Blackle.com is a search engine that is just as powerful as Google, but the entire background is black. The only color on the site is the letters. When the search results are displayed, they are listed just as Google, but without the color.

Listed on the front page of Blackle.com is a running total of Watt hours they’ve saved, or you’ve helped them save, by using Blackle.com.In addition to all the savings, there is also a page you can go onto that will give you a list of things we all can do to same more energy. Not only is Blackle energy conscious, it adds a novelyty to the searching process.

Anyone who wants to add another way to “Go green” and save the enviroment, will appreciate the using such a novelty item beuilt by one of the largest search engine. If your customers are big in the Green revolution, having a link to Blackle. com is a great way to show that you share their beliefs and it just might keep them coming back to you.

Everybody in the search marketing industry knows the value of quality links to your website. Links to your site from other sites boosts traffic (direct and immediate traffic), brand awareness and rankings in search engines.

But do you find it hard to get other bloggers to link to a new weblog? For sure, it is not easy sometimes. Even an established blog needs to expand its traffic and influence on a regular basis; linkbating is one way to do it.

So What is LinkBaiting?

Linkbaiting is the term used to describe interesting content written for the purpose of attracting audience. It is the art of creating content on your site that other sites will link to - naturally.

What are LinkBaiting Techniques I could Use?

Most linkbaiting techniques are particularly good for SEO because the links are non reciprocal and they are generally incoming links with good anchor text. 

Ø            News – Write a genuine Scoop or make a compilation of news, as above, its a resource as well as a hook.

Ø            Resource – Write a “A How To” article based on your niche; You could give other website owners a useful, fun or cool tool that they can use on their blog that points back to your own.

Ø            Contrary - be the only one in your niche to find something to not like about a story, or like about a story/product. Then on the same theme, post “Why <insert the name of the well know webmaster, blogger> is WRONG about”

Ø            Humour – Place a bizarre picture, or you could post “5 things you want to have”, “things I hate,” or “21 thing You Have to Do Before You die”,

Ø            Controversy - controversial posts tend to get strong reactions from those reading your posts. Controversy brings in all kinds of responses. Don’t do it just for the sake of being controversial (unless you have very thick skin!) You could be sued if you make controversies pertaining to a certain person.

Recently, since linkbait causes spikes of traffic to the website which can cause Google to devalue your website.

So is Linkbaiting a GOOD or BAD thing?

Linkbaiting sounds like a bad thing when you don’t know how to properly use it. But if contains interesting information or fun, it doesn’t have to have negative connotations. Consequently, if your content is on topic, relevant to your industry, and useful, you are giving people and search engines exactly what they want; then there is no reason to devalue you site.

Example of a Bad LinkBait

I came upon this new product! I think this product could help you loose weight. . .

Bad linkbaiting happens when people click the link (new product). The landing page is not what they want since it has no content related to loosing weight.

How to Create a Good LinkBait?

First: Research your market and develop content that is relevant to this audience. Chose a title that would immediately appeal to that target market.

Second:  Create a page on the main site that looks like an ordinary article page. Use images where appropriate.

Third: Invite all your friends to check your site. Or have a pre release or post something in forum.  This is the hardest and most laborious part of the linkbait campaign. It can take hours to send out all the individual emails and chat notifications with the link embedded.

Fourth: Be patient and watch the traffic swell.

Example of a Good LinkBait

News Bait:

Brian Clark wrote about this same problem last month in his history of linkbait. It would seem the stigma of “baiting” is somewhat pervasive..

The Google: Evil or Not? site. The site takes RSS feeds that mention Google, lets people vote between Real Good or Real Evil, and adds a graph. It took a little bit of work, but probably not a ton…

What must I observe in linkbaiting?

Don’t be obsessive with any one kind of traffic. You run the risk of building a one dimensional blog. Some are obsess about generating incoming links to the point where it begins to destroy their blog. They end up forgetting about the readers they currently have and let other elements of their blog slip. Ending up devaluing your site.

1. Use of the word “sex”
2. Hidden Hyperlinks- links which are the same color as the background
3. Fake links- some sites put links on unrelated areas to increase traffic. Irrelevant links lower your rankings.

Lowers rank

1. Time it takes to load your page
2. Lack of browser capabilities
3. Excessive Javascript and/or text in flash
4. Lack of tags to keywords
5. Unrelated content in your site
6. Repeating content, be original

Raises Rank

1. Using your keywords in your articles with the right dispersion percent
2. Multiple link levels, using 1 link for 20 pages is frowned upon in the SEO community
3. Visibility, use referral links to other sites with similar content
4. Knowing the competition, look for the original angle that your competitors have not used. They use keywords too. Find a different way to use them.

