By: Jason Markum

One question I get asked all the time regarding search engine optimization and search engine marketing (SEO and SEM) is this; How do I promote a brand new web site on the search engines?

It’s a very good question! Most people don’t differentiate between a new web site and an old site, but there is a huge difference in how you market each of them when it comes to search engine marketing.

Why is that?

Another good question! It’s because the search engines, especially Google, view new sites different than old web sites. Google doesn’t trust a new site. It’s just not sure about it. Will the site be any good? Google doesn’t know!

So they aren’t in any especial hurry to list a new web site in their index.

That’s the first pit fall, here’s the second one…

Google like natural things. When it comes to sites, they like natural linking. It’s no mystery that Google ranks and indexes web site based on how many other sites are linking to it. Think of links as votes. The more links, the more votes. Then, the web site with the most votes wins and gets ranked higher.

BUT! Remember when I said that they like natural linking? Yes they do. And what this means is, when a new site is built, there won’t be anyone linking to it. There SHOULDN’T be anyone linking to it. Why would there be? It’s brand new, no one knows about it yet.

So in Google’s eyes, it should take TIME for a website to get linked to by other websites.

What does this mean in practical terms? A lot actually. It means that if you build a website and then the next day you go out and get two hundred other websites to link to you, Google will think that something is fishy! And in fact, something IS fishy.

Those two hundred other sites didn’t naturally find your site and link to you. Chances are those links are completely artificial. YOU posted those links by leaving forum posts, making social bookmark posts, leaving blog comments etc etc etc.

They are fake links. And Google knows this because your site just sprang into existence yesterday, it couldn’t possibly have gathered two hundred links naturally.

So what does this mean? When I build a new site, I submit it to Google Webmaster tools immediately. Then I wait a week! I do NOTHING for that week. Just let the big G meet your site and get to know it a little.

Then after that one week, go out and get one or two links. Then wait a couple of days. Then get a link per day for another week or so. Then wait another week. THEN go out and start slowly, gradually, building up links. Get two or three a day for a couple of weeks. Then get five or six a day for a couple of weeks or so, then ramp up into full steam linking strategies.

Yes, it takes a long time, sometime one to two months. But its shorter than blasting out of the gate with hundreds of links and getting sandboxes for six months into the Google Graveyard supplementary index.

Trust me!

By: Jason Markum

When it comes to Internet Marketing, one of your most important tools in the old Internet Marketing tool kit is without a doubt email marketing.

It is easily the most important aspect of most Internet Marketing done online today. Why? Because if you build up a stable, targeted email list who are eager and interested in whatever it is you are selling, you can literally continue to market to them (and thus make money off of them) forever.

Not to mention the fact that email marketing is virtually free of cost once you acquire the names on your list. Sure, it may cost you some money to build the list (say if you advertise your ‘free’ newlsetter or eBook on AdWords in order to get people to sign up for it), but I’m not talking about that, rather I am talking about the expense of clicking a button and sending your list a targeted email.

That costs virtually nothing. Yeah, you have to pay your monthly or yearly autoresponder fee, but you usually don’t have to pay ‘per email’ you send out. In that sense, email marketing is virtually free.

This is compared, of course, to the old way we had to do it, which is direct mail through the good old fashioned post office. On the Internet, an email list of five thousand might be considered quite small. But offline, mailing out a direct mail piece to five thousand people costs an enormous amount of money!

Online though, you just type out your email, click a button, an whamo! Instantly your email is sent out to your list. You can even track exactly how many people open the email, and how many people click links in the email. You can’t do that with direct mail!

So taking all of this as fact, there’s one simple question that I get asked all the time about email marketing. That question is: how often is too often when it comes to emailing my list?

Sending out an email is so easy (and free!) that people are afraid that they might just over do it. Why? Say you send out an email and that email generates an instant three thousand dollars worth of sales.

I promise you the first thing you will think when that happens to you the first time is “I just made three grand from sending out an email, will I make another three grand if I send out a email tomorrow?”. We can’t help it! And since sending out that email is so easy (and FREE) you go ahead and do it! You’d be crazy not to!

The problem is, you get in a crazy loop and soon you find yourself sending out email every day, then several times a day, and before you know it your loyal subscribers are unsubscribing faster than you can blink and your email list becomes worthless.

So what’s a good rule of thumb? Mix it up! Send offers no more than once or twice a week, but in between offers be sure to send regular email that adds value. Free stuff. Free tutorials on your industry, free tips, free eBooks. Anything your reader might find useful, be sure to give them plenty of it.

If you mix up free content (I should say free GOOD content) in between your offers, you can increase the offers gradually over time till you find the sweet spot. And you will know when that is when the time comes as long as you ease into it and learn as you go.

By: Jason Markum

Ah the eternal question in Internet Marketing! Should you submit your web site to the search engines? This debate has been raging hard for many a long years.

I get asked this question, I’d say, almost weekly. People hear so many conflicting accounts on this and there is much confusion even among some so-called experts! So today, and for all time, I am going to answer this question right here in this simple article.

Back in the day, when search engines were new and the technology unsure of itself (I am talking about around 1996 to 2002 or so) it was essentially important to submit your web site to the search engines.

Why? Because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t get indexed. The search engines didn’t do as good a job spidering new web sites (that is, FINDING new web sites) as they do today. It was far less scientific in those early days of the wild wild west of the new Internet.

Up sprang an entire industry of companies offering search engine submission services, and search engine submission software. I actually owned two of those companies, one that offered services, and one that built and sold one of the more popular search engine submission softwares of the day.

I tell you this so that you know exactly what I’m saying is true and how much money I am losing by saying it, therefore it must be true!

So here goes…today, it is absolutely not necessary to submit your web site to the search engines. So don’t go buy that service, and don’t go buy that software.

Why? Well, for several reasons. First, if your web site is a wordpress blog like SO MANY of the sites on the Internet today, then every time you make a post, your wordpress backend likely pings many places. If you have any sort of XML sitemap plugin installed, it will probably even contact the major search engines (ie Google, Yahoo, Bing) and tell them that your site has just published a new page.

So right off the bat, you are covered. But what if you don’t run wordpess? Will Google find you? Yes, just sign up for a free Google Webmaster Tools account. There you can instruct Google immediately that you have a new web site.

You can even upload your site map directly to google there. All totally free. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s hassle free, and you don’t need to pay for expensive submission software to do it. Bing has a similar feature in its free Bing webmaster tools.

And these days, those are really the only search engines you have to worry about. Google has something like 65% of all search traffic, and Bing/Yahoo has close to 30%. Thats a combined search penetration of around 95%. ALL the other “search engines” only make up 5% of search volume, so don’t bother with them. Chances are they will find you anyway after Google lists your site.

So there you have it. That myth is finally laid to rest. You do not have to submit your web site to Google using expensive software or expensive services.