Gurada

It’s not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed. Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an ebook. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today – innovative thinkers who can make the leap into the new millennium and figure out how to solve old problems in a new way. Ebooks are a new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

Let’s say you already have a brilliant idea, and the knowledge to back it up that will enable you to write an exceptional ebook. You may be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen wondering, “Why? Why should I go through all the trouble of writing my ebook when it’s so impossible to get anything published these days?

Well, let me assure you that publishing an ebook is entirely different than publishing a book in print. Let’s look at the specifics of how the print and cyber publishing industry differ, and the many reasons why you should take the plunge and get your fingers tapping across those keyboards!

Submitting a print book to conventional publishing houses or to agents is similar to wearing a hair shirt 24/7. No matter how good your book actually is, or how many critique services and mentor writers have told you that “you’ve got what it takes,” your submitted manuscript keeps coming back to you as if it is a boomerang instead of a valuable mine of information.

Perhaps, in desperation, you’ve checked out self-publishing and found out just how expensive a venture it can be. Most “vanity presses” require minimal print runs of at least 500 copies, and even that amount will cost you thousands of dollars. Some presses’ minimal run starts at 1,000 to 2,000 copies. And that’s just for the printing and binding. Add in distribution, shipping, and promotional costs and – well, you do the math. Even if you wanted to go this route, you may not have that kind of money to risk.

Let’s say you already have an Internet business with a quality website and a quality product. An ebook is one of the most powerful ways to promote your business while educating people with the knowledge you already possess as a business owner of a specific product or service.

For example, let’s say that you’ve spent the last twenty-five years growing and training bonsai trees, and now you’re ready to share your knowledge and experience. An ebook is the perfect way to reach the largest audience of bonsai enthusiasts.

Ebooks will not only promote your business – they will help you make a name for yourself and your company, and establish you as an expert in your field. You may even find that you have enough to say to warrant a series of ebooks. Specific businesses are complicated and often require the different aspects to be divided in order for the reader to get the full story.

Perhaps your goals are more finely tuned in terms of the ebook scene. You may want to build a whole business around writing and publishing ebooks. Essentially, you want to start an e-business. You are thinking of setting up a website to promote and market your ebooks. Maybe you’re even thinking of producing an ezine.

One of the most prevalent reasons people read ebooks is to find information about how to turn their Internet businesses into a profit-making machine. And these people are looking to the writers of ebooks to provide them with new ideas and strategies because writers of ebooks are usually people who understand the new cyberspace world we now live in. Ebook writers are experts in Internet marketing campaigns and the strategies of promoting and distributing ebooks. The cyberspace community needs its ebooks to be successful so that more and more ebooks will be written.

You may want to create affiliate programs that will also market your ebook. Affiliates can be people or businesses worldwide that will all be working to sell your ebooks. Think about this? Do you see a formula for success here?

Figure out what your subject matter is, and then narrow it down. Your goal is to aim for specificity. Research what’s out there already, and try to find a void that your ebook might fill.

What about an ebook about a wedding cake business? Or an ebook about caring for elderly pets? How about the fine points of collecting ancient pottery?

You don’t have to have three masters degrees to write about your subject. People need advice that is easy to read and easily understood. Parents need advice for dealing with their teenagers. College students need to learn good study skills – quickly. The possibilities are endless.

After you’ve writtten your ebook

Getting your ebook out is going to be your focus once you’ve finished writing it, just as it is with print books. People will hesitate to buy any book from an author they’ve never heard of. Wouldn’t you?

The answer is simple: give it away! You will see profits in the form of promoting your own business and getting your name out. You will find affiliates who will ask you to place their links within your ebook, and these affiliates will in turn go out and make your name known. Almost every single famous ebook author has started out this way.

