a different design direction on your
website is bad for your brand. It is bad because you need
your site to be instantly recognizable as yours. Web
surfers have notoriously short attention spans - if they
click to your site, and it doesn't look right, they'll be
off and away to another site in the blink of an eye. They
won't stick around to read your copy, look at your logo, or
to spend the time to figure out whether they are, in fact,
in the right place.

- Some entrepreneurs don't have files of their logo! If you
designed your materials a long time ago, and only got
printed materials as a deliverable, this is certainly a
valid problem. Your designer may also have gone out of
business or changed their contact information. Or maybe you
can't remember their name or number because it was so long
ago! I've seen many entrepreneurs to create a different
logo or masthead for their websites because they don't have
the file for their logo close at hand.

If you still know who your designer is, I recommend
contacting them and asking for a complete set of digital
files of your logo.

It's a better solution and better for your brand, to look
up your designer (even if it takes a bit of searching), or
to have another designer re-create your logo as a digital
vector artwork file, and to use that on your website.

- Some entrepreneurs think that websites must have a
certain type of design element to look up-to-date and
modern. It's true that your site does have to look clean,
professional and well-designed. But it's not true that your
website has to have one particular type of design to look
current. Your site doesn't have to have textures, rounded
corners, drop shadows, 3-dimensional styling or animated
motion effects. Only use those effects if they reinforce
and communicate your Brand Definition to your audience and
are a part of your Visual Vocabulary.

Just using these elements because it's cool and
"of-the-moment" isn't something that I recommend. It will
dilute your brand and move your website away from the rest
of your Visual Vocabulary.

If you're thinking of creating a website that looks
drastically different from your other designed materials
for any of these reasons, consider the consequences before
moving ahead with a different design. It's often more
valuable to have a matching website that extends and
reinforces your brand than to create a design that looks
too different.

----------------------------------------------------
Erin Ferree is a brand identity designer who creates big
visibility for small businesses. Her workbook, "Design a
Website That Works", will walk you through all of the
questions that you need to answer in order to create the
best possible website.
http://www.elf-design.com/http://www.elf-design.com/products
-webWorkbook.html

Discover the Secrets to Dominating Any Niche Market

If you have already discovered the potential for making
money online then you are about to uncover the fact that
there is even more power and money to be had in smaller,
niche markets.

Competition is everywhere and trying to compete in the
largest markets online - including the 'internet marketing'
niche - is not always the smartest way to go.

The smartest internet marketers are finding tight, niche
markets and earning the respect and loyalty of the
prospects and buyers in this niche. This is not only a
great idea but is a practical strategy for a stable and
long-term business.

Dominating a niche market can bring all year round income
even in seasonal markets like 'holidaying'. Earn the kudos
of your customers and they will be willing to buy from you
no matter what time of the year - as long as they have a
genuine interest in your chosen market. A keen traveller
will always be interested in information regarding this
topic. It's your job to earn their loyalty.

If you can build an email list, or better still a community
made up of those interested in your niche then you have
come into possession of an absolute goldmine. Again, this
will be so once you have built a little trust within this
market. These will become customers that you can sell to
time and time again, once you become a familiar part of
your customers lives. Adding a little personality to your
contact with them will pay off no end.

People with particular interests are renowned for buying
everything on the market related to their topic of
interest. Try to find a unique way to sell to your
prospective buyers and current customers.

Find out all you can about the people in your niche and
particularly those on your customer list. Everyone loves a
good listener and if you can listen to their needs and
provide for them then you have a customer for life. It's
common sense really!

Another powerful aspect of dominating a niche - along with
customer loyalty - is that your loyal followers will spread
the word about your service to their friends and online
acquaintances. This will bring more profit to your
business, without any further effort on your part.

You will quickly leave your competition behind unless they
too realize that earning the love and respect of your niche
community is a sure way to increased profits and an
unstoppable internet business.

----------------------------------------------------
For More Great Tips On Dominating Your Niche Checkout Mal
Keenans' Affiliate Marketing Secrets Site:
http://www.malkeenan.com/category/internet-marketing/niche-m
arketing/
Baffled as to How to Make Money Online? Setup Your
Automated Affiliate Business - Starting Today. Download
Your Free Course At: http://www.freeadvertz.com/blog

Legitimate Companies To Get Paid For Answering Online Short Surveys

Answering online short surveys is a great way to make some
extra money. You may have heard that there is a problem
with doing this and that all of the companies that pay you
for answering online short surveys are scams. It's not
true, there are legitimate sites out there that will pay
you for answering short online surveys, in fact there are
many. So, how do you tell the difference between a
legitimate site and one that is a scam? There are several
guaranteed ways to tell the two apart.

