• Yahoo!'s Version Of "Sitemaps": A Step by Step Guide  By : Ray Torres
  Yahoo! is now offering an easy way to submit all your Web pages to their search engine. It's a simplified version of Google Sitemaps, by means of a text file that contains a list of your site's URLs.
  
  In the past, you could only submit your home page to Yahoo!. With this new option
  you can submit all your site's pages in a single submission.
• The Google sandbox is about keyword phrases  By : Adam Sorensen
  The Google sandbox has been referred to by many as an algorithmic filter applied to new sites, essentially putting them on probation long enough to make sure they’re not a spam site. I actually think there’s more to it than that.

Links, Links and More Links...

by Scott F. Geld
Are you linked from other Web sites? You should be...and from lots of them. The number of Web sites that you are linked from has a direct impact on the success of your online business. The number of quality links that point to your Web site plays a key roll in the search engines relevancy algorithms. Simply put, the more relevant Web sites that link to yours, the higher your site will rank in the search engine returns.

Why is this important to your business? It's a fact of online business that the highest quality visitors to your Web site will usually result from links at related Web sites. A level of trust has been built up before a customer contacts your business, and they are already warmed up to do business with you. In fact this 'linking' is equivalent to 'word-of-mouth" referrals in traditional marketing. The main goal of a search engine is to return quality searches for surfers. Having quality links connected with your Web site helps to improve your search engine ranking and consequently increases your business opportunities. It all means that you should be striving to get more links to your Web site. Easier said than done! It all takes time, the longer your business is online the more links you'll have.

Here are some hints that will help you to attract more links to your Web site:

Simply Ask

But, make sure you ask the right person. Visit the site you plan to contact and find out the Webmaster or the owner's name. Find out if they have a section of their site dedicated to links. Then, send a personal email, identifying yourself and why you feel a link swap would be advantageous to both of you. If you don't see a link section on their Website, you might still contact the owner and suggest a joint venture and see what happens.

Link Trading Services

Check out link trading services. You have to be careful though. Make sure that you can control what sites you are linked to, and view how the link will look. Find out how many links you can earn. In the past link trading services got a bad name because many links were not properly targeted and unrelated, they used banners that were too large and so on.

Pre-license Your Web Content

This is a simple approach and essentially means that you give permission to others to use for free content such as articles etc. that appear on your Web site. The only stipulation is that when they use the article they include a link to your Website. Pre-licensing is a winning approach because it provides content for one Website and a link to your Website.

Buy your links

You can buy links on targeted web-sites for as little as $5 from MarketingBlaster.com. There are also auction sites like LinkAdage.com where you can bid for direct links to your site.

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Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for MarketingBlaster.com, a company providing targeted traffic and direct links starting at just $5: http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

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