Sometimes times stay rough. Other times they get a bit better, unexpectedly.

I had that happen for me the other day. An unexpected $1000 check from an affiliate program right when my family really needed the money. Few things feel better than that. Hard work really does pay off.

How Do You Get Links to Your Website?

Building links to a site may be one of the most challenging things you can do. Most webmasters are very aware of what giving links can do, and some are reluctant to give links, even when deserved, to competitors.

It can make link building pretty difficult.

But links are vital to the health of any website. It’s not just that search engines use them in their algorithms. It’s that high quality links themselves can send in regular traffic. Low quality links not so much, but they can still send occasional small amounts of traffic.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is a very popular way to get links, and just like any other method requires a lot of work. But perhaps the biggest challenge is getting your high quality articles noticed when they’re surrounded by all the spammy junk other website owners are submitting because they heard that article marketing is a good thing. It can be pretty frustrating.

Social Media Marketing

A better way, when you can manage it, is to get attention through social media marketing. The Digg effect does more than just crash websites, after all. It can generate links as other websites blog about your post.

Crafting something that will do well in social media takes time and a great deal of research, as a rule. You cannot just write something quick and expect massive results. You may once in a long while hit it big with something you never thought would. And often the results aren’t what you expect. There’s a degree of chance in there, due to algorithms on the social media sites, who submits the story, who else likes it, who hates it and so forth.

Lists can do very well, however. You can do a longer list with minimal detail, a shorter one with greater detail, or a long one with detail. Short lists without details rarely do so well, as they are rarely unique, funny enough or useful.

A good list can create some authority for your site. People may refer back to your list to get to more information on your topic. Include the number of items in your list. Numbers go over well.

It can help some to have a group of friends who will help one another get social media attention, whether it’s on Digg, del.icio.us or another website. However you do not want to be overusing your friends, sharing junk or anything like that. Make what you submit or ask friends to submit something really worthwhile. It will improve your overall results.

It also helps if you’re a regular enough user that you know what is likely to do well. Be prepared for the simple fact that social media traffic doesn’t tend to convert directly into sales.

Directory Submissions

Directories have been popular in the past, but many really have minimal effect, at least with Google these days. My own rule for directory submission, if I choose to do them, is to submit and forget about it. They go in or not.

Some directories require payment. I wouldn’t recommend paying for a spot in a directory unless you’ve researched it to find out if the links are any good.

A bad directory can do more than fail to send traffic. It can get you associated with penalized or banned sites. Do directory submission with caution whether you pay or not.

Post Questions and Answers on Other Sites

Yahoo! Answers, Google Groups and Squidoo can be decent sources for links. You do have to watch how you place your links, and avoid spamming these sites. People do catch on quickly.

Guest Blog

Guest blogging has lately been a popular way to get links. Not only can you have the chance to get your writing up in front of a new audience, you get a link to your site. There’s some pretty good potential to that if you choose wisely and keep it relevant.

Hold a Contest

Holding a content can also bring in the links. People love to win, and some of them will tell all their online friends, through their own websites, all about it. There are also websites that specialize in announcing contests. The better the prize you can give, the more attention you may get for this.

Create a Free Tool

Creating a free tool for your audience also works well. It can be challenging finding something that hasn’t been done before, or adding functionality to those that have been done before, so that your tool stands out as superior. But if you have an idea and can hire a programmer to make it real, the links will probably come.

Link Out to Others

Give links to quality sites that are relevant but not too competitive with yours. You’ll have to decide how competitive is too competitive, and that depends on your niche. But linking to other sites is a great way to get their attention, and there’s a chance they’ll return the favor. If not, you have at least provided your audience with a quality resource, right?

Be Funny

Really, really funny. And not some old joke that’s been posted on dozens of other websites. You’re trying to stand out here.

Humor can sell. It won’t do the job every time, but it will often enough once you know what you’re doing with it.

