Jude’s Eclectic Resources

Seems I am getting alot more spam lately. It must be that time of year. I have just deleted 40 entries basically all from the same 2 people.  Seems a shame to waste so much energy for nothing. I welcome anyone that wants to leave a legit comment or observation about anything.

I am getting behind in some of my marketing efforts because I am so anxious for spring and can’t wait to be outside and ride or work in the garden. I replanted my rose bush yesterday and now I am hoping I didn’t kill it. This is it’s 3rd year, but I was tired of all the beetles every year and spraying it. I had to be very careful my dogs didn’t get near it and get poisoned. Okay enough about my Spring fever.

How many times have you heard these words or said them yourself, “I Hate This Job”? I know I hear people say this all the time and I really said it when I worked at a large home improvement store. I love this store and love shopping there so it made perfect sense to work there. Boy was I wrong.

I don’t think I have ever worked any where That I have felt more inadequate. It was a huge store and you always had to take test for everything and the customers thought just because you work there you knew everything about home improvement and all the tools. I have never felt more stupid in my whole life. I love to learn new things, but it got ridiculous.

I went to work as a cashier because I needed to get out of the house and away from this pc part time. Just to be around people and feel like I was part of the world again. It’s so easy to detach yourself when your not involved with the living or it is for me. Day in and day out just working on my internet business.

Most people don’t have the option of leaving their job. They stick in there because they have to work and support their families and don’t see a away out. If you hate your job it means you are doing something against your will and it makes you very unhappy. If you can pretend to love your job it would be much easier and productive, but it’s not always easy to pretend. If you love doing something the time tends to speed by, if you hate it time never goes fast enough.

As the saying goes you don’t always know what you have til it’s gone. Sit down and make a list of all the good points and benefits your job brings and then the bad and see which is longer. Maybe you can change some of the bad and make it better. It depends on how desperate your situation is, but there will be good and bad no matter where you work. I know this from experience and I know you know it too.

Unless you are working for yourself and you call the shots, being your own boss is great, but there is alot of responsibility, like paying taxes and paying employees and making sure everything is done on time, just to name a few. So if you can change the “I Hate This Job to I Love This Job” after awhile you might start to believe it and you will not cause so much stress in your life. Take care of yourselves, live long and prosper.

Okay this is part 2 of protecting your page rank and a few things to watch out for.
If you search the net you will find alot of spam sites and fortunately the search engines have gotten alot smarter and now are on guard for these sites. When they find them they get demoted or tossed out completely.

However some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the “spam” net and tossed from a search engine’s index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of misperception.

Webmasters have been known to use alot of keywords and make the text the same color as the background so to the naked eye you wouldn’t see them, but the search engine you would. Of course if you looked at the source you would.

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called “keyword stuffing.” It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you
can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called “Keyphrase Density” to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search
engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is “renters insurance,” be sure you don’t use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.
It is better to make your pages sound normal for for the human instead of the spiders. It is unfortunate that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply do not assign the same color of text as the background color of the page - ever!

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links “bad neighborhoods.” You cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and double-check, all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven’t linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar at
http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most pages are given a “Pagerank” which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.

Search engine ranking on your website is very important for your marketing campaigns. It’s vital if you want to stay in business and make a living online.I know last time I lost a 3 rank on one of my sites. It could have been for alot of reasons.

1. I changed my site around and didn’t use proper redirects.

2. I cloak some of my affiliate links. Hey I have to make a living too.

It is natural that search engines have responded badly to cloaking because it is a deceptive act.The problem on your end is that
sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against theft  of code, often referred to as “pagejacking.” This kind of shielding is unnecessary these
days due to the use of “off page” elements.

Like I said I do redirect some of my affiliate links and I’m sure most affiliates do in one way or another, but it is a big risk factor. So many dishonest webmaster’s have used it as a way to raise page rank in the past. Cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. I do not cloak in that respect, I redirect, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the same thing.

The page the spider sees is “cloaked” because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site’s search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page’s ranking to the top of the
list.
I’m still indexed and do get traffic from some of my keywords, but it’s very frustrating when you see your ranking totally disappear. I am hoping in April my rank for that site will come back up. Although some people declare rank is not important that could be because they are  not using accepted SEO practices themselves and have been dropped.

More on this subject tomorrow .

Traffic is the single most important aspect of a successful online based business. Each and every article you find about making your online business successful will more than likely include the importance of generating traffic. Which is all well and good. But what if you don’t know how to get traffic? What if you don’t understand the basic ways that traffic is
generated?

Generating traffic is just like anything else in life. You have to understand the basics before you can move on the more advanced techniques.

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website “you need a steady flow of traffic” because if no one goes to your site chances are you won’t be making any sales.

While there are ways to rev-up your traffic flow, many sites don’t have the resources that it takes to generate massive amounts of traffic. The good news is you don’t have to spend a cent to get traffic if you don’t want to.

All you really need is some basic know how and a lot of determination. Getting traffic isn’t always easy, especially free traffic. It will take some time, hard work and research,
but it’s free and it will be worth it in the long run.
Tip 1
Write good content for your site. Make sure that the content for your site is entertaining as well as informational. It should provide certain keywords targeted to your market as well as great quality. You can create this content yourself, use private label content or you can hire a professional content writer. The choice is up to you.

Keep in mind when adding content to your site that the search engines track down the keywords and keyword phrases in your content then index your pages based on how they are used.

Tip 2

Write articles that grab the attention of people that are interested in the product or service you provide. Try writing articles that will provide relevant information and tips that
will make them want to visit your site for more. After your have composed your article submit it to article directories with a link back to your site.

Many sites offer free submission and posting of your articles. When people find interest in your articles they have a good chance of following the track by finding out where the article originated. Include a link or a brief description of your website with the article and there’s a great probability that they will go to your site.

Again if you don’t want to write the article yourself you can use private label content or hire a content writer

Tip 3
Provide a free newsletter. This is a great way to ensure repeat visits to your site. Offer your visitors interesting and entertaining articles on your topic. Provide them with site
updates or a catalog of your products. Bribe them with a nice free gift for signing up to receive emails from you.

Then you will have the ability to contact them and build a relationship with them. You can encourage them to recommend your site to other people. The more people who sign up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your site increasing your traffic.

Tip 4

Trade links with other sites. This method may seem a bit out dated but it is still a very effective way to get free traffic.

If you don’t want to hunt down link partners yourself there are many services that will do the hard work for you. Just do a quick search for “link exchange” and you will find
many options.

Keep in mind you don’t have to stop at links you can exchange articles, ads or even product recommendations.

Tip 5

Use traffic exchanges. This is like exchanging links but on a different level. With most traffic exchanges you earn credits by viewing other people’s site or ads. Then those credits are used when someone views yours.

You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. There are many free traffic exchange programs available. Just use your search engine to find the one
that’s right for you.

Tip 6

Take advantage of online forums and online communities. The great thing about forums and online communities is that you can target a certain group that fits the certain demographic that you are looking for. You can discuss about lots of things
about the niche that you represent or offer. Another great advantage is that you know what you are getting into and you will be prepared.