Another powerful tool to attract people to your ebook is to make it interactive. Invent something for them to do within the book rather than just producing pages that contain static text. Let your readers fill out questionnaires, forms, even crossword puzzles geared to testing their knowledge on a particular subject. Have your readers hit a link that will allow them to recommend your book to their friends and associates. Or include an actual order form so at the end of their reading journey, they can eagerly buy your product.

When people interact with books, they become a part of the world of that book. The fact is just as true for books in print as it is for ebooks.

That’s why ebooks are so essential. Not only do they provide a forum for people to learn and make sense of their own thoughts, but they can also serve to promote your business at the same time.

Jane runs the website www.home-industry.com – a work at home directory which regularly reviews and updates details of the latest internet home business ideas and opportunities.

To get your own money making website set up free visit: www.home-industry.com/pips.html

To receive a free email marketing course send a blank email to: home-industry@getresponse.com

In her latest publication, the “Free eBook Goddess”, Stephanie Woolford-Bales, reveals her tips and strategies for succeeding online using the 1 Step System. She begins by telling her story from surviving an abusive marriage and putting herself on the street to get out of it to spending the last eighteen months building her online business through her eBooks.

But what has really exploded her business and finally brought her the income so many online marketers are looking for is the 1 Step System brought online just this year by MLM genius, Rod Stinson.

In her latest eBook, 1 Step System Success Secrets she explains the 1 Step System in detail from its key product, the Ultimate Marketers Tool Kit to the very lucrative payout schedule for associates who sign up and then bring others on board. She provides all the tools needed to not only make this system work, but after going through it readers will have the real “nut & bolts” knowledge of how to drive real, targeted traffic to any web site for any product. Her “no BS” forthright manner cuts through all the hype we see so much of on the web. Her background in the legal profession delivers credible evidence that this lady know what she’s talking about. As Stephanie says herself: “I am LIVING PROOF that the 1 Step System works.”

Throughout her step-by-step guidelines she offers access to the very resources that have worked for her so that anyone with a computer and the determination to stick with it can build a profitable online income. She admits that earning a living online is not the “cake walk” internet gurus would have you believe and she delivers some of the most hard-hitting explanations of why I’ve ever heard. But through it all, Stephanie provides hope to those of us out here floundering in information overload to the point that analysis paralysis sets in and we end up doing nothing because it’s all to overwhelming to digest.

Finally, a blueprint for success! Who knew?

Most marketers would charge $50 or $100 for the quality of information she provides in this one-of-a-kind tool but her experience has taught Stephanie that by sharing with others success comes back to her multiplied and everyone benefits along the way. So, she gives her book away for free. No strings, no nothing! Read it and take or leave it, it’s up to you.

I applaud Stephanie Woolford-Bales for her hard-learned efforts in putting 1 Step System Success Secrets together and thank her for sharing her experience and her book with us.

Karen Morrison is new to internet marketing and believes that everyone has to start somewhere. This is her first book review but she hopes you don’t hold that against her!

Please visit my web site: http://www.online-income-resources.com/
and join me on my journey!

Past life regression, also known as PLR, may uncover the reasons why we have arguments with fellow workers in our current lifetime or why we are worried of certain situations. You have work colleagues around you in your current lifetime that you have astonishingly known before, just imagine being able to find out what happened and what your relationship was to them at that past time and destroy blocks that plague you in your current lifetime and even unearth talents and bring them into your present lifetime. Past lifetime regression, also known as PLR, is awesome.

When you are having a past lifetime regression session you will regress to the lifetime you will most need to learn about in your current time. This is fantastic and can describe a considerable deal about your current lifetime and help you should to move forward with your life with a greater understanding of yourself, your life and the boyfriends around you.

You can often also identify why you are the individual that you are, now that is superb. If you appreciate nature perhaps you were once a farmer, if you love to travel perhaps you were a gypsy. Instead of dampening down our strengths we should embrace every single one of them. Heal your current problems with Past Life Regression.

Each and every experience is mind-blowing and unique. Other participants have went to places they had lived in before and knew where to go.