Participate on Forums

Find forums that will allow you to have live links in your signature. The forums should be relevant to your topic.

Participate in these forums. Ask and answer questions. Do not, however, do nothing more than push your own site. That is rarely welcome behavior. People do click on signature links, especially if you have interesting things to say on the forum itself.

There are many more ways to get links, of course. The important thing is to make sure that the links you get are good quality. It is possible to hurt your site through careless link building practices.

What a weekend I had! The host for some of my other sites crashed… badly. There was a RAID controller failure, and then the restore system had a problem and was working at 1/10 the usual speed. It was all a complete and utter nightmare for more than 65 hours.

Yes, that’s how long my sites were down. It was painful.

Even more painful is that the hosting company from the time I signed up with them HAD been more reliable than any other host I’ve dealt with. Makes deciding what to do painful. My inclination is to leave them, but there’s also the urge to stay and just trust that it’s that rare. Hardware problems happen to the best companies as well as the worst, after all.

They gave a 6 month service credit, so I might leave some minor sites there and see what happens.

But that’s why I use multiple hosting companies. I could have hosted all my sites there, and been completely down all weekend. But I pay multiple companies just so that I can know that I will have some sites up at all times. Just a little safety net.

Search Engine Marketing, SEO and Email Marketing - What’s the Synergy?

While surfing around LinkedIn the other day I ran into the following question from a member..

“What’s the synergy between search engine marketing and email marketing and can you provide examples of the synergy?”

Here are my thoughts on this…

Search marketing (as well as search engine optimization SEO) and email marketing are to an Internet marketer what the “one-two punch” combination is to a boxer. Left jab, then right cross. That’s a classic knockout combination. It’s your bread and butter if you’re a fighter. And it always produces greater results than the individual punches themselves.

Now, let’s put this in context with today’s web users, prospects and buyers… Nearly everyone turns to a search engine first to find what they are looking for Online. So, being found in search results, organically or by paid placement is arguably the most important element of Internet marketing. Search marketing is the left jab that sets up your right cross: email marketing.

Search marketing is also like a headline in a sales letter. If you don’t stop people dead in their tracks and get them to read more, the rest of the sales letter is meaningless, no matter how good it is. Without search, you would not be able to capture names and email addresses for marketing purposes (except if you advertise offline and drive traffic to your site). Search marketing is typically the starting point of a potential relationship between web marketer and prospect.

Enter Opt in Email Marketing…

The majority of times, your prospect has found your website and offer but is NOT ready to buy from you yet. She is not sure she can trust you, she just met you so to speak. Plus there are other offers and vendors to investigate. The web is big place with lots of choices. This is where email marketing comes in to create synergy with search.

People have more information and choices than ever. Unfortunately the more choices and information, the tougher it is to make a decision. More vendors, more information and more choices translate into more work for prospects. As a result many people get bogged down in “analysis paralysis”, procrastination or both. They are ruled by fear, uncertainty and distrust.

Because of all the information and choices available to Internet consumers, it is difficult to create lasting marketing relationships. There are so many vendors competing for mind and wallet share.

Search marketing does the heavy lifting of attracting qualified prospects to your sites and offers and creates potential relationships. Since a majority of people do not buy on the first exposure to an offer, it’s email marketing’s job to capture the name and email address and to break down barriers and inhibitions to buying over a time sequence.

Through email marketing you build solid relationships on trust, reciprocity (because you give something of value to them) and develop credibility as an expert in your field by providing good content on your website and in your email newsletter.

The success of the individual parts — search marketing and email marketing — can be attributed to the combination of these two forms of marketing. One without the other would produce poor results (an exception is offline advertising i.e. sending prospects to your home page or opt-in page directly from space or classified ads).

Also, synergy occurs when a web user is exposed to multiple instances of your brand, products, offers & websites.

For example, if a prospect keeps running into you online when they search on keywords related to your products/services and hears from you regularly through email marketing, credibility with that prospect is sure to increase because of the combined exposure.

