The current prices are:
$39.90 for a top level category (e.g. Web directory - Travel)
$29.90 for a 2nd second level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations)
$19.90 for a third level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia)
$9.90 for a 4th level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia - Thailand).
The new prices will be effective Feb.1, 2006:
$69.90 for a top level category (e.g. Web directory - Travel)
$35.90 for a 2nd second level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations)
$18.90 for a third level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia)
$9.90 for a 4th level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia - Thailand).
The pricing hierarchy is set up so that eople getting listed on deeper pages get the same value as people getting listed in top level categories. However that's not happening with the 39/29/19/9.90 prices).
As a result, too many people are asking me questions like "Can my site about tourist attractions in Athens go in the top level travel category?" The reason so many people ask is because the top level categories are a better deal than the deep pages.
So, the new prices should help me fix the problem that some webmasters running general sites get better deals than others running niche sites. You can still submit before Feb 1. to get the old prices on jtrotta.com.
There's an interesting thread over at DP regarding marketing on myspace.
It seems that some people found it to be too much work, too little reward while other people see it as a good source of traffic. The key seems to be reach, with tactics for getting "friends" ranging from bots to pictures of barely dressed women in the profile.
One of the complaints that got me curious was that myspace users are young (which reminds me of my 17 year old cousin telling me about myspace). Young people might be interested in my upcoming site on dating culture...
So the question is do I invest my own time? Probably not. If I can, I'd rather invest a little money, and get an expereinced myspace person to use myspace to promote my site. I'd consider asking my cousin, but with no marketing experience she might end up getting herself banned. Then I'd feel bad.
A few days ago I was complaining about hostgator.com support, but they did come through. I had to pay 15.00 for a restore of my sites, but that's OK. I'm not sure why it took so long for them to recommend the restore or why it took so long to have it done once I had ordered it, but it's harder to complain when your sites are up and running smoothly.
Here are some phrases you can search for to find link partners. The quotations are used to make sure results are relevant, but keep in mind that some people don't use articles, so there are really two versions. For example "Add a link" + keyword AND "Add link" + keyword.
"Add a link" + "your keyword(s)"
"Add a site" + "your keyword(s)"
"Add a URL" + "your keyword(s)"
"Submit a link" + "your keyword(s)"
"Submit a site" + "your keyword(s)"
"Submit a URL" + "your keyword(s)"
"Suggest a link" + "your keyword(s)"
"Suggest a site" + "your keywords(s)"
"Suggest a URL" + "your keyword(s)"
"your keywords" + "directory"
"your keywords" + "directories"
keyword reciprocal
keyword exchange
keyword add site
keyword resources
keyword links
"your industry" + add url
"your industry" + add site
"your industry" + add link
"your industry" + suggest url
"your industry" + suggest site
"your industry" + add link
"related sites" + your keyword
"related urls" + your keyword
If your site doesn't look too commercial, do a search for your keywords on .edu domains. Many of these are woefully out of date, but some are current and happy to link to high quality sites that expand on their content.
Several of my reciprocal link directories are with hostgator.com because their shared accounts have unlimited domains and they got good reviews. However, my recent expereince with hostgator.com has been very frustrating.
A couple of days ago I thought my WSNlinks directories had been hacked because there were numerous php and template errors as well as links to web sites i've never heard of.
Hostgator.com support told me there had been a general php exploit but that their security would be blocking future exploits. That told me, my sites hadn't exactly been hacked, it was some kind of server issue. I asked how to fix it.
They said reupload the directory scripts, which I did. The PHP errors went away, but not the template errors. I asked again how to fix it. They said it was a problem with my css.
I said it can't be only my css (the script's css works fine on other servers as it used to on hostgator.com), as I've explained before there are foreign links in my template. How can I fix it?
They said "I would order a restore". So I did. Now I got an email that says "we may not be able to restore your sites the way they were before the exploit because we recently updated the backups.
I'm thinking hostgator.com support people are not getting the job done. I've done everything they told me to do and my sites are still broken. I told htem how disappointed I am with their support, considering that their support has been giving me "solutions" but that support hasn't been able to solve my problem.