Do you have a new website? Are you new to the whole website scene? Perhaps you’ve heard talk about backlinks or inbound links. What are they, and just how important are they?

Well, let me say this: they can be the one most important factor when it comes to your Google PageRank. If you don’t know what that is, it is a way that Google has of “grading” your site, for lack of other words. When your web page gets ranked it is with a value of PR1 to PR10, with the 10 being the highest.

If you aren’t familiar with the Google PageRank, download the Google Toolbar from their website. Once that is done, if you look to the right of the Google search button, you will see a green bar with the word PageRank above it. You can gage a web site’s page rank by where the green bar is within that space; half way would be a PR5, while all the way would be a PR10. You probably won’t see too many of the latter, but that is exactly what you want to strive for.

What you want, as a webmaster/webmistress, is to have a high quantity of high ranked websites linking back to yours. These are backlinks. Their linking to you is tantamount to their voting for you. And the higher their PR, the more weight their “vote” holds. So, what you want is to have a large number of high ranking websites link to yours. Once this is accomplished, your site will be seen as having votes from websites that have already proven their importance. Consequently, this will move you up in rank. It’s sort of like osmosis. Or being guilty by association, but in a good way.

Now you can go about the acquisition of these backlinks in a variety of ways.

Some believe that the best way to accomplish this is to study your competition. Do a search for websites using your keywords. Take a good look at the top five results. This is your direct competition. There are numerous ways and tools to help you look at the sites that link to your competitors (these are the same sites that you want to link to you). One easy way is to use your Google Toolbar. Simply type in: link:(your competition’s URL), i.e. link:www.theirsite.com. The results will determine who you will contact regarding linking back to your site.

Once you have the results, what you will do in this scenario, is to find a contact for each website. If you find none, you can try to address your correspondence (which we’ll get to in a moment) to webmaster@(URL), i.e. webmaster@ theirURL.com (I have put an unneeded space there for editorial purposes). Sometimes this works and, honestly, sometimes it doesn’t.

Once you have a list of contacts, you want to write a nice little email asking them if they would be so kind as to link to your website. The truth is that most will want you to return the favor. This isn’t as good as a one way link, but better than no link at all!

When you contact them it is best to be both complimentary and courteous. Let them know that you have visited their site, why you like it, and that you would like for them to link to your website. You will find that quite a few of the sites you visit will have a page or two already dedicated to link exchanges. That’s fine, it saves you some time. Keep a record of who you have contacted. Many webmasters believe that it is looked upon more kindly if you place their link on your website first. You can always remove it if they are not interested. Your email might say something like this:

Dear Webmaster/Webmistress:

My name is (your name), and I am the webmaster/webmistress of (yoursite.com). I have noticed your website, because it is so similar to mine. My site is also about {whatever topic pertains). I was just wondering if you would be interested in exchanging links (I say this because it is easier to get them to respond if you are going to return the favor, but you don’t have to). In the event that you are interested, I have already placed a link to your website on mine. You will find it at: (exact location of where you have put their link) i.e. http:// www. yoursite/links.htm, or whatever the location ends up being (note that again I have placed a couple of unnecessary spaces).

At this point you can either ask them to get back to you or you can provide them with the information that they will need, in the event they take you up on your offer. You will need to supply them with the title of your website , a description, your URL and perhaps the html code you would like them to use. Make sure to ask them for a response.

Again, you need to keep track of all of this, and the sooner you do it the more likely you will be to make it a habit. If you fall behind, you may be forever catching up

Now, the next thing that you want to do is to take every site that accepts your invitation and submit said site to Google. By doing this, you get Google to crawl that site and see their link to you. Brilliant! Does this sound like a lot of work? You bet it is! But it doesn’t cost you a thing (except, of course your time, which can be very valuable). I haven’t mentioned yet that, depending on the subject matter, your competitor could have thousands of links, and so far you’ve only tackled the first site on your list. Whew! I’m getting tired just telling you about it .

