It’s not a big secret that when you’re building a website, if you want to get it to rank well in search engines, then some SEO work is in order. This makes plenty of webmasters do their research on various websites, blogs, forums, etc. dedicated to the topic of search engine optimization. Getting information on the topic is of course the way to go and just like with anything, knowledge is power. So the more you know, the more you will actually be able to apply in a practical context on your website. But when you research information, it’s very important that the SEO tips that you read are actually good information and not some of the myths and misconceptions that keep re appearing on many sites. These actually cause webmasters to make mistakes when it comes to SEO and often make them waste time focusing on things that aren’t important.

The issue of wasting time is definitely one to consider for any webmaster. If you’re working on your site, or on your websites by yourself, then in many cases you only have a few hours a day to make things happen. You definitely don’t want to spend that time doing things that won’t matter and won’t help you achieve your goals as far as search engine rankings will go. Instead, you could be focusing on improving the content of your website or actually using SEO techniques that will work.

There’s also one big problem when it comes to bad SEO advice. If you apply the wrong SEO techniques to your website, this could end up actually hurting your chances of gaining a good position in search engine results rather than helping you. Now if you’re just making this mistake on one of your mini sites and you have 50 more of them, it may not be such a big deal, as you can start all over again. But if this is your main business website we’re talking about, then this would be even more problematic.

So the question is, how do you avoid making mistakes in SEO? The first thing would be to look for quality information. This can come from well reputed sources, such as websites and blogs of SEO experts. If you take advice from a forum or any other website where user generated content is posted, then first evaluate what’s being said and whether other members agree with it or not.

Avoid Black Hat SEO techniques. These are methods that take advantage of loopholes in search engines systems and are mainly designed with the hope of rapidly getting a website to go up on a search engine, even though it wouldn’t normally “deserve” to get to that position. Using such methods will rapidly get your website penalized as search engines catch on to them and close the loopholes that were used. If you want to build a good reputation online for your site, you should seek out techniques that allow legitimate and long term growth, not tricks to try to get ahead too quickly.

When you create a membership site, you need to promote it in order to get people to subscribe to it and thus make some money from it. We have already seen how using internet marketing forums could get you the members that you need to your site. But what about using your existing members to promote the site for you? This is indeed quite possible.

If you run a quality site that is very helpful and informational, many people will tell their friends about it and encourage them to join if they want to learn a few things about online marketing. Indeed, word of mouth marketing can be quite a powerful tool. But if you want to be even more successful with it, then you will need to give incentives to your members so that they recruit others to join. This can be done by various means such as:

• Giving a discount to the member being referred. If someone has been referred by an existing member of the site, they would get a discount on their first month’s membership.
• Creating a contest. By doing so, you can offer a prize to the top 3 people who refer others to your site. This will encourage members to get their friends to sign up for it.
• Giving a special bonus once someone has referred a certain amount of people to the site. This could be a product that you own, or maybe a one on one coaching session with you.

By doing these things, you will encourage members of your site to refer others to your site in greater number than what you would have ever though possible before. But if you want members to tell others about your site, there are also a few other things you need to remember:

• Run a good quality site. This means having useful and informative content on it. It also means that your site must be easy to navigate and function well. Nobody will like a membership site that goes down every few minutes and will definitely not want to recommend this kind of website to their friends.
• Update your site on a regular basis. This doesn’t mean that you will need to add new content every single day, however you should give your members the impression that your site is updated regularly. If members see that your site looks “dead” with no new information added to it in quite a while, then they are less likely to stay members and even less likely to encourage others to join.

Remember, that one of the best advertising tools would be word of mouth referrals. This works well in almost any business and it will definitely work well if you run a membership site. All that you need to do is to give your members the necessary incentives to promote your website to others and chances are, they will actually go ahead and do it.

Now that you have learned about what is necessary to run a membership site that you created, you now need to figure out how you will get members to join. Obviously, this means putting the message out there. People will not just magically type in the URL of your site in the address bar and join. There are a couple of methods that you can employ in order to gain members to your site. Each have their unique advantages, so it is a good thing for you to review all of them before you make your decision as to how you will promote it.

Here are some promotional methods:

• IM Forums

This is perhaps the best way to promote a membership site, as you will be showing your message to people who are already interested in learning about internet marketing and online money making techniques. The traffic is already there, all you would need to do is to get their attention and to convince them that your membership site is worth joining.

This can be done through various means. When a member of an internet marketing forum sees that a new membership site is being created, the first thing they will want to know if WHO created it. People who frequent IM forums have generally seen plenty of “make money online” products and are more likely to be skeptical than someone who is completely new to the industry and does not frequent any IM related communities online. In order to get better results, it would be good that you would be a reputed member of the forum where you are promoting your new site. This means having been on the forum for at least a few months and have made a decent number of contributions that are both useful as well as informative. Also, it helps if you get along well with other members and do not constantly get into flame wars with others. When a reputed member of an IM forum advertises their site, he is more likely to be taken seriously and listened to than a newbie with 4 posts that just joined yesterday.