Search marketing and email marketing are strongly dependent on one another for overall marketing success. Together they help you create relationships and online sales.

Of course your sales message has to be strong. But generally speaking any exposure in search results combined with email marketing is going to help your cause. It will help build trust and decrease buying resistance. This plus a good offer will produce solid online sales.

Bob Thomson is CEO of Marketing Science, Inc. a consulting company that specializes in helping small and medium businesses acquire new clients using proven marketing, copywriting and design concepts. He is also a webmaster, search engine specialist and sales professional with over 20 years of business experience. Learn more business marketing strategies and tactics by visiting
http://www.mktg-science.com and http://www.askthesmallbizcoach.com

I did it! My ebook, One Arm Recipes, is out at last.

To make things even better, as I waited for approval from Clickbank I got my Build a Niche Store sites updated to the latest version, so they work with the new eBay Partner Network. I’m feeling pretty good about my current accomplishments.

8 Ways to Guarantee Your Home Business Fails

Lots of people fail in their home businesses. Failure is easier than success, after all, even though it hurts more. There are plenty of things you can do that will easily increase your odds of failure.

1. Talk, but don’t act.

Go ahead. Tell everyone that you’re going to start a home business. Maybe even buy a business kit or ebook that tells you all about what you need to do in order to get started. But actually start? No.

2. Work as little as possible on your business.

Lots of people get started, but then do very, very little work on their business. There’s always something else going on, whether it’s family life, a regular job or a hobby.

Know what? An hour a week isn’t going to get you very far in business. If you want to get to the point where your business practically runs itself, you’re going to have to work hard to reach that point. It takes time, often years, to have so much as a shot at putting your business on anything resembling autopilot.

3. Opportunity-hop.

Now, there are times when you should give up on a business opportunity. Some ideas genuinely aren’t going to work out. The challenge comes in figuring out when to switch and when to stick with it.

This problem is particularly strong in direct sales. People go from company to company because so many sound so good. But you aren’t impressing your customers and you aren’t building a solid foundation for your business. You lose a lot every time you decide to start over. Don’t do it casually.

4. Start too many businesses.

This is a common fault for people running online businesses. One website may seem to be easy to run, so why not two or three or fifty? Surely 50 websites earning $10/day is better than one earning $10/day.

Too bad it’s just not that simple. Each website requires development, marketing and maintenance. Even if they’re on something near to autopilot, all your websites need some of your attention.

5. Fail to research.

Even if your best friend ever swears that it’s a brilliant opportunity, you need to do your research. First and foremost is whether or not it’s something you will be comfortable doing. If you don’t enjoy your home business, where’s the motivation to work on it. The possibility that you may earn good money later is often not enough.

And then there’s the question of whether or not anyone else will care about what your business offers. If no one is interested, no one will buy.

Worse yet, a failure to research can mean falling for a scam. You always need to know what you’re getting into.

6. Assume you can do it all without help.

Everything. Take care of your family, home and your home business.

Most likely you will need some help. The kids out of the house for at least part of your working time is a good start. You can work after they’re asleep too, but you’re risking having too little time for yourself if you try to do everything. Overwork is the path to burnout.

7. Refuse to market your business.

There are plenty of ways to market a home business, but especially if you’re online it’s very easy to fall for “build it and they will come,” which quite simply doesn’t work.

You should be willing to talk to people you meet about your business. Market it online in whatever form you prefer. Market it in the real world.

8. Have unrealistic expectations.

This can be one of the causes for most of the above problems. If you expect your business to succeed too quickly, you may be more prone to opportunity hopping. If you expect to be earning money quickly, you may overextend your business.

There’s only so much you should expect of a given home business. There are many wonderful possibilities that could happen, but overnight, 6 figure success is extremely low on that list. Assume you will have to work hard, for years, and that it will be a while before you see so much as adequate money.

But don’t forget to dream!