If this sounds too time consuming for you, there are tools that automate the process. True, they will cost you, but they sure will speed up the process.

You can also purchase links. Sometimes this is the only way to get a link from a website with a high PageRank. This can be quite expensive. But regardless of your time or your budget, this whole backlink thing can, in fact, be accomplished. How long it will take is the question.

Some believe that it is better to accrue these backlinks slowly; that achieving too many backlinks quickly will be frowned upon by the search engines. Others believe that the only that matters is getting the most links in the least amount of time. I think it is something that you must decide for yourself. Quickly or slowly, no cost or high cost; these are the questions you need to ask yourself. Once you’ve decided on a game plan, you simply have to implement it. Don’t be afraid. The worst that can happen is that your invitation gets rejected. So, you move on to the next one. It can, in fact, be a never ending process, but what a learning experience!!

Good Luck!

For an ABSOLUTELY AWESOME and FREE SEO eBook, click here.

The video gaming experience is different for everyone, it could end in hours of entertainment for a family or for the less experience, the final result could be disappointment due to lack of knowledge of how to operate the game console. When you are shopping for a new game console, you may find it difficult as there are so many different options to choose from. The information you are looking for can be very difficult to find, but you will find there’s a lot of misinformation out there.

What type of games do you find interesting?
Do you plan on buying an HDTV anytime soon or do you already have one?

Why dont we go over your financial situation so we can figure out what your budget is for it?

Which piques your interest the most, playing games with a group or the solo playing experience?
Do you currently have any of the old game systems?

There was a period in time where one could not find a game system that cost more. Fortunately, prices are lower now than at that time. For only 400 USD (contingent upon which style you purchase)this price is more comparable. Prices change constantly so chech the latest games consoles prices online.

The PS3 is an experience, it is more than just a game console. As it’s compatible with Blu-Ray, CD, and DVD media, it also has the ability to play DVDs in HD. The PS3 would be perfect for those with an HDTV and no HD movie player as you can get both of your movie and gaming experiences in the same box. This is with the latest technology of Blu-Ray, the leading high-definition movie format. If you aren’t viewing Blu-ray movies in high definition, you won’t see any better grade of the programs. This feature doesn’t translate well for use with a standard definition set.

While virtually the same as the PS2 controller, the controller features motion sensing technology known as Sixaxis. The controller can be tilted Six different direction for interactive game play. How well this is going to work varies from each game. Doing it well means you’ll gain lots of experience, doing it wrong means you’ll be nothing more than a problem. The vibration feature is missing from the Sixaxis controller. The DualShock 3 controller with vibration will not be included with the new PS3’s, even though it has been released, until June 12, 2008.

Video games for the PS3 and Xbox 360 are pretty much the same the same for either system.

The manufacturer of this dildo, Spartan are considered the oldest and loved companies in the sale of toys. They are distributors for a wide range of alternative high end sex toys for example the Rockin Ruffboi and of course the Sensual Bender. Spartan are a very price competitive, meaning you can be happy that you will not see a a lower cost deal through another company.

The pliable construction of the Cybercock allows for penetration at angles that may not be achievable during sex, allowing one to discover wonderful new pleasures and hither to un-explored erogenous regions of your body. The Cybercock can be ordered in several colours, lengths and widths. The Cybercock has been designed with gnarly bobbles, which will help boost your adventures to new heights. In addition to being fun, the Cybercock is made out of perfectly safe resin, so you can rest assured that it is definitely quite safe to use. The Cybercock comes complete with a add on vibration booster, meaning this is sex toy of top quality.

For the last four years the Cybercock has been amongst the top selling dildos for Spartan. It’s popularity is due to the products mind blowing performance. This beauty would make a ideal new addition to any dildo vibrator enthusiasts collection. The Cybercock is designed for stimulation of all female erogenous zones. This sex toy would be a good first time buy for anyone who does not already own such an aid. Originally produced for use by two people, it is never the less ideal for those lonely nights.

