The more links you have, the better -- but not all links are created equal! It’s not enough to have hundreds of links from Websites, as search engines also consider the quality of the links. For Google, the two main factors that determine a link’s quality are the “quality” of the site from which the link originates, as well as whether that site is in your site’s topic category.

Call Rich - 336-408-9075 - He will do this entire process, or a great portion of it for you! Remember, this is an important part of site maintenance! ... For most of you, this is included in your annual maintenance fee!

1. Make Sure your Site is Worth a Link - Your site must offer something of value to entice other sites to link to it. It’s easy if your site is loaded with unique information, but if all your site does is sell products or services, you’ll need to get busy creating free valuable content. Examples include how-to articles, product reviews, news about your market, tips and so on. Creating content can be tough, but there’s no way around it.

2. Get the Tools to Evaluate Prospective link Partners - Not all links are created equal. To make the most of your efforts, you don't want to spend too much time going after links from sites that the search engines don't think are valuable. While it isn't perfect, the Google Toolbar can help you decide which sites are quality link partners and which aren't. The toolbar integrates with your Internet Explorer, and displays the PageRank(TM) of each site you visit. Put simply, PageRank is a rough indicator of what Google thinks of a site.

3. Submit to Popular Directories - A good way to get your first links is by submitting to the popular directories. Start with the Open Directory and if you're willing to pay a fee, consider Yahoo! and Looksmart. Don’t ignore the smaller directories. You can easily get a few more valuable links by submitting to directories such as About, JoeAnt, GoGuides, Gimpsy and Xoron .

4. Set Up a Yahoo Group - Here’s a quick, relatively unknown way to build high quality links to your site. Yahoo Groups are one email address and a Website that allows you to share files and send newsletters to mailing lists.5. Determine the Types of Sites you Want to Trade Links With - The next step is to ask other sites for reciprocal links. This takes some effort. First, you need to figure out all of the different types of sites that could potentially trade links with you. Focus on sites that are related to your target market, but that don’t directly compete with you.

6. Locate Quality Link Partners - There are many ways to find link partners, but the easiest way to find quality link partners quickly is to start at a directory such as Open Directory. To find partners, simply start searching for terms that are related to the types of link partners you’ve decided are best (step 5 above).

7. Organize your Findings - If you're going to do it right, then take the time and prepare a spreadsheet to keep track of the following information for each site you target: URL, name and email of owner or Webmaster, URL of the page where you think your link should be added, something unique that you liked about that site, and the date of your request.

8. Make the Contact - Now that you have a list of potential link partners, go through the list and send a custom email to each one requesting that you exchange links. Keep in mind that your email approach must be personalized! This is very important! A standard or form email will be regarded as spam and never even opened. Your email message should include specific information about the recipient’s site, what you liked about it and where you want the link, so he or she knows you’re not a spammer and that you take their site seriously.

9. Signature Files and Discussion Boards - The final way you can work to build links is to participate in discussion boards and online forums that relate to your Website. Don’t try to advertise your site directly: blatant advertising is a definite taboo, and usually a violation of forum guidelines. Instead you should participate actively in the discussion as an expert or authority who gives good advice.

10. Check the Results - When you work to build links, you may need to wait weeks or even months before the links actually begin to appear. You can check for new links by going to each site and checking whether your link is there, but to make life easier, use a search engine. Simply search on “link:yoursitename.com” to see who’s linked to your site, and keep in mind that search engines update their index only about once a month.

Linking for the Longer Term - Link building requires you to plan for the long term. Building links will give you great results if you continually work to get more high quality links. There is, however, no proven quick fix for getting quality links to your site. In most cases the links you will build will stay on other sites forever, so the work you do now in getting a link from them will pay off in the long run.

Call Rich - 336-408-9075 - He will do this entire process, or a great portion of it for you! Remember, this is an important part of site maintenance! ... For most of you, this is included in your annual maintenance fee!

One very important thing that you need to remember is: the search engines like simplicity. The simpler your Web site is, the easier it is for the engine to determine what your Web site is about. And, if the search engine can determine exactly what your Web site is about, you have a better chance at top rankings under the keyword phrases that are important for your online business.