I'm working with someone who is very bright and new to online marketing to promote my new site on dating culture (which launches next week). This is the introduction to online marketing I sent her:
The idea with online marketing is to get people to visit your web site. Online stores have to make sure to get visitors are interested in their product(s) but we don't have that problem (or at least it's not a big problem). We're promoting a free site that contains articles about dating culture.
There are four main ways to get visitors to a web site:
1. advertising - this includes banner advertising and the more popular pay per click advertising. Free sites don't usually advertise much.
2. links - we want websites to link to our site, especially websites with visitors interested in dating culture.
3. search engines - Being #1 in the search engines is every webmasters dream. When your site ranks first for an important keyword, you get a lot of traffic for your site.
4. Word of mouth can be good too, especially if you can get articles about your site in newspapers and other publications.
We'll be focusing on 2 and 4. Doing well with #2 will naturally lead to #3, good search engine rankings. I can pay for link-building, so if you get webmasters to link from their site to mine, I'll pay (we'll talk more about the value of links later).
Now we can't start until the site is presentable (I probably need one more week to get things together) but in the meantime, you might consider which websites attract visitors that might be interested in reading about dating culture in English.
Do you have any questions so far?
If you're familiar with Seth Godin's Purple Cow theory, the idea that to stand out you have to be really different, you might appreciate this link exchange request:
Hi,This is Jonathan, the webmaster for http://www.eslsociety.com . . .
I've literally been awake all night, scouring the web for other esl/efl related sites so that I can contact people like you about an important opportunity for esl/efl related webmasters.
Did you know that the next Google pagrank update is scheduled to happen right around the 25th of this month?
As you know, pagerank is an important factor in determining how high up your site ranks in Google Search. The higher up in the results, the more traffic you get. Being in the first page of Googles search results for ESL/EFL and related terms can explode your websites popularity and traffic overnight.
These pagerank updates with Google usually happen only once every three months or so. Therefore, it's really important that anyone who is trying to increase their search presence and traffic act NOW.
What determines pagerank? There are lots of thinks, such as on page search engine optimization, etc. But the #1, MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR in obtaining high Google pagerank is relevant links to your site.
What makes a link more relevant? There are all sorts of things. The most important, are the pagerank of the site that's linking to you, and the anchor text of the link. For example, if you want to rank for the term EFL, you need good links from high quality sites associated with "EFL", and you need those links to be in the form of: a href =yoursite.com EFL Site!
The more high quality links you have from great sites, with relevant anchor text, the higher up you'll climb in the search results.
So here's my offer to you: You can exchange links with The World ESL Society automatically. We've got a special script up at http://www.eslsociety.com and all you have to do is enter the URL of your link to us, and your website address, description, etc. As long as it finds the link back to ESL Society, it will automatically publish your link.
I've been quietly working behind the scenes for this next update for months now. I want to show you what I've gotten done so far. Go to http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_prediction right now. This site polls the various Google Data-Centers to predict your pagerank for the next update. If you enter www.eslsociety.com you'll see that we're shooting from a PR of 0 (zero) to a predicted 5 on this update! I'm really pleased about this, and I expect that by the time the update comes around, it'll be closer to 7 or 8, with all of the off-site SEO that I'm doing right now. Check out www.eslteachertraining.com too. Same thing. Heck, better check your site while you're there!
I figure that once the links are live, it will take Google at least 5-7 days to get those links indexed. That's cutting it awfully close to the 25th . . .
We've got a very limited time to do this before the next Google PR Update. This one is going to be BIG! So let's act now. Go to http://www.eslsociety.com and set up the link exchange right now. If you have any problems, just let me know and I'll be happy to manually create the link.
. . And while I've got you here - I want to offer you another way to get a great link from a site that will be at LEAST PR6 for ESL/EFL with this next update and help you make ALOT OF MONEY!:
We're almost ready for the public launch of our ESL Teacher Certification program at http://www.eslteachertraining.com and right now we're just getting the site ready, and finishing up with reviews of our content/course delivery system from some of the best names in the ESL/EFL/Linguistics industry. This course is really going to revolutionize the EFL Industry, as a whole, and it MUCH more difficult than most of the other online certification programs out there. The delivery is also done with a totally unique and fresh approach, which utilizes peer review, teamwork, heavy research and writing, etc.