When designing your web site you want to make the visiting experience as enjoyable as possible and at the same time make it so that if the site needs to be changed in any way, the changes are not too difficult to make. You want the look to be as appealing as possible for all browsers and also make the site accessible to users with disabilities. In order to accomplish all this there are some general guidelines when creating your HTML code.

1. The first thing that will really make your life easier is through the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is used to maintain the look of the document such as the fonts, margins and color. HTML directly on the page is not a good choice to handle these aspects because if say, the font color you are using for certain paragraphs needs to be changed from blue to red, you would have to go in and change each color tag manually. By using CSS you can designate the color for each of those paragraphs just once in the CSS file. That way if you have to change the font color from blue to red you make one change instead of the countless number of changes you might have to make, especially if your web site contains hundreds of pages. This is a big time saver and a must for all professionally designed web sites.

2. Don’t use the FONT tag directly in your HTML code. This becomes a problem when using some cheap authoring tools that try to mimic what a web page should look like by using excessive FONT tags and nbsp characters. These tools end up creating web pages that are impossible to keep maintained. There is a program you can use, if you’ve created one of these disaster pages, called the HTML Tidy Program which you can actually download here http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/#tidy. This will clean up your code as well as possible.

3. You want your web pages readable to people who have disabilities. People who surf the Internet depend on speech synthesizers or Braille readers to interpret the text on the page. If your HTML markup is sloppy or isn’t contained in CSS the software these people use to read pages have a difficult time in interpreting these pages. You should also include descriptions for each image on your page. Also, don’t use server side image maps. If you are using tables you should include a summary of the table’s structure and also associate table data with the correct headers. This gives non visual browsers a chance to follow the page as they go from one cell to another. And finally, for forms, make sure you include labels for form fields.

By following just these three guidelines you give your visitors, especially disabled visitors the best chance of having an enjoyable visit to your site while at the same time making it so that if you have to make changes to your site, those changes can be made easily and quickly.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to HTML

And of course, each loan and each borrower are different. Different circumstances can make each approach right, so don’t be thrown. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately. Some will quote you precise, competitive rates 6 percent. So how do you find a lender or broker you can trust’ It is a transfer of an interest in land, from the owner to the mortgage lender, on the condition that this interest will be returned to the owner of the real estate when the terms of the mortgage have been satisfied or performed.

Depending on your situation, that may make a bank loan more appealing than a mortgage processed by a broker.

Many of these fees are fixed but some can be negotiated.

Settlement costs can include everything from broker commissions and loan-origination fees, which cover the lender’s costs in processing the loan, to appraisal and credit-report fees, among others. Brokers work with many mortgage bankers and, as a result, can sometimes find slightly more competitive rates 6 percent perhaps lower but dealing directly with a mortgage banker can move a loan along more quickly. But others will claim low rates to bring in customers or tell you that the rates 9 percent offered by competitors will change.

Different lenders charge different fees. While a mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is evidence of a debt of 6 percent. See which lenders are charging fees 9 percent and for how much. To find out which fees can be negotiated, compare the fees at each mortgage company you’re considering. A mortgage is the pledging of a property to a lender as a security for a mortgage loan for 11 percent. Although most mortgage experts say that rates 5 percent are pretty much the same wherever you go, give or take this tiny 7 percentage. In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans 9 percent secured on real estate rather than other property and in some cases only land may be mortgaged.

In Dutch it means: Woon je in Boekel of Gennep en heb je BKR’ Lenen met een BKR notering is nog nooit zo gemakkelijk geweest. Haal snel een andere auto met geldlenen bkr, 444607 euro is gewoon mogelijk om te lenen. Van Bernisse tot Scheemda, financieren met zonder BKR kan hier altijd.

In other words, the mortgage is a security for the loan that the lender makes to the borrower. Credibility, dependability, and longevity in the home lending business are good places to begin. See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property. Start with credibility. It’s not easy to know if the prices quoted by lenders are reliable. Both banks and brokers have their strengths and weaknesses.