The most important part of a Web page is what appears at the very top of the page. Why? Because a search engine starts at the top of the page and begins moving down as it indexes. So, what appears in the section of your Web page is very important, because the section is at the top of the page.

I’ve mentioned one reason why the title tag is important, but there’s another reason too. The title tag is important because it almost always appears as the title of the site in the search engine results. Your description META tag may appear in the search engine results as well and is considered important by the some of the engines. So, when you create your title and description tags, remember two things: put your keyword phrase toward the beginning of the tags, and make the tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic.

So, let’s visit your site on the Web. View the source code. What’s in the section? Are your title and description tags using the keyword phrase that’s important for that particular page? Are your title and description tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic? Each page of your site should have different title and description tags, and those tags should be based on the focus of that page – what that page is really about: in other words, its keyword phrase.

Doing whatever you can to push your important keyword phrase toward the top of the page and toward the beginning of your tags is the first step toward having a successful Web site that’s ranked in the top of the search engine rankings.

For the past year, we've been researching and testing all the anti-spam strategies, resources, and methods available. During this time, we've discovered exactly what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to ridding your inbox of junk mail. ... And because you're here, you're obviously smart enough to know that it will take a small time investment to manage or eliminate your spam problem. ... So instead of having you waste more time reading this advertisement, we've written it just like we wrote our ebook-- short, simple, relevant, and concise.

1. Create a web site marketing plan - if you fail to plan then you default to a plan for failure. When designing your web site, create a plan on how to market it as well. Try to put yourself in your customers shoes when doing this....

2. Define your target market - many online marketers promote their web site aimlessly in a field which is too large i.e. they may use bulk mailing as one of their promotion strategies. ...

3. Use several promotion strategies - don't just stick to one form of promotion because you never know which one will work the best for you...

4. Promote continuously - if you want to drive constant traffic to your web site, you must promote it continuously. Web traffic is the lifeblood of your online business...

5. Calculate your return on investment (ROI) - this means keeping track of how much money you invested in your marketing plan and what profit you received in return. This will avoid wasting large sums of money thrown aimlessly into advertising. ...

6. Analyze your web site traffic - by analyzing your web site traffic, you can determine what marketing strategies are successful. You can then change them as necessary, to boost the sales or services from your site...

7. Test, monitor and track your results - to run an effective online marketing campaign, you need to constantly test what works and what doesn't...

Web site promotion strategies will differ for everyone, and will depend a lot on your product, web site and your personality. Try everything you can, record the results, and see what works for you.

Table 1. The twelve fonts studied (View a sample of each font type)

Sans Serif Fonts	Serif Fonts	Ornate Fonts
Agency FB (Agency) Arial Comic Sans MS (Comic) Tahoma Verdana	Courier New (Courier) Georgia Goudy Old Style (Goudy) Century Schoolbook (Schoolbook) Times New Roman (Times)	Bradley Hand ITC (Bradley) Monotype Corsiva (Corsiva)

TEST Reading Time Font Legibility................................... Font 'Personality' Font Type was Elegant.................... Youthful Font Business-like Font........................... General Font Preference First or Second Preference Choice

Best Font Corsiva Courier Bradley Corsiva Comic Times Arial Verdana

Next Best Font Courier Verdana Corsiva Bradley Bradley Courier Verdana / Georgia Arial / Comic

Further examining participants' preference choices revealed that Verdana, Arial, and Comic font types were the first and second preference choices of the studied font types.

Several observations can be made regarding the examined font types. First, no significant difference in actual legibility between the font types were detected. There were, however, significant differences in reading time, but these differences may not be that meaningful for most online text because these differences were not substantial. It may, on the other hand, be helpful to consider using font types that are perceived as being legible. In this study, the font types that were perceived as being most legible were Courier, Comic, Verdana, Georgia, and Times.

