My Personal Methods Of Tracking And Testing Articles Part 2

If I submit one article personally to 25 article directories, and in two weeks find I have 1000 copies of my article online, but I pay a submission company to submit a different article for me to the same list of 25 article directories, and after two weeks there are only 100 copies of my article online - I can be reasonably sure that article submission company has not done all the work they have billed me for.

The same method can be used to test different article directories, groups of directories, or different article distribution services.

Another method I use for testing my article traffic is by using a combination of multiple landing pages and my autoresponder service.

This is a little more intricate, and takes a little more time to set up, but it gives me very accurate statistics for exactly where my traffic comes from, and I can target it to the exact article or article directory, if I so choose.

Sometimes I am asked why I dont just use a tracking service to track my traffic, and that is a fair question, and I will answer it before I explain how I do my own testing.

There are two primary ways to track incoming traffic effectively: by creating tracking links which are assigned to specific traffic sources, or by using cookies that track each visitor to a page.

The drawback to using tracking links is that if you write and submit hundreds of articles and they are picked up by perhaps thousands or even tens of thousands of web sites, and they all contain your tracking links, then you are pretty much unable to ever leave that tracking service without leaving your links behind. I am simply not willing to give a tracking company that much control over my traffic.

The primary drawback to using cookies is that they do tend to expire or be deleted. This is generally not a problem for the type of testing of article traffic that I am discussing here, but since I also use my system to track sales funnel origination for my sales, I want to be able to track those sales for a longer period of time than is reasonable with a cookie system.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

SEO and LSI - How to Use Latent Semantic Indexing

People get worried when they hear about terms such as SEO and LSI, and when they try to find out how to use latent semantic indexing, they get even more worried when they get conflicting messages. On the one hand some say that LSI doesn't exist and therefore can't be used, while others, on the other hand, state that it is critical to your website's success with the search engines.

We all know what computer people are like, the way they try to make acronyms of everything. LSI is one of these, although not quite what you would call an acronym. LSI does exist, but not in the form that Google would have us believe, and not in any form that you can use to make your website 'LSI compliant'. Anybody claiming that they can do that are simply playing Google's trick and using big names for what is a very simple thing to do.

LSI or LSA?

Without going into any detail as to the mathematical background of LSA, it can be used, and is used, to determine the relevance of a passage of text to any given topic based upon a keyword or multiple word search term. LSA was, incidentally, patented by a group of people in 1988, although the basics were known prior to this. LSI is nothing more than the use of LSA in the indexing and retrieval of information. It is therefore a concept, and you cannot make a 'concept compliant' web page.

However, it is all semantics (ha-ha!) and the meat of this article is not to knock holes in the way the terms LSA and LSI are being wrongly used by SEO experts, but inform as to how you can make your web page more likely to be considered relevant to the main keyword for which you want your page indexed. This is very simple and does not warrant all the books now being offered on the subject.

The Development of Adsense

Latent semantic analysis is used by Google primarily to detect spam, in respect of excessive repetition of keywords in order to fool the search engines into providing a high listing for that keyword. There was a time when smart people could indeed achieve this simply by writing a meaningless template with rotating synonyms into which any keyword could be multiply inserted by means of software. Thousands of pages could be generated in minutes, each targeting a different keyword. Some were making $thousands daily from Adsense using this method.

In fact the principles of LSA to determine the content of web pages were used by a small company called Oingo that changed its name to Applied Semantics who developed a search system to determine the relevance of page content for specific advert placement. They called this Adsense. This company was in turn bought by Google in April, 2003, and Adsense used to replace their own system which was still under development. Adsense, then, was not developed by Google, but purchased by them.

BigDaddy and Character String Analysis

The principles were also applied to determine the relevance of on-page text to specific search terms and used in the web indexing algorithm called BigDaddy, used by the Googlebot to index your web pages. BigDaddy appears to view links and relevance as the two major factors among many others that determine your listing position in the index for any specific search term as used by a Google customer.

Back to spam. Your web page content is now analyzed by the statistical mathematical analysis tool known as LSA/LSI and indexed according to the meaning of the words in your text. It goes further than just checking for the excessive use of specific words, and no longer searches only for indices of your stated keywords. LSA informs Google of the true meaning of your text, and you cannot hide this by repetitions of a single key phrase. Let's call it LSI because that's what Google calls it. LSI analyzes the character strings in your text and compares them to a large database of words, the meanings of which have been defined.

