========================================== Business Marketing Bulletin ========================================== February 5, 2008, Issue #87 Terri Seymour, Publisher http://www.seymourproducts.com mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com © 2008 All Rights Reserved Worldwide ========================================== In This Issue ========================================== 1. Top Sponsor Ads 2. Privacy Policy 3. What's New? 4. Resource-A-Day 5. Freebies & Biz Helpers 6. eCommerce Marketing Tip 7. Feature Ad 8. Feedback 9. Article: The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions 10. Feature Ad 11. This 'n That - Little Bit of Everything! 12. Subscription Management & Contact Info ========================================== Top Sponsor Ads ========================================== Promote your home business for free with WAHM Articles! Start building traffic and generating publicity today. http://www.wahm-articles.com/learnmore.php *************************** Free Download - eBay Workshop Collection The workshop titles included in the ebook are... *From Hobby to Home Business *How to Compete in a Crowded Market *Understanding the Basics to Importing Physical Products to Sell.........and much more! You can download it for free here: http://www.worldwidebrands.com/wwb/kh_freeebookWorkshops.asp?kbid=1028 ********** ATTENTION ********** You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it. As a subscriber you have acknowledged that there will be both in-house and third party advertising as part of our content. This allows BMB to remain free. If you would like to be removed from this list, please see instructions at the end of this newsletter. Seymour Products values your privacy. http://www.seymourproducts.com/privacy.shtml Seymour Products is hosted by ICDSoft Hosting. No set-up fees, 1000 MB of space, $72 per year, plus numerous features! Incredible support system...minutes, not hours! You have a bigger plan option as well. http://www.icdsoft.com/?aff=terriseymour ========================================== What’s New? ========================================== Hello everyone and welcome new subscribers, Did everyone watch the Super Bowl? Congrats to all the Giants fans and condolences to the Patriot fans! I didn't watch this year, but I was hoping the Giants would win. ;-) Well, it is the dead of winter, but I am already getting spring fever! Spring fever may affect our business as it could draw us away from our work and cause us to lose focus. Here are some tips on how to handle this: http://www.zeromillion.com/entrepreneurship/freelance-tips-spring-fever-and-productivity.html In the News Seven Top Online Marketing Trends for 2008 http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628001 New Ebooks this Week: Resell Ebooks Just $1.00 Each! Canvas Painting 101 (crafts & hobbies) Vintage Cars (cars/driving) Coupon Codes (money/finances) How to Improve Self-Confidence (self-help) How to Have a Healthy Dog (pets) Craigslist Advertising Revealed (int. marketing) Spirit & Music (music/dancing) Travels in Alaska (travel) The Woman Beautiful (beauty/fashion) eBook of Animal Ghosts (ghosts & the unknown) http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell **Weekly Subscriber Special** "Pick-a-Pack!" Pick a pack of any five ebooks, order them and then get two ebooks of your choice, Free! Seven ebooks for just $5.00. Pick as many packs as you like for more free ebooks. Offer good through February 8, 2008! NOTE: New eBooks listed above are not eligible for Weekly Subscriber Specials. Join the Seymour Products Trivia Challenge! Find the hidden trivia question and be the third person to send in the correct answer for a free feature ad in next week's issue of the Business Marketing Bulletin. Send your answer to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=answer Congratulations to Donie Salazar for being last week's trivia challenge winner. Last week’s Q: I was born in New York, USA in 1949. I have been nominated for three Oscars. I am probably most famous for my role of Ellen Ripley, who I have portrayed four times. One of my more recent roles has been that of Linda Freeman in "Snow Cake" (2006). Who Am I? Last Week’s A: Sigourney Weaver Join in the fun and try to win a free feature ad. Good luck all! If you know anyone who could benefit from this ezine, please feel free to forward them a copy in its entirety. Thank you. If you would like to advertise in the BMB, please visit: http://www.seymourproducts.com/newsletter/advertise.shtml for more information. Advertising prices are as low as $2.00. I am also looking for ad swaps from other ezine publishers. BMB goes out to 865 subscribers. ========================================== Resource-A-Day ========================================== Today's Resource: How to Make Money by Being an Affiliate http://www.resource-a-day.com/ez/nov/27.html?Terri Join this program for free and earn money as well as getting resources delivered to your inbox everyday! http://www.resource-a-day.net/member/index.cgi?TerriSeymour ========================================== Freebies & Biz Helpers ========================================== If you haven't yet done so, be sure and download our new free ebook. It also comes with Master Resell Rights. You can sell it or give it away to your visitors, subscribers, etc. http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell/dl/free.zip *********** Trade Shows are a great way to get your business name out there and do some networking. Here are some tips on how to prepare for a succesful trade show: http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/events-marketing-trade-shows/3900635-1.html ****** Post your ad on the Free Advertising Blog http://www.freeadvertisingblog.com/ ****** Free Download: Free Sticky Notes Free Sticky Notes is a new way to record, keep and manage important information, dates and events using desktop sticky notes. http://www.freestickynotes.com/ ****** Write Better Ads - Do It Free! http://www.WriteBetterAds.com ******* ========================================== eCommerce Marketing Tip ========================================== Use holidays in your marketing campaign. Give away free gifts. Send little holiday greetings to your visitors and customers. For Valentine's Day, send them a rose pen with a special discount coupon attached, or maybe a small gift in the shape of a heart with a special deal. Use your imagination and show your customers you appreciate them! ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== Are YOUR Ads Making Money? Competition's High but My Prices are Down-To-Earth! Quality, Affordable & Friendly Ad-Writing Services! http://www.freewebs.com/suz1of6/ ========================================== Feedback ========================================== Please send in your comments, suggestions, questions, etc to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=feedback We appreciate all feedback, good or bad! I am happy to buy your offer as you have been extremely helpful to me today instead of just referring me to a course that I have to pay for if I need help. Thank you! * Kate Thanks for the great prices! * Jacqueline ========================================== Feature Article ========================================== The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions © 2008 David Eaves Submitting to directories is a great way to build links and increase your search engine rankings. In semi-competitive industries it can produce great results. If you add article creation and social media marketing into the link building equation, you can achieve great results for any industry. The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions Free or Paid Directories? When choosing directories going for the paid ones can be better, mainly because the links seem to last a lot longer. Many of the free directories seem to disappear or delete links after a year or so. However, there are a few free directories out there that should always be used - directories that have stood the test of time. Niche or General Directories? Submitting to a combination of both niche and general directories is usually a good idea. For most industries there are a variety of niche directories out there - the best way to find them is through a search engine. Do a search on Google, MSN or Yahoo for directories in your niche area - those that come up in the first few pages of results are usually the best ones to use. With general directories it's better to go for those that are more established. The older a directory is, the better. PageRank - Does It Still Matter? Because directories are generally quite large, they need a certain amount of PageRank to get all of their pages indexed properly. However a high PageRank isn't the be-all and end-all. Google's recent crackdown on directories has made visible PageRank even more irrelevant when it comes to choosing directories. There are directories out there that have no PageRank whatsoever that can offer value. If a directory is ranking well in the search engines then you can rest assured that it has enough PageRank. If you're unsure then check how many links it has via Yahoo! Site Explorer or another link popularity checker. Anchor Text It's always best to get the main search phrases that you are targeting in the links to your site. However this isn't always possible and unfortunately many of the best directories won't let you do this. Sometimes you can get around this problem by slipping in a search phrase at the end of your company name. Before submitting, have a good look around a directory and get a feel for what you can and can't get away with. Some directory owners will let you use a search phrase on its own, whereas others are very strict and will only use your business/website name. In between you have those where you might just be able to slip a search phrase in. Doing your homework comes in handy - if you try to use a search phrase on its own and they change it to your business/website name then it's very unlikely you'll be able to get them to change it to your website name with a search phrase at the end. If you'd submitted it like that in the first place you may have got away with it. Always try to get one of your search phrases in and vary the anchor text as much as possible - this will appear more natural to the search engines. Varying Your Description Many directories will provide you with your own page about your business. If you have the same description on every page across different directory websites, then many of these will be seen as duplicate content by the search engines and your links will get devalued. To avoid this, write a unique and substantial description for every single directory (200+ characters works best). Make sure the descriptions accurately mirror your products and services and that they read well. Deep Linking Many directories allow you to add extra links directly to internal pages of your website. You should take turns in linking to different pages of your website using different variations of the phrases you're targeting on each page. Using the same anchor text to link to the same page over and over again will appear unnatural to the search engines and this could work against you. How Many Directories Should You Submit To? There's no fixed number of directories that you should get listed in. Work out a 12 month directory submission budget for each site and then do so many each week or month for the full duration. When you're building links to your site via directories or any other method, you should do it over time. Submitting to 100 directories in a week and then forgetting about it won't be as effective as spreading the 100 directory submissions over a 3 month period. The Top 10 Directories Finally, here's a list of the top free and paid general directories to get you started. 5 of the best free directories include: Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/) World Site Index (http://www.worldsiteindex.com/) Domaining.in (http://www.domaining.in/) Web World (http://www.webworldindex.com/) Search Sight (http://www.searchsight.com/) 5 of the best paid directories include: Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/) Best of the Web (http://botw.org/) Business.com (http://www.business.com/) Aviva (http://www.avivadirectory.com/) Ezilon (http://www.ezilon.com/) About The Author David Eaves has been working in the search engine optimisation industry for the last 5 years. More of his articles can be found at his SEO blog. http://www.seoco.co.uk/ ************** If you would be interested in any of my articles for reprint or reference you can see the complete list at http://www.seymourproducts.com/articles/index.shtml Feel free to use any of the articles you feel are appropriate for your business. ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== Get more traffic with this free program! http://www.trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?659014 ========================================== This ‘n That - A Little Bit of Everything! ========================================== March for Babies - Get involved and make a difference! http://www.marchforbabies.org/# I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon. * Author Unknown Success is more permanent when you achieve it without destroying your principles. * Walter Cronkite New Twists on Valentine's Day Gifts http://weddings.about.com/cs/gifts/a/valentinesgift1.htm This week's riddle: What Am I? I am slim and tall, Many find me desirable and appealing. They touch me and I give a false good feeling. Once I shine in splendor, But only once and then no more. For many I am "to die for". What am I? Answer at the end of the ezine. ========================================== Subscription Management ========================================== Subscriptions to this weekly ezine are free. 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We disclaim any responsibility and/or all liability arising out of, or relating to, any item listed in this ezine, and/or websites. ========================================== Answer to riddle: A Cigarette