The first thing to consider is if the site requires you to
pay money for answering online short surveys. You should
never have to pay money to join any paid survey site. The
legitimate sites frown upon this type of behavior because
it causes a bias in those who are answering the online
short surveys. This bias makes their results unreliable
and useless. If a site is asking you to pay for a list of
companies paying for surveys then it is a scam.
Another type of scam website is one that asks for your
email address to get access to it's list of paying survey
companies. Once you register they have your email address
and can sell it to anyone they like. You'll find that
these sites often have very short lists as well. It is
difficult to make much money for answering online short
surveys if you don't have a large and comprehensive list of
paying survey sites.

So then, one of the keys to a legitimate paid survey site
is that it is free from fees. If it is the type of site
that is providing a list of companies that will pay you for
answering online short surveys then you shouldn't have to
register. There are plenty of personal websites and blogs
that offer this information free of any costs or
registration.

When going to the actual sites that pay for surveys you
will have to register. They need some personal information
to match you up with surveys. These sites should be from
established market research companies that have a history
of paying people for answering online short surveys. There
are many reputable companies out there that do this.

Look for a privacy page and terms of service. The site
should not share your personal information and there should
be real contact information there, a mailing address and
phone number as well as an email address that you can
contact the company at. Sites that have nothing but a
contact form on their website are often scams just looking
to collect email addresses.

One other type of site to watch out for when looking for
legitimate companies that pay you for answering online
short surveys are those that are primarily interested in
getting you to sign up for other offers. You'll recognize
these sites easily enough once you register. Instead of
taking you to the surveys or your profile they will take
you through several pages of offers that you can opt into
or need to click a radio button to opt out of. These
companies are just trying to register you for other
programs and rarely have any surveys of their own to offer.
They may not be a scam, but they are probably not what you
want if you're trying to make money getting paid for
answering online short surveys.

The very best paid survey sites will have other
opportunities to get paid besides just answering online
short surveys. They may pay you to read emails, to look at
advertisements or to sign up for other offers. Note that
this is different from the previously mentioned companies
in that these companies actually pay you to sign up for
offers rather than making you opt-in or opt-out with no
compensation at all. You can make a good bit of money very
quickly through this type of program.

These are some of the top things to look for when starting
to get paid for answering online short surveys. Take your
time and look around. Do your research and avoid those
companies that want you to pay for their information. It's
easy to make money answering online short surveys if you
are able to avoid the scams.

Answering online short surveys is a great way to make some
money in your free time. Don't waste your hard earned
money paying for paid survey information. Come to Paid
Survey Success where you can get all the information you
need for free and start to get paid for surveys.

----------------------------------------------------
Answering online short surveys is a great way to make some
money in your free time. Don't waste your hard earned
money paying for paid survey information. Come to Paid
Survey Success where you can get all the information you
need for free and start to get paid for surveys.
http://www.paid-survey-success.com

How to Make Money with ClickBank Affiliate Programs

Have you been looking for extra income that you can earn
from the comfort of your own home? ClickBank's Affiliate
Program may be just what you are looking for.

Visit ClickBank.com to see just how easy it is. You can
sign up as an affiliate in just a few minutes.
Registration is free. Simply fill out the registration
form. You don't have to worry about giving out any
sensitive information. The only information you will need
to give is the name you want your checks made payable to
and the address to where they will be sent. Normal contact
information; name, phone, email address and web site
address (optional). You will then choose a nickname which
will appear on all orders that you generate. Once you
have finished and submitted the signup form you will
receive an email with a registration code which you will
need to complete the registration.

Now it is time to find the products you would like to
promote. You can choose products from a vendor's website
or you can go to the ClickBank Marketplace. Once you
click on the ClickBank Marketplace you can search several
main categories (and their subcategories) such as Business
to Business (Education, New Products, Web Design), Money
and Employment (Self Employment, Investments, Home
Businesses), Fun and Entertainment (Psychics, Magic,
Screensavers) and Health and Fitness (Addiction, Fitness,
Nutrition) to name a few.

The listing that appears will automatically sort by
popularity showing the most purchased products first.
When you see one you think you may be interested in click
on View Pitch Page and check out their sales pitch to see
if you think it is something you would feel good promoting.
If you are satisfied with the product or service and the
site click on Create a Hoplink enter your ClickBank name
and your Hoplink code will be generated for you. You now
have your link to their product and can begin promoting and
collecting commissions.

Each listing will show you how much commission you would be
paid for that product. The listings come up in order of
popularity and you have several choices. You may choose to
go with one of the more popular products (which are being
promoted by a lot of people) or you may find a product that
you believe will be a good seller that isn't already being
promoted by a large group. You also have the option of
promoting ClickBank's entire marketplace as opposed to a
single product. Then if the person you refer purchases
anything from any of the published sites on the Marketplace
you will receive a commission on that purchase.

Your commission is calculated based on 92.5% of the
purchase price minus one dollar. So if you sell a product
with a 65% commission and a purchase price of $70.00 you
would receive commission on $41.44. That is the $70
purchase price minus 7.5% ($5.25) minus $1.00 x 65%
commission.