It also helps to make some friends in the internet marketing community. This way, you will have some people who would be willing to review your site and vouch for its credibility in front of other members. If several well respected members of the forum say that a site is useful, then people are once again more likely to believe them.

Promoting via forums is simple and the exact steps to take depend on which forum you are in. All the big IM forums have a “Products for Sale” section. Some allow you to put a link to your site in your forum signature, while others will even let you purchase banner ad space on the forum that can be used for the purposes of promoting your website. This may cost a bit of money, but will attract much more attention to your offer.

In your quest to get the necessary information to become an effective online marketer, you may have come across some internet marketing forums. Now if you are new to internet marketing, you may be asking yourself: can these forums be useful for me? And what are the things that make an internet marketing forum good?

For the first question, the answer is definitely yes. On internet marketing forums, you will find plenty of information and methods that you can apply to make money online. You will also be able to find some tools, software as well as services that can help you accomplish whatever you are doing. The advantage of a forum is that unlike a simple guide, article or blog post, the content is “alive”. This means that not only can one person post information, but others can respond to it by adding additional data to make it more useful or ask questions about things they are unsure of, which will help more people understand the method.

A good internet marketing forum to participate in is one where:

• New internet marketers are welcomed and not looked down upon, or taken advantage of by other, more experienced members of the forum.
• Useful posts are made and new information is shared by members on a daily basis.
• There is a community spirit where people genuinely want to help each other, and not just take things for themselves.

Now, many new internet marketers want to know what are the best internet marketing forums they can join? Well, there are dozens of them, however here are the top free.

The Warrior Forum. This is the oldest and most respected internet marketing forum on the internet. You will find lots of useful methods for making money on the internet there, which are geared at marketers of all experience levels. You will see that the crowd is very diverse there, with participants ranging from newcomers to the industry, to those who have made millions of dollars selling their own products or by being affiliates.

Digital Point. Another very popular forum that is neatly organized in various categories, such as affiliate marketing, web site development, content creation, selling on eBay, using Pay Per Click ads, etc. There is also a very active marketplace where buyers and sellers meet to sell websites, content, traffic, advertising space, etc. Note that this forum is very popular with people from many countries in the world, not just the US. Therefore, you might sometimes see posts written in “bad” English. But everyone there is working together to attain their goals in online marketing, no matter where they are from.

WickedFire. A forum that attracts many of the top affiliate marketers in the industry. Very useful place to learn new methods and to discuss online business. Just a note though, you will sometimes find “adult” jokes and rather strong language in some posts, so it is not for the squeamish or those who get offended easily. But the content is nonetheless very useful and the people there are truly serious about their business, even if they sometimes like to crack jokes at each other.

Using a forum to market and monetize your website is a great idea. There are two different ways you can do this, one is by marketing on other people’s forums, and the second is to create your own forum.

Forums are a great way to market to a very specific area. Sure, you sometimes see a forum that is about general topics, but mostly the topics discussed are very narrow minded (in a good way). For example, there are massive forums on cycling, soccer, social networking, making money online, or knitting.

There is really no limit of what a forum can be about, if there are passionate and interested people about a subject, they will most likely find their way to a forum to discuss the topics.

Using Other People’s Forums
The easiest and cheapest way to market your website via forums is to use someone else’s already established forum. This way, the cost of entry is much lower, in both monetary and time terms. All you need to do is register on the forum, read the rules, put your website in your signature with a catchy phrase that will entice people to click on it, then start posting on the forum. It is important to engage in conversation, rather than spamming the established members already (they will not take kindly to that). Engaging and holding an intelligent conversation is essential here, because this is the first time your potential visitors will ever see what you have to say. Make sure you add value to the forum and post several times a day or week in order to maximize your results.

Creating Your Own Forums
Another way you can use forums is to create your own forum to allow your followers to engage with you and one another. This will help create a sense of community around your site, especially if you are already getting comments. The problem with this method is that you need to have viewers already to leverage them into becoming forum members. This is usually one of the later aspects of a website to come along, simply for that reason. But once you do have established readers, it could be a great way to promote your topics, engage in conversation, and even get new ideas for content and products.

If you work in e-mail marketing at all, you know list building isn’t just about getting a higher number of subscribers. You want to grow a database full of receptive readers who are more likely to make purchases from you. In order to get those high quality subscribers, you have to keep their wants and needs in mind while crafting your e-mails.