What we're looking for is people who can provide brief reviews of the training course. 2 or 3 sentences should be fine.
Now - We're not going to give anyone access to the actual course anymore for free. That phase of testing is done, and we've tweaked the material based on the suggestions of those professionals who have reviewed the material for us. But, you can get a really good idea of the content of the course by downloading this free e-book that' we provided at the onset of this project:
(click to download now!)
You can feel free to distribute this to anyone you like via your website, blog, mailing list, etc. to help you build valuable relationships with your readers. This is a great collection of material, and will really benefit the novice, and even advanced ESL/EFL teacher.
And if that's not good enough, here are the GREAT parts of the offer:
If you provide us with a simple review, your name, possibly a photograph if you're willing, and your website address, we'll put ANOTHER link back to your site on http://www.eslteachertraining.com. Did you check the pagerank prediction for this site too? It's going to go through the roof in a matter of days. That's free links from two sites that are going to rank HIGH for ESL/EFL, and will continue to rank higher and higher.
Now here comes the part of the offer that will really get you motivated. We've set up an affiliate program for the ESL/EFL Teacher certification course. The course itself is ready to go, and we're ready to accept new sign ups, but we're waiting a few more days to fill out the advertising and website. Then we'll launch a massive advertising campaign.
Lots of people are looking for ways to monetize their ESL/EFL related site. The World ESL Society exists to serve the broader English teaching community, and we've always tried to give away as much as possible toward that end. So we've set up this affiliate program to help you make more money with your site.
Our Affiliate Program Pays
75.00$ on Level1 of Every Sale!That's right. 75 dollars per sign-up! Do you think you're going to make that kind of money with Adsense, Amazon, or whatever other affiliate scheme you may be trying right now? NO WAY. Take a look at the commission that other online TEFL course providers are offering. IT'S A PITTANCE! We're teachers too, and we know how tight money can be on our salaries, and that's why we've decided to create the largest commission payout in the ESL/EFL industry.
So let's get busy.
If you want to exchange links with the World ESL Society and send your traffic through the roof starting with this next Google update, go to http://www.eslsociety.com and set up your reciprocal link.
If you want an even more valuable 1 way link from eslteachertraining.com, just take a look at the book above, which is the basis for our courses, and give us a review with your name, photo if possible, and website address. Send it to info@eslsociety.com and your link will be up within a day!
If you want to start earning huge comission checks just for referring people to a valuable service that will strengthen their career path, and make them better teachers, go to http://www.eslteachertraining.com and sign up for our affiliate program right now. And feel free to distribute that free e-book as well. The people who have seen it already have all given really great feedback, and really seemed to appreciate it. I know of several recruiters and schools who are using it to help their teachers, as well.
My new site is going to feature articles on dating culture; for example did you know that physical intimacy develops more slowly for young couples in Korea (Many of my university students were shocked at the idea of kissing goodnight on the first date and insisted that this would take from 1 week to 2 months in a typicl Korean relationship).
So the question is where can I get links? Well with ads on my site, maybe nowhere but directories. But with an ad-free site, maybe Education sites, cultural studies sites, etc.
It's true that a content site with no ads will lose money, but after it's PR 6 and gets lots of traffic a few paid links from dating sites, or a couple of well blended Adsense units could be considered.
The tip here is to look for links before putting up ads.
So my ESL web site has finally carcked the top ten for English as a second language on Google. Sure it's coming in at #10, but that's better than where I've been and the competition is pretty tough. Still #35 for ESL.
Surprisingly, while Google rankings get better my Yahoo rankings dropped a bit. Where I used to be on the first page I'm now #14 for English as a second language. I dropped all the way to 39 for ESL.
I haven't done a whole lot to make this happen. I've actually been focusing on bigger money sites like my travel site.
http://www.seo-search-engine-ranking.com/ad_network_222.php