Same Words - Different Meanings

LSI is used to determine the true meaning of homonyms, heteronyms and polysemes. Homonyms are spelled and pronounced the same, but have different meanings, such as lock, with three meanings. A heteronym is a word spelled the same as another, but with a different pronunciation and meaning, such as lead: a metal or to be in front. Polysemes are words spelled the same, and from the same root, but used differently such as a mole - a burrowing animal, or a mole - a spy deliberately placed in an organization. Both moles have the same root, but the words are used in different contexts. LSI or LSA can be used to determine the difference by means of analysis of the other words in the text.

If your page has been written around the keyword lock (my usual example of a homonym), without any decent content the reader would find it difficult to tell what type of locks you were writing about. The LSA algorithm would be looking for words such as canals, keys or hair to tell the difference and know where to list it.

All you need do is to look up thesaurus.com, and then use plenty of alternative vocabulary in your content that explains its meaning precisely. You can also use the tilde (~) in a Google search for your keyword. While Google does not highlight exactly correct synonyms, it will give you an indication of what vocabulary it regards as being equivalent. If you do that with 'locks' all you get are 'lock' and 'locks', and all are security locks. Interestingly, when you do it with 'canal locks', Google also highlight 'narrow'. This indicates that if your topic is on canal locks, using the word 'narrow' will be to your advantage.

Semantics and Vocabulary

If you keep in mind that the main purpose of the LSI component of BigDaddy is to detect keyword spamming, and to determine for what search term the page should be indexed, then it should be obvious to you that the sue of contextually related vocabulary will reveal the semantics of your page. Semantics is nothing more than the meaning of the words you are using, and where your keywords could have more than one meaning, you have to make the meaning clear through the use of related text. Nothing more than that.

If you write naturally, as you would if you were talking to somebody, and trying to explain your subject, then you will not have any problems with the LSI algorithm. There is no need to use an SEO expert, since they are not necessarily qualified in their knowledge and use of language. A thesaurus will do the job fine.

Keyword Density is not What it Was

Do not overuse your keywords, and the old adage that you should have between 1% and 3% keyword density on your page no longer applies. Use it often enough to stress its importance, which means as the page title, as the heading in H1 tags, and in the first 100 characters and in the last paragraph. Google will check all four of these, and will regard any words it finds there, other than fillers and stop words, as being important. Use it again every 300 words or so and that is enough.

SEO and LSI are not really related since the term LSI is used in the wrong context here. However, in the way that it is used, if you use good vocabulary, contextually relevant to your keywords, then you will also be using good SEO. How to use latent semantic indexing properly is irrelevant in pure terminology, since you can't use it on your web page. Google can use it in their algorithm, and you should make your vocabulary as understandable as possible by means of simple words that express the meaning of your text.

Pete has his own theories of the way that SEO and LSA can be used to improve your web page listing positions, and more information is available on his website SEOcious and his blog SEOscopy where you will find how to use these concepts to their maximum effect.

Bum Marketing Methods - How To Make Money By Doing Nothing

You are probably wondering what bum marketing is, and how you can make money from it yourself. It is quite simple really, all you need to do is find an affiliate program you like, and then promote it using free outlets such as Squidoo or Blogger. By creating a web of interconnected articles marketing your products as well as your other articles, you will gain organic traffic quickly and easily. By using article marketing you allow your articles to be picked up by giants such as Google and Yahoo without actually dedicated all that much time or resources to building backlinks as you would need to if you planned on starting your own website.

Bum marketing is based off keyword research, you need to find a niche and work from there. Gurus will pick the highly competitive niches as they will yield the highest results if they are done correctly but for new bum marketers it is a far better idea to start small. Find a niche that isn't overly competitive that has products to be sold. This can take time, you need to do research to determine what markets are flooded with affiliate marketers and which aren't, a good way to determine this is to do a Google search for keywords you would like your bum marketing articles to target. If there is a full page of Google AdWords results (11 sponsored links) then you most likely will not fair too well to begin with in this niche. Finding the right niche can be hard but once you do you should stick with it and watch the profits soar. Once you have a niche, all of your articles, webpages, sales pitches, etc. will become relevant to each other, and through this relevancy you can increase traffic and sales conversions across the board as you target new keywords. The key to bum marketing is getting organic traffic. While there are millions of marketers that manage to make money without organic traffic (traffic that comes naturally from search results as opposed to paying for advertising) you will need a solid base of organic traffic.