You can judge your ranking ability by how Google ranks you. They are tough and they are always raising their standards. Once you’re on top keep watch.

Benefits of using analytics include fast and flexible ways to use your reported data. With this site you will be able to see how your sites are doing. What time of day you are getting the most hits. Available graphs let you track your progress over different periods. Available time tables include the overall performance, day to day performance, weekly and monthly performances. All the information you will need for improvement right at your fingertips.

The automatic calculations reduce the time needed to administer the site significantly. Analytics allow you to judge which of your sites if performing the best. Analytic providers include; Google, Amazon, WebTrends, and Ebay. This fast and easy method is worth the time to set it up. And the set up time is minimal. Less than an hour depending on how many sites you add. Analytic providers are an asset.

Viral marketing is a low cost compared to something like direct mail, and the excellent targeting and great response rates. The strongest point when marketing virally is the ability to reach tons of interested people for next to nothing out of pocket. It is a fantastic alternative to this classic method while avoiding spam mail; by encouraging your readers to spread the word for you in a positive way.

6 Ways of Infection

1. You can carry out your viral marketing campaign by creating e-books, reports or articles and distribute them to targeted recipients, giving them for free.
2. Offer high quality products that spread your marketing message. Write well-researched reports and e-books on your niche and add your URL on these reports. Bear in mind that many people like getting free reports and e-books. These e-books will provide very powerful information on your topic, and people who read them will visit your website. Further distribution of your reports and e-book will result in more traffic to your website as well as increased awareness of your business or brand.
3. You can also offer a free service or product on your web site that spreads your message to an increasing number of people who hear about it. Send out news releases concerning the free service or product available on your site. This in turn will generate huge volumes of traffic to your website.
4. Setting up an affiliate program that encourages links to your products can also be helpful. If you can afford it, provide attractive financial incentive for other sites to pass on your marketing message. You can also install a ‘Recommend it” referral system on your website so that other internet marketers will pass on your website address to their lists. By having your own affiliates promoting your website, you drive a lot of traffic to your website.
5. Use traffic exchange programs where you exchange website links with other internet marketers. When you add your website link to another site, some people may be interested in it, and they may bookmark it or pass it on to other people who may be interested in your niche.
6. Write good quality articles and encourage other webmasters to post them for free as content on their sites. If you’re an expert in a niche, write an article on that niche and give it away for free to complementary sites to post on their site as free content. Write high quality articles and distribute them online for free with reprinting rights. More directories, newsletters and e-zines will publish your article with your resource box and URL. With little effort, your URL will be distributed all over the internet, and this will lead to a huge flow of traffic to your website.

Use the power of viral marketing to spread your marketing message all over the internet and drive high volumes of traffic to your website.

Search crawlers can’t execute lines of code therefore they won’t be able to navigate your site if you implement a lot of Java script to guide users. The purpose of a crawler is to inventory a website to report back to the engine what it found. Once the search engine has a pretty good inventory of a site, it can mix that site in with the search engine results pages for a given keyword phrase. Try to make the crawler’s job as easy as possible by limiting the amount of scripting navigation per page. If you insist on using scripting for navigation, make sure you have some form of HTML navigation visible as well. At worst, have an HTML link on each page to an accurate site map for your site.

Most search engines will not list dynamic URLs in their results pages. Dynamic URLs are typically used for database driven sites or script based sites. The above paragraph outlines the reasoning behind avoiding scripts, and dynamic URLs are no different. If you must use dynamic URLs, try to have a main page that doesn’t so that the search engines can find you.
Search crawlers frequently get stuck within image maps and can’t accurately inventory your site. Stick with standard HTML navigation schemes if at all possible. When designing your site, keep in mind that it needs to be easy to navigate for users and search engine crawlers alike. A slick site is of little use if no one can find you especially a search engine crawler.

In the beginning of search engine optimization, there were meta tags.

That beginning line of code on websites that began with and closed with was the perfect place to list all of the pertinent keywords related to your site. Search engines would then use this to help determine where to rank the page. Sadly, spammers quickly learned to abuse this useful piece of coding, and search engines began to ignore them.

The good news…. they’re back!

Many of the primary search engines are beginning to factor in meta tags once again, along with several other factors to help determine a page’s ranking. Thanks to new algorithms used for ranking, spammers are no longer able to manipulate their page’s ranking so easily.

