Here are the top 10 factors with the ones related to links highlighted:

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Anchor Text of Inbound Links
3. Global Link Popularity of Site
4. Age of Site
5. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

Clearly, link building is hugely important and it’s something that we all need to pay attention to.  That’s why I wanted to tell you about an article written by Wiep Knol over at Wiep.net.  He has compiled a list of  69 link building strategies for 2009 that’s very inclusive and provides a lot of great link building tips.

Here’s how he breaks the list down:

• 7 internal link building strategies
• 10 beginner strategies
• 12 places to submit your site to
• 12 old school link building techniques
• 12 ways to make people write about you
• 12 common business tactics
• 4 important considerations

Probably my most favorite part of this article is the end…  Advanced Linking Strategies.  It’s my favorite because there aren’t any listed!

“There is no such thing as advanced link building. While this list already sums up quite a few different strategies, I’m pretty sure that you can easily come up with a dozen more, that are specifically suitable for your company or industry.

Eric Ward once said that link building is “one part marketing, two parts public relations, and three parts common sense”. I’d say that link building is 10% basic SEO knowledge, 20% business thinking, 30% creativity and 40% perseverance. Either way, there’s nothing advanced to it.”

Read the entire article at: Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics For 2009

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I think Santa is really just a pawn in an evil plot designed by marketers all over the world to get our money.

Santa’s Rotten Kid Problem

How many parents go out and buy gifts in the name of “Santa” just so that their children will get exactly what they asked the fat guy for when they sat on his lap two weeks prior?

Especially parents who have rotten kids! You know… the one’s that deserve and get coal in their stockings.

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Overlooked Way #1 - An Upsell:

If you’ve been in marketing for any time, you’ve probably heard of “upsells” or “bumps.” Car dealers are excellent at using this technique. Once you have agreed to buy a car you then go into the finance office. This finance guy is really another place where they try to extract as much money as possible from you; dealer financing, extended warranties, rust coating, a low-jack security system, etc. These additions will normally add as much, or more, profit to the dealer as the original sale.

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I wanted to test out the magazine style layout because I liked the idea of a blog looking more like a traditional high-end website, while still being able to use the traditional wordpress content management. Wordpress makes it sooo easy to manage your content… I love that!

Before I get into the test results, I want to make it clear that I hadn’t really planned to test this because it didn’t occur to me that using either of these blog layouts would make THAT much difference. After all, both types were professionally designed and looked pretty good.

In fact, I didn’t expect there to be any difference at all… then I started comparing the site stats for each layout type over several different niches.

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Take an idea that is currently working in one market or niche, adapt it, and move it to a different market or niche.

For example, there are lots of different service industries that are looking for ways to generate more business, leads, or profits… like carpet cleaners, travel agents, Realtors, mortgage brokers, beauty salons, network marketers, home improvement contractors, interior decorators, landscapers, etc.

Let’s say you created a guide titled, The Landscaper’s Guide to Generating More Leads and it’s selling like hotcakes to the landscaper business niche (Yes, I know my example title isn’t great, but it’s just an example!) You could easily tweak that guide to apply to a lot of other industries:

• The Carpet Cleaner’s Guide to Generating More Leads
• The Travel Agent’s Guide to Generating More Leads
• The Realtor’s Guide to Generating More Leads
• The Beauty Salon Guide to Generating More Leads
• The Network Marketer’s Guide to Generating More Leads
• The Interior Decorator’s Guide to Generating More Leads

I’m sure you get the idea. It’s really easy to take an existing product that works in a different market and adapt it to fit other markets… and savvy marketers have been doing it for years!

Think about all of the “For Dummies,” and “101 Ways to” books on the market. This is an excellent product creation idea!

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If you hear most people talk about it, they sound shocked and saddened by the whole ordeal… and it is very sad indeed.

But I’m not shocked at all. In fact, I believe that this kind of behavior is completely predictable. Before you start sending me hate mail, let me explain…
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Well, that got me to wondering if it makes a difference exactly where that personalization is placed in the email subject line… so I decided to do some testing.

I tested several of my lists and kept the subject line exactly the same except for the placement of the [firstname]. In other words, I split tested like this: (more…)

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Popups are something that I used to do, but stopped because I hate them so much as a consumer. Well, they work - so I made the business decision to go back to them.

The technology behind popups has changed quite a bit since my last dealings with them, so I did a little investigating into the ones that produce the best conversion rates and checked out some of the newer types of popups like the peel away corners or peel away ads (great for sales pages) and the ones where the background fades away (that’s the one this website uses).

Any of these types work well with my blog and sales websites, but they won’t work with my SBI websites because SBI doesn’t allow ftp access to the server (a real bummer sometimes, but other things about SBI make up for it!).

So I needed a solution that would work with SBI… and I found Floating Windows and decided to give it a try… That’s where this Floating Windows Review finally comes in.

I have to admit that my reason for trying it was more than it’s compatibility with SBI… their website is pretty slick too. Floating Windows has nice graphics, examples of both entry and exit popups, and two nice videos that show you how it all works. Their sales letter is pretty effective (you should check it out if you keep swipe files!).

Cool! I’ll give Floating Windows a shot!

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I needed the new autoresponder for a new list building method that I’m testing out and I wanted to keep the test separate from my other lists. I’ll tell you all about the list building test that I’m doing when my testing is complete… in about three weeks.

To make a long story short, I ended up having to close the 1ShoppingCart autoresponder because it wasn’t compatible with the test… through no fault on the 1ShoppingCart side.

In order to close the account, I had to actually call them on the phone and cancel. I’m normally not crazy about having to call to cancel because I like to do everything online. It’s usually much faster and less frustrating.

Well, the customer service people at 1ShoppingCart really surprised me!

They were courteous, professional, and very friendly. In fact, I’d have to say that it was a downright pleasure to speak to them!

With good customer service at such a premium in so many businesses, I thought it was worth mentioning a pleasant encounter with 1ShoppingCart.

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I’ve spent the better part of the last week analyzing my business.

I’ve delved deeply into my stats, tracked where the revenue is coming from, and analyzed my websites and traffic. Here’s what I actually came up with. (more…)

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