My personal steps for using bum marketing on various products:

• Find a niche that isn't overly crowded that you can talk about.

• Find products within the niche that are the right price and quality so that they will lead to sales and therefore commissions.

• Research keywords that could be used to search for that specific product as well as general keywords that people would search for that may be willing to buy the product.

• Build a Squidoo lens or a Blogspot blog for the product giving an unbiased review (I never sell products that don't work well, I refuse to scam people for money).

• Build backlinks for the lens or blog, typically with a little bit of article marketing and purchasing a social bookmarking package from a SEO firm.

• Promote products using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, especially MySpace.

• Watch the commissions roll in as I hit the front page of Google and Yahoo, and find ways to expand my product line using traffic from various sources.

Bum marketing or even affiliate marketing in general is not for everyone. In order for it to work, you must be patient, there is no other option. I started using bum marketing a few months back and now it is already paying large dividends for me. I'm currently a 19 year old freshman college student yet I am making enough money online to pay for my graduate school as well as a brand new car, hopefully this information will lead to your success as well. For additional resources on bum marketing I would highly suggest checking out some of the links below.

To increase the visibility of your own web enterprises, consider visiting the following Squidoo lenses:

Bum Marketing Your opportunity to steal some of my marketing tactics to be on the road to success yourself.

Social Bookmarking Services to gain backlinks, search engine placement, and traffic.

LazyURL to optimize your site for search engines and any other online marketing purpose.

Article Marketing - How You Can Massively Increase the Effectiveness of Your Articles

Article Marketing is something that thousands of people do to drive traffic to their websites. It's no secret that a well written article can be thought provoking enough for readers to want to know more about either you or your services. So, what do they do? They click on your link in your resource box. But are you making effective use of understanding the conversion rates for the clicks that you get?

From my own perspective, my main interests are in motivation, wealth creation and self defense. These are the subjects that I write about most often. However, I am departing from that here because I have discovered something that I think will be of benefit to all article writers.

I don't write about things like "the best sexual positions" or "cell phone number spying" or "how to increase your penis size" or "how to shave your pubic hair" or "how to tell if your spouse is cheating on you" or any other such subjects that get tens of thousands of hits. Why? Quite simply I don't have a website on any of those things that could take advantage of the traffic it would bring.

Now here is something that you will probably find interesting...

I have over 250 articles all over the web in hundreds of "far-flung" places and in many different languages. This number of articles will show significant trends when viewed in terms of statistical anaysis.

I know which articles are "ball-bursters" and which are complete flops. So, what does that tell me? Write more articles (in my domains of knowledge and interest) that are popular - obviously! What is the point of writing articles that nobody else wants to read? Now here comes the interesting bit...

By analyzing the results of these articles I am able to see which ones are giving me the most click-throughs to my websites. Time for a little mathematics...

If I have 1,395 click-throughs from 170,424 views of my articles then my conversion rate is 0.82%. That tells me that for every thousand people who read my articles only 8 will be interested enough to go to one of my websites. Pretty horrendous huh? Then again, there are millions of articles on the web and people's time is at a premium. A reader has to be REALLY interested to make that click.

So, if I have some articles - which I do - that are returning the following statistics, what does that tell me?

• 8 from 23 ( conversion rate 34.8%)
• 400 from 2,667 (15%)
• 28 from 154 (18%)
• 191 from 1736 (11%)
• 23 from 81 (28%)

That tells me that these particular articles SMASH my average. Hmm. So, what else does that tell me? Here is what I think...

1. - The headline REALLY worked because it attracted attention
2. - The article summary/teaser REALLY worked because it made people curious
3. - The copy (article body) REALLY worked because it contained good information
4. - The resource box REALLY worked because people wanted to know more.

So, now, what do you think I should do?