The more products and services you promote the more
commissions you will receive.

----------------------------------------------------
Do you really want to make a lot of money with Clickbank?
You need to check this brand new smoking hot affiliate
program at: http://www.easycashfunnels.com Also you should
read my free clickbank guide at:
http://www.affhelper.com/clickbank-mini-guide.html

Wealthy Marketer - Scam or Not Review

As you probably know already, there are countless numbers
of individuals who are marketing wealthy marketer and
inferring that you will become a top internet marketing
success overnight with little work involved.

So, here's a review on wealthy marketer and whether or not
it is a scam.

First off, the products that are marketed in the wealthy
marketer course are e-books and software products that come
with resale rights. Some of the products include a very
well put together 77 page handbook put together by
millionaire and wealthy marketer CEO, Alex Hunter himself
as well as software that enables you to put audio and video
on your website in a quick fashion and all cost free. So in
looking at the products provided, I would definitely have
to say there is some real value in the products.

Next, lets take a look at how much one can earn with the
compensation plan. It pays an affiliate $900 immediately
for selling the wealthy marketer handbook and e-book
course. This is just the beginning, as it pays another
$200 per sale that anyone you bring in makes and another
$100 per sale for anyone they bring in who made a sale. In
conclusion of the review of the compensation plan, the
payout passes the test of giving the representative
immediate income with $900 earned per sale and the long
term residuals through the $200 and $100 overrides from
their 2nd and 3rd level affiliate sales.

When you look at wealthy marketer, I think you will see
that there are some tremendous value to the products as
well as the opportunity to succeed in marketing online with
the system.

The reason people call many online businesses a scam is
because they don't know how to market and since we're here
talking about this, why don't I give you some good
suggestions that I have used with success and that can be
utilized in marketing online with success.

Recommendation: Read about an e-book or two on one specific
marketing strategy and watch a video or too on this as well.

You should fill your brain with marketing techniques that
you are interested in. You will also want to make sure that
these fit with your budget or time constraints because you
certainly don't want to get too overwhelmed or burned out.

The next process is putting the techniques you've just
learned into action.

A top internet marketer made this funny but true statement,
"even if it's crap, just get it out there." The point, is
that you only have so much time and so even if you don't
understand it exactly, you should put it into action. You
can always test it and tweak things later... take one step
at a time.

The next thing you will want to do is fine tune your
marketing techniques.

It's a great start to be generating clicks or visits to
your website. The final step is targeting the right people
which will not only increase the amount of visits to your
site, but also you will see a drastic increase in your
sales conversion. You will always want to track visitors.

Again, in review, most people call a business like wealthy
marketer a scam simply because they don't know how to
market and give up to easily. The internet is a great
place to create a 6-figure income, but you must be willing
to work as money doesn't grow on trees.

----------------------------------------------------
About the Author:
Brian McCoy is a top internet marketer and 6-figure earner
in the home business industry. To find out how Brian can
help you work from home, you can visit his website at
http://www.Wealthy-Marketer.org .

Benefits Of Helping An Online Business Newbie

Do your remember when you first ventured out in the online
business world? You probably had questions and problems
along the way. Wouldn't it have been easier if you had
help? When a newbie asks for your advice, educate them;
answer their questions and help them solve their online
business problems. If you do not have the knowledge to help
them out, point them in the right direction. There's a lot
to learn and thank goodness I had a mentor that helped me
when I needed it. Everyone wins plus you can get your own
network going.

You'll get many benefits from helping online business
newbies. Below are eight possible benefits you could
receive:

1. You will feel good knowing that you had a part in
helping them build their business. You can sit back and say
"I had a part in their success."

2. They may become one of your best friends. Most people
can use new friends, even business owners. You may even
become business partners and create a totally new business
together.

3. You could end up being strategic business allies in the
future. You could regularly do joint venture and cross
promotion deals with each other.

4. They may help you out with your business. Maybe they
will give you some testimonials or endorsements for your
products or services.

5. You might gain some valuable referrals from them. They
may also join your affiliate program and make sales for
your business.

6. They might offer you some free advertising space on
their web site or in their e-zine for your help. You could
also exchange advertising with them.

7. You both could end up developing a new product or
service together. The product or service could be a
combination of your current ones.

8. They might purchase the products you sell and become
one of your best customers. You could sell them many back
end products or services in the future.

There are probably many other benefits you could get from
helping a new online business owner. Always remember to
help them out because it's the nice thing to do and not
just to benefit your own business. Keep them informed of
new information you hear of so they stay current with
program updates and/or new opportunities or technologies
being introduced.

For more information and marketing support please contact
me and I will be glad to assist you with any questions.

Teresa Bell

----------------------------------------------------
Helping out a new online marketer.
http://wealthymarketerteam.info
http://www.friendswin.com/?sponsor=505
Wealthy Marketer Team Member
Friends Win Social Network
Online Marketing