Would you like to rake in $10,466 per month without having your own products?

1. So What Is It?

It is called affiliate marketing. It, as a matter of fact, is one of the easiest and fastest ways to start your online business and rake in thousands of dollars every month.

2. What’s Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing simply to say is promoting other people’s product and in return you’ll get certain percentage of the merchant’s item if and only people who buy the merchant’s item buy through your link.

So we can say some sort of online multi level marketing.

Why I said that? Because many of these programs have 2-tier which means you can refer another affiliate below you. Whenever he or she makes sales you’ll get certain percentage of those sales.

3. How do I get started?

Well, first off, you have to identify which niche you want in? For example if you are a maniac golfer, then the chance you’re more likely to promote golf equipment rather than fishing equipment.

Then estimate the competition, go to Google and type in your appropriate term for example “beginner golf guide” and see how much sites on that subject already exist?

For me personally, I don’t care much about the competition if you have more crowded competition that means you’ll need to wait longer to make profits and so vice versa. It’s just that simple.

However, be sure to do something you really love, because in the end it will be life and death of your business.

4. Let’s Find The “Eager-To-Give You Money” Merchant

Now you should have roughly figure on which niche you want to in. The next thing we’re going to do is find potential merchant that could bring you the potential income you always dream of. To faster the process we are going to choose them from affiliate programs directory. Affiliate programs directory is site that already does the hard-work for us in selecting which one the potential merchant, so you just need to pinpoint which one you want to embrace.

Some of the best are: www.associateprograms.com www.5staraffiliatepr ograms.com

5. Skyscraper Website versus “Mini” Content Site

As the time writing, there’re 2 current opinions:

The first state in order to get money from affiliate program you have to build skyscraper site and fill it with hundreds of content while

The second state in order to get money from affiliate program you have to build multiple stream of mini site

Which one that works?

Both work, it is ultimately up to you which one you want to adopt for example of the first one in action you can see http://www.sage-hearts.com which has been running by Rosalind Gardner while the second one you can see http://www.dominatesearc hengine.com which has been running by Anik Singal (Actually, I haven’t ask their permission to cover their web site in this article but I bet they wouldn’t mind)

Both is very respected and highly acclaimed both affiliate marketer and internet marketer.

Here’re the pros and cons:

If you decide to build mini site then you’ll have to forget the possibility of getting traffic from generic search engine.

If you decide to build skyscraper content site then you’ll have to invest considerable amount of time and energy to build it.

Don’t re-invent the wheel there’s no point in doing so just follow what already works. Examine both of their sites carefully and see which part you can adapt to your business model. (But mark my words don’t copy them words-by-words!)

6. Ready to Drive Traffic?

Now you have proven business model at your disposal, it is the time to drive traffic to your site. I’d recommend first off you start by going to build reciprocal link campaign. Reciprocal link is the act of exchanging link between two sites in hope to send traffic to each other.

Let’s put it into action…

Once again type in your keywords on search engine, next click on each of the site you found, if you like this site then examine it carefully. Are they having something like “submit URL” or “add URL”?

If they have click on the link there should be simple self-explanatory instruction to exchange your link with that website but what if they didn’t have one? Just contact them through email or phone and ask if they’re willing to do reciprocal link with you.

What’s great about this method? Here’s what will happen…

Let’s say after doing reciprocal link for one month in the end of the month you get 30 links. Each one refer one people per day to your site, now you already have 30 people visit your site without you doing a thing. In one month you will get 900 people visit your site on completely auto pilot. That’s the beauty of reciprocal link-)

What happen if you can manage to get 200 links?

7. Final Note

Like any of other endeavors if you expect some results it means hard work and persistence. Don’t expect result in a week I tell you that wouldn’t happen but expect in a year or so. Trust me though it seems long far away at the beginning but in the end your perseverance will pay off many times.