1. - Write more headlines like that
2. - Write more summaries/teasers like that
3. - Write more articles like that
4. - Write more resource boxes like that

The other thing - which I have not yet analysed in depth - is that the keywords REALLY worked. I need to look at that more.

So what is my point is this?

Watch what your statistics are telling you. Once you get the "formula" correct then all it requires is for you to stick with it and you will see a LOT more click-throughs to your websites than you thought was possible. I may have more to say on this later. Stay tuned...

This has been a "Public Service Announcement" from me to you purely for your benefit because I don't have an Article Marketing website. But if you want to know how to make a lot more money and increase your personal wealth then click HERE

Affilate Elite Review - Fast Results Fast Money

Affiliate Elite is the latest breakthrough in terms of affiliate marketing software, created by all-time guru Brad Callen. Affiliate Marketing is a tough game, and the only way to succeed is to stay one step ahead of the competition. There are certainly many scams out there in this industry, and one needs to know that the product they are buying is quality and will deliver results as fast as possible.

Deliver Fast Results

I am sure there are many people that have stumbled upon the latest affiliate product, had a surge of excitement, gone ahead and made an impulsive buy, then sunk in a sea of buyer's regret because the product you just bought needs a college degree to understand. You probably tried for a while, cut your losses and applied for a refund. I assure you this will not be the case with Affiliate Elite.

The main function of affiliate elite - 'find profitable affiliate products to promote' alone will see most users effectively earn back the cost of the product within 1 week. Users are provided with all the inside information needed to quickly and accurately choose affiliate product based on proven performance and fact. This information is not available anywhere else - I tried looking too.

Requires Little Knowledge

You do not need to be an 'internet marketing expert' to use affiliate elite. In fact this product is ideal for newbie's and experienced users alike.

It will be worthwhile dedicating a few hours to the training videos associate with it once you have purchased, this will definitely get you up and running faster. A couple of the latter video's I found to be very confusing, so it might be an idea to use the forums if you get stuck. If you have already own Keyword Elite or SEO Elite, then the interface will make sense immediately.

Conclusion

To succeed and generate serious profits in affiliate marketing in 2007, one needs to have access to as much information about products and the competition. If you can access this information and exploit it to your advantage, you will be on your way to becoming a Super Affiliate.

Want to skyrocket your affiliate marketing profits? Learn the secrets and tips behind Affiliate Elite before you buy.

Please visit http://www.affiliateelitetips.com

Search Engine Optimisation: One Link is Better than Ten

That cant be right! Shouldnt ten links be better than one? It is usually the case where more is better. However, when it comes to gaining links, having more links isnt necessarily better than having a few good links. In fact, having too many irrelevant links could possibly harm your websites visibility within the search engines.

These days, search engines are placing more emphasis on incoming links to a website when evaluating rank. The reason being is because they are difficult to obtain from trusted sources (a "by the book" website such as the Dmoz directory) and it is a good way to partially eliminate the group of people who abuse the "on the page" factors of optimisation (page spamming). How is this so? Well, if you have someone who is abusing the "on the page" factors and they have no trusted links to their page (they will most likely not get any at all due to spam) then there is no chance of them getting a good listing. However, people have worked out ways in getting a large number of links, through link farms and other tactics, regardless of the quality of their website. As the search engines are aware of this, it brings us to the topic of how one link can be better than ten.

Obtaining one link from a trusted source can be very difficult in the sense that they do not issue links to just about anyone. If you have a good website with relevant information, then you will get them. It is for this reason one link from a trusted source can better a multiple of links from other websites. As a trusted source website is "trusted" by search engines, it will also trust the websites it links to. If you have ten links from your best friends, it will help you in some sense, but no where near as much as the one link from a source like Dmoz, unless one of your friends has a very reputable website amongst the search engines.

Having too many irrelevant links could harm your websites visibility in the search engines. What is meant by this is having links from websites that have no relation to yours. An example of this would be a site about cars linking to another site about medicine (unless the sites are reputable and have a good reason for the link i.e. there is a relationship made between cars and medicine). Search engines will pick up on this sort of link and will give it no weight in boosting your visibility. Obtain many of these irrelevant links, then it could be seen as spam (like a link farm tactic) and that will lower the popularity of your website within search engines.