Applying this information can help establish the proper mood of a particular site. For example, fonts that are perceived as being business-like and elegant may be more effective for a site such as an online bank. Conversely, fonts perceived as being youthful and fun, along with having personality, may be more effective for sites directed at children, such as an online toy store. Of course, general preference is an important consideration as well, especially for longer online passages. In this study, as well as our other font studies, Arial, Verdana, and Comic fonts scored high in preference.

JoeAnt editors rate sites based on their content, how current the information is, originality, ease of navigation, and general appearance. They also provide a lot of additional information about sites, using icons to show if the sites have audio files, chat or message boards, e-commerce, games, downloads, video, or require membership for full access.

To the right of each listing are two "extras" buttons, that add a couple of really useful tools for the searcher. Clicking on the "info" button opens a new browser window, which displays the name of the JoeAnt editor who last edited the link and annotation. Scroll down, and you're presented with two very cool options. To better determine the authority and validity of a site, you can click a preconfigured link to automatically run a BetterWhoIs search to get domain registration information about the site's owner. Alternately, you can enter search terms in a form that uses Google to search that site only for your keywords. Both of these features are great time-savers.

JoeAnt is compiled and maintained by about 40 volunteer editors, most of whom have worked on other directories. The service has only been accepting applications for editors for about three weeks, and hopes to attract many others as the directory becomes better known.

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Get Those Visitors - The first part of the process is getting visitors to your site through search engine promotion and other traditional marketing methods. As you increase your visibility, more visitors will come to see what the commotion is all about.

Keep Those Visitors - The second part of the process is keeping them there. If you provide quality information that is easy to access, you are giving the visitor what they are looking for. Don't give your visitors a reason to click away. Quality content means happy visitors, and with enough happy visitors, you become an "authority" on your topic. Having a site recognized as an authority means good ranking in the search engines.

What Results Can I Expect: Google PageRank - A primary example of how this works is Google's PageRank. One of the most important aspects of ranking for Google and other search engines is good content. Google wants their search engine users to find what they are looking for, a successful search experience for their users. The keywords included in your site are important; after all, those are the terms your potential visitors are searching for. Now not only do you have your catalog pages and ordering information, but you also have a more in-depth treatment of the topics you have addressed in your articles, book reviews, and other materials. More keywords in more places means you have a better chance of matching a potential visitor's search.

So how can you "rise above" the other online gardening bookstores out there in the search engine listings? Link popularity can be the next important piece that allows you to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack. All other things being equal, search engines that pay attention to link popularity will list your site higher in their results if you have more links coming back from other sites which have a focus related to yours. In other words, if your gardening bookstore has a number of backlinks pointing to it from the websites of gardening clubs, nurseries, and so forth, your site will be seen as more authoritative. The more authoritative a website looks to Google through link popularity, the higher that site will rank. After all, if all these other gardening-related sites point to your site, they are demonstrating that you have something important to say. That is another reason why it is important to have your material published on other websites.

Conclusion - Maintaining good content is a stepping-stone for your visitors to delve in deeper to your website. Taking the time to build your content and provide for your audience will pay off in good search engine ranking and returning visitors.

Overture - No major changes at Overture.
Inktomi - No recent changes at Inktomi.
HotBot - No recent changes at HotBot.
AltaVista - No changes at AltaVista.

Fast - Fast adds Geotargeting and new advanced search operators. On January 21st Alltheweb.com announced they are now pre-selecting the default language based on the country from which the searches originate. Alltheweb allows users to override the default language if users make the change in the Customize Preferences section. Click here for info!

ODP - No important changes this month at ODP.
LookSmart - No significant changes at LookSmart.

Yahoo - Yahoo Renewal Billing Reminder. Many Yahoo directory listings coming up for renewal because sites submitted after December 28, 2001 are subject to the annual fee. Listings submitted prior to this date are "grandfathered" in and not charged a renewal fee.

Is renewal worth the $299? - Yahoo is one of the most important directories on the Internet. And it's the starting point or seed for many search engines. Therefore, although this is an intangible reason (hard to quantify) for being listed, not being listed in Yahoo may have effects that are also difficult to measure.