About twice a week now I am contacted by a hotel General Manager or Marketing Director who has seen some of the recent research figures for hotel internet revenues that says something like “In 2005 hotel revenues from the internet were 25.0% of all hotel room revenues…”.

The conversation very quickly gets to “I’ve just checked my on-line revenues and they are nowhere near that. What can we do?”

Naturally, the first thing I do is look at their web site. Some are visually stunning, especially on a high speed connection…beautiful “flash” movies (loading, loading, loading), navigation buttons that do pirouettes, music…and usually a mega investment has been made (please give me the name of that sales person, I have some sand that I would like them to sell for me in the Middle East)…and barely an extra room night to show for it.

Why? Because the site turns up on page 17 on Google, Yahoo! or MSN when you search for a suitable keyword or phrase (usually “destination + hotel” eg “Sydney hotel” is the most popular search term in most cities).

70-80% of online activity is people searching for something…all those lost souls who are eager to buy your hotel rooms, if only they could find you…in fact in one recent case, when I was searching for the prospective client’s hotel by it’s very own name their web site turned up way back on page 8 of Google. You and I both know that when we search, if it ain’t on pages 1 or 2 or at a pinch page 3, we’re just not going to look further…and neither does anyone else.

If you retain nothing more from my article please remember this: search engines are blind to images (and deaf if you play music on your site) and especially can’t see “flash” movie files or the text in those fancy navigation buttons (these are images too)…a search engine is a code and text driven binary agent that reads written instructions and words…so without the right code in the “back” of your site and the right text and density of keywords on the “front” pages of your site…you just won’t turn up in the first few pages of search results.

Don’t get me wrong…there IS a place for great visuals and dynamic, inspiring content AFTER you have got them to your site. The overuse and abuse of these dynamic elements is indeed a hurdle to your search engine results, but once the user has arrived, then you need some “bells and whistles” to convert them into a sale (more about conversion in one of my next articles).

Some web sites I see, even for premium properties, are just dogs that were last updated in 2003 (because every time they want a change their designer charges like a wounded bull); and lots of others are in-between but because the sites are not actively managed, they still don’t turn up in the first few pages.

Believe the research data! With 25% of revenues arriving via online channels and a further 25% being influenced by their online experience but booking via another channel, you just have to get your head into this space. Can you imagine what would happen if you ignored your convention market or stopped dealing with the travel industry…as a first step, at least sign up to my weekly “best of the best” e-mail (www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com/register/), so you can start to develop your knowledgebase in this vital area.

Over the next couple of articles I’ll address some of the other questions that I usually ask such as: what e-mail marketing they are doing and how, have they investigated the Pay-per-click options at Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing or MSN (coming soon) or how easy is it to book on their site. I’ll also touch on conversion but let’s focus in the short term on driving traffic to your site.

So, what can you do? Invest in the Search Engine Optimisation of you site… the art and science of maximising a web site’s ranking in the “natural” Search Engine Results for a key phrase. There is a lot to understand but if you visit our web site you will find some very useful tips and specific things that you can do to optimise your hotel web site…or of course you could give me a call or send me an e-mail and I would be more than happy walk you through the basic principles.

And you know what? I never get calls from hotels that have a smart, well designed but not too “tizzy” site. One that is edited in-house utilising a user-friendly Content Management System. Sites where you can easily navigate around without needing a helmet lamp and pick, that have fresh, recent content and special value-added packages; where you can actually book in real-time through a secure connection and get an instant confirmation. And when you need to make an online enquiry, it is easy and doesn’t ask for my shoe size and twenty other compulsory fields before begrudgingly sending off the data, only for it to take two days for someone to respond…

These sites already turn up in the first few pages, offer a great user experience and these hotels actively manage their online presence…they are well on their way to achieving and exceeding those 25.0% of revenues online that the research people are telling us…and, pardon the shameful plug but, quite a few of them are our clients!