The key here is to focus on quality and not quantity. Gaining a few good / relevant links will take you much further than a lot of irrelevant links. To get these quality links, start off by placing your website in directories, but be sure to avoid any "on the page" spamming as this will not get you accepted. Once search engines have acknowledged a presence of relevant links, follow up on it and research some ways to obtain more. As time passes, you will notice that your websites performance will increase, as the links age, provided you have carried out search engine optimisation. Avoid obtaining the irrelevant links even though it may be tempting to see fast results. It will only be a matter of time before a search engine realises the spam tactic, and as the saying goes "fast rise, fast fall".

About the author: David Touri works for SEO Sydney, who aims to improve search engine placement with search engine placement services for websites in Australia and overseas. He is currently working on the Loaded Technologies website, who specialise in ecommerce website development.

Link Building in Light of Vision-based Page Segmentation

The days of basing a successful link building strategy on link quantity and anchor text alone may be numbered. The link popularity theories behind PageRank and Hilltop remain important, but major search engines are continually adding new elements to their link algorithms to improve search relevance. One of these new elements is the concept of visual page segmentation which was recently proposed in a paper entitled "Block-level Link Analysis," by Deng Cai, Xaiofei He, Ji-Rong Wen and Wei-Ying, available online at http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=690.

How VIPS Works

The paper introduces VIsion-based Page Segmentation (VIPS), which begins with the premise that current link popularity algorithms are faulty in that they consider each page on the World Wide Web as a single node. Different "blocks" on a page however often have different semantics; for instance, a block on the left side of the page might contain a general navigational menu or text link advertisements, whereas the block on the right side of the page might contain an informational article or links to other Web sites about a certain topic. When VIPS is applied, these blocks can be separated by a computer with a vision-based program. Each block can then be considered as the fundamental unit of analysis, rather than the entire page. When a link is scored in terms of its block, the link"s contextual relevance can be interpreted more intelligently by search engines.

What VIPS Means for Search Engine Optimization

In the near future major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! Web Search and MSN Search will likely integrate some form of visual page segmentation into their search algorithms. A successful search engine optimization strategy should incorporate knowledge of block-level analysis to ensure that the effects of a link building campaign will be maximized. But how exactly does a concept like VIPS affect search engine optimization? Two consequences in particular should make every SEO take pause.

Devaluation of Links from Certain Blocks

VIPS will allow search engines to differentiate between links from the content block and links from other blocks such as text advertisement blocks or footer blocks. As such, algorithms could easily weight links from each block differently.

A link from the content block could be considered as more likely to be a true recommendation than a link from a text link advertisement block. Search engines may therefore give extra weight to in-content links while devaluing links that appear to be advertisements. Sites that rent links through link networks usually do place them in a block above, below or to the side of the content block. When VIPS is implemented, there is a risk that many rented advertisement links could be devalued.

Improved Contextual Analysis

The theme in which your link is placed also will be more important than ever before. Many search engine optimizers have voiced their opinion that "anchor text is everything"; that is, the theme of a page linking to a Web site does not parse link relevance, but only the anchor text of the link does.

With block-level analysis, search engines will be able to recognize the theme of any given block more easily. This should have the effect of boosting the link relevance for links from tightly-themed content blocks, while devaluing links that are in a block with no apparent theme.

Links That Will Always Soar

A search engine optimizer need not fear the effects of VIsion-based Page Segmentation. Although VIPS will probably devalue certain types of links that are favored by many SEOs, it will concurrently increase the value of themed, in-context links.

I have always stressed the value of legitimate links from directories, articles and press releases. These types of links are placed in a content block and are also tightly themed (that is, your target keywords will be near your link).Webmasters who actively build these types of links will benefit from long term rankings even when new twists such as VIPS are added into the algorithmic mix. In fact, these algorithmic improvements should improve search relevance and neutralize some of the spammier link building methods. And that's something we should all be happy about.

Andy Hagans is a search engine optimization consultant who specializes in link building and risk management. Visit http://www.andyhagans.com for more information. Mr. Hagans also maintains The Link Building Knowledge Base at http://www.linkbuilding.info to help other webmasters.