So, how do I use meta tags exactly?

As mentioned, meta tags are those beginning lines of code between the open and close tags. Even though meta tags are invisible to web viewers, they contain important information about your website. “Keyword” tags are used to identify the relevant words and phrases that should lead Internet users to your site, and the “description” tags are used to further describe what your website content is about. With this in mind, here are five suggestions to follow when creating your meta tags:

1. Meta tags should be different for each of your website’s pages. You don’t have the exact same content on each of your pages, so it makes sense that each page’s meta tags should be different as well.

2. Your meta tags should focus on what information is really on your page. Don’t waste your time trying to fool the search engines.

3. Separate your keywords with a comma only - no spaces.

4. When deciding which keywords to put first, place the most relevant words at the start of the tag.

5. When writing your description tag, use complete sentences and include your most relevant keywords and phrases.

Some webmasters, thinking meta tags were dead, have erroneously removed them from their source code. Don’t make this same mistake! Thanks to new ranking algorithms countering spammers who’ve abused the meta tag system, meta tags have returned as an important piece of the search engine optimization puzzle.

Social networking and web 2.0 are actually obscure terms. It comes in many shapes and sizes. You may have heeded these terms bandied about; wondering what exactly they are and what they mean for your business.

So let’s dig right in and make a clearer picture about social networking and web 2.0.
Since people buy from people they like, know and trust; engaging with and empowering your customers as an extension of your marketing efforts isn’t new. However, over time, there are new tools and philosophies to more effectively listen and engage with customers. So social networking using Web 2.0 techniques has become a fabulous business internet strategy.

Web 2.0 cover forums, blogs, online profiles, networking, document publishing sites, online videos, social book marking etc. It describes the transition of the internet from flat, static, standalone Web sites into a participative, adaptive, consumer-centric medium. Using Web 2.0 in social networking allows you to cultivate a more significant community, enhance your brand, build relationships and create evangelists along the way.
Different social networks have sprung up – catered in different languages and countries. Social networks such as Myspace, Facebook, Orkut and many more are a great way to get your ideas and products in front of a lot of eyeballs. There are also sites built by business people for business people – where entrepreneurs connect with one another, create business networking events, create business groups, ask and get business advice from global entrepreneurs, find business resources, f business partners, post business classified and post business jobs. 

List of Example of Social Networks
http://360.yahoo.com

http://spaces.live.com

http://www.MySpace.com

http://www.orkut.com

http://www.facebook.com

http://www.hi5.com

http://www.friendster.com

http://www.fotolog.com

http://www.livejournal.com

http://www.bebo.com

http://www.xanga.com

http://www.multiply.com

http://www.linkedin.com

http://www.piczo.com

http://www.last.fm

http://www.stumbleupon.com

http://www.broadcaster.com

http://www.gaiaonline.com

http://www.mybloglog.com

http://www.squidoo.com

http://my.opera.com/community/

http://www.buzznet.com

http://www.imvu.com

http://www.twitter.com

http://www.slashdot.org

http://www.wayn.com

Do not get relaxed after getting indexed in the search engine results, there is so much to do afterwards to maintain the position of your website in the search results. Here are some of the important tips that would help you maintain your website’s position in the search engines:

1. Keep updating your blog or website at least twice a day, you can do that by posting two articles of 200 words as it does not take much time to write a 200 words article, make sure all posts are strictly related to your website/blo

2. Avoid keyword stuffing, as per experts from Google; too much stuffing of keywords may ban your website from search engine results permanently.

3. Keep changing Meta tags, title tags and descriptions of your website, as most of the search engines take these things into consideration while indexing a website to their listings

4. Submit your URL to free directories at least twice a month to ensure that your site stays in to the search engines.

5. Follow the Google guidelines as most of the search engines rely big time on Google for search results.

1. The best of the lot is by adding your website in the form of signature to the bottom of every email that you send, you can do that by selecting add signature option from email preferences tab.

2. Commenting on blogs is another very good way to receive instant traffic, but make sure you give honest and spam free comments, as comments go through moderation process.

3. Create social profile on social networking sites like Facebook or Orkut etc. Add your website to your profile and take part in active discussions, you are bound to receive visitors if you initiate worthy topics on the social networking sites, plenty of users use this strategy to increase the traffic to their site.

4. Search for blogs or websites related to your website content and ask them to exchange links, doing so will surely get more visitors to your site.