What's an SEO? SEO for Google!

A great site is useless unless people know where to find you. This is where search engine optimization services come in handy. SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimizer", the methods used to keep your site in the top pages of Google and other search engines (like Yahoo and MSN).

Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:

• Reviewing and providing recommendations on your site content or structure
• Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
• Content development
• Managing online business development campaigns
• Keyword research
• SEO training
  

If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.

Some useful questions to ask an SEO include:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
  
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?
• What's your experience in my industry?
• How long have you been in business?

While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate Google's guidelines may result in your site being removed from the Google index.

Here are some things to consider:

• Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.
  
• No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
• Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.
• You should never have to link to an SEO.
• Choose wisely.
• Be sure to understand where the money goes.

What are some other things to look out for?

There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It's far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:

• owns shadow domains
• puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
• offers to sell keywords in the address bar
• doesn't distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear in search results
  guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
• operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
  gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scumware
• has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google
  

Click here read more about this.

Top 20 Free Web Hosting Sites

Free web sites are unreliable, full of ads, and do not carry the same credibility as paid Web Sites with purchased Domain. Fundamentally, it is true. The thumb rule of the marketing: you get what you paid for. However, for many people free Web Sites are the best or the only opportunity to get certain Web presence and online exposure.

I have created a Rating List, featuring the 20 Best Free Hosting Opportunities on the online market. There are many hosts offering Web Space, so, I have no intentions to cover them all. The main requirements that impact on the host’s rating are the following:

1. The free host should not require you to use your own domain name, or to register a new domain name as a condition to give away free space.
2. Offer should not be neither temporary, not time-limited trial.
3. Preference for hosts with no forced ads.
4. Preference for hosts, allowing using your own ads (like Google AdSense) on your page.
5. Preference for hosts, allowing FTP site loading.
6. Preference for hosts, offering nice and short sub-domains.

Top 20 Free Web Hosting Sites are:

• FreeHyperSpace
• WebSitesNetwork (update: Site Down)
  
• Freezoka
• 110MB
• AXSpace
• 987MB 
• 10GBFreeHost 
• PinkPaper
• 00BP
• 247ihost (update: Site Down)
• AgilityHoster
• AtSpace
• AwardSpace
• ByetHost 
• 50Webs
• LeadHoster
• FreeGbs
• FreeHostia
• AwesomeWebspace
• FreeWeb-7

BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice

What is BidVertiser?
BidVertiser Publishers Program is a fast and easy to use way for publishers of all sizes to display unobtrusive text ads on their website and earn money. The program is free and BidVertiser pays you for valid clicks on the ads on your site.

Web Site Specifications:
BidVertiser does NOT accept websites that:

Produce, provide or link to:

• Adult content
  
• Sexual content
• Illegal drugs or related content
• Hate speech or hate graphics content
• Engage in, promote, or facilitate illegal or legally questionable activities such as pirating, hacking, spamming and infecting.
• Are under construction.
• Include incentives of any kind for users to click on ads.
• Display ads as a result of the actions of any software application such as a toolbar.

Features:
Once you have created your account you will be provided with a few lines of HTML code to paste onto your web page. You simply paste an HTML code into your web pages and ads will instantly start appearing.

BidVertiser enables you to filter-out any unwanted ads. You can use the Publisher Center to generate detailed online reports to monitor your ads performance, including the number of page impressions, clicks, click-through rate, and the total amount you've earned.

Payment:
You get paid for every visitor that clicks on an ad. You will receive a payment by check or PayPal. If you have chosen to be paid by PayPal, BidVertiser will issue payment 30 days after the end of each calendar month that BidVertiser ads are running on your site if your earned balance is US $10.00 or more. If your account's balance is not $10.00 at month end, the balance will be carried over into the next month and paid out once you have earned $10.00 or more.

If you have chosen to be paid by check, BidVertiser will mail you a check 30 days after the end of each calendar month that BidVertiser ads are running on your site if your earned balance is US $50.00 or more. If your account's balance is not $50.00 at month end, the balance will be carried over into the next month and paid out once you have earned $50.00 or more.

Is there a referral program:
When a user signs as an advertiser and first spends $10, they will credit your account with $5. When that same advertiser spends $50, you will be credited with an additional $20.

When a user signs as a publisher and first earns $10, they will credit your account with $10. When that same publisher earns $50, you will be credited with an additional $40.

How to join BidVertiser:
If you've found this guide to BidVertiser useful then please consider trying it yourself. We'd appreciate you using our referral link: Try BidVertiser Now!

Related Topics:

• AdBrite - The Internet's Ad Marketplace
• BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice
• Clicksor - Webmasters Affiliate Programs
• Oxado- Smart Matching System
• ValueClick Media - The Pure Performance Advertising Network

ValueClick Media - The Pure Performance Advertising Network

What is ValueClick Media?
For anyone who hasn't heard of ValueClick Media,

ValueClick Media is one of the largest