Whatever niche you cover, there’s a good chance your readers are looking for information related to it. By providing some free information with your list, you can keep people interested and engaged in your list. Try offering them a free report just for signing up, or consider sending out an e-mail from time to time that just gives the reader some important information about what’s going on with your business, or the industry you operate in as a whole.

You should also give your subscribers access to special promotions. If your subscribers feel like they’re getting deals they wouldn’t find anywhere else, they’ll keep reading your e-mails, and they’ll stay subscribed to your list. As you send out e-mails with good, exclusive deals in them, word will spread about your list, and just how useful it can be. Over time, you’ll build up more and more loyal subscribers that are likely to make purchases through your e-mails.

It’s important to give your subscribers a sense of belonging. Try to create a sense of community surrounding your list, and your readers will pass your list on to their friends. Try offering  exclusive contests to your subscribers. If your site has forums, it’s also a good idea to send out an e-mail periodically that lists the newest topics on the forums. If you’re interacting with your subscribers in a meaningful way, you will get more high quality subscribers in the long run.

By sending out informative, and engaging e-mails, you will start growing a high quality list full of subscribers that make purchases on your site. Create a sense of community, and those subscribers will tell their friends, and help to bring in even more high quality subscribers. Remember, it’s not the size of your list that matters, but the quality of your subscribers. High quality subscribers who are reading your e-mails, and making purchases are the ultimate goal of a good list.

The number of blogs you should own is up for debate in a lot of forums and blogs that I read, so I thought I would weigh in on the topic.

I write for about 4 or 5 blogs as a writer personally, and I make sure that I do not take on more clients than that. I love the writing aspect of blogging, but not the promotion and business end of it. I prefer to write great content that brings visitors back again and again, and leave it up to the site owners to get the readers (you!). There is so much more to running a successful site than writing content and you must be conscience of that before jumping into 10 different niches.

With that being said, I think that the happy number of blogs you should own, at most is 4 or 5.

Why?

It really is simple, if you get stretched to thin trying to write on to many different topics and niches you are going to burn out really bad, really fast. It takes a lot of work to manage a successful blog. You need to write new content every day, do social media and promote the new posts, bookmark, do SEO, comment on other people’s blogs, post on forums related to your niche, and more. You simply can’t do it for more than 5 blogs, you will burn out.

Of course, if you hire out help for writing content, promoting the blog, SEO, and other aspects of your business, you can do more. But as a general rule if you are running the blog yourself no more than 4 or 5 blogs.

The reasoning behind this is because it takes about 1.5 hours per day to write that new content for each blog. Maybe closer to 2.5 hours, depending on your niches and how comfortable you are writing able them. So factoring that in, you have 2 hours per day in sheer writing on average, plush everything else you have going on. One tip, if you have 5 blogs, rotate your promoting every day. On day one promote blog A, day two blog B, etc. That way you can focus your energy on that one blog and not try to do everything at once.

Once you start getting traffic to your first few blogs you can start to expand, at this point you should have some cash-flow and be able to outsource some hired help to manage your blogs and update them for you. Focus your attention on what you are passionate about and write for those niches only at first, then build into other areas.

When your trying to get backlinks for your website there are a number of ways you can do this which are:

1) Write articles and submit them to article websites

2) Build a blog on your website and write very useful articles and submit these to social network sites like twitter, digg, facebook, delicious

3) Submit your website to classified advert websites like craigslist, gumtree,hotfrog and loads of others

4) Write comments on blogs with a link back to your site on a blog that is in a similar niche to your website

5) Join forums that is in a niche similar to your website and write a number of posts with your anchor text keyword link in your signature

6) Answers questions in yahoo answers with a link back to your website

7) Write a squidoo lens, hubpage and wiki page linking back to your website

8.) Create a facebook group and get all your friends to join and ask them to ask all their friends to join.

Take a look at our system that generates 1,000 backlinks a day for your website on autopilot -

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The only way to succeed online is to make sure your online marketing promotion is perfect.

First you need to make sure your website is fully optimised for search engines

The next step is to start link building.  There are many different ways in which you can start link building e.g:

1) Submit articles about your websites to press release and article sites

2.) Submit your website to free directoris and social networking sites

3.) Blog commenting on other websites

4.) Forum posting in forums and blogs

5.) Answering questions in yahoo answers

6.) Creating classified ads

7.) Purchasing links on other websites

8.) Sponsoring wordpress themes

All of these will take alot of time and patience to do manually.  I have found and created an automated system that will do all your link building for you for free which you can install this system onto your website and does your link building for you by itself.  The system is whitehat and only takes about 1 hour to install.

Take a look on the following post – it shows you how to build millions of backlinks:

http://www.search-internetmarketing.com/2009/02/gain-over-13-million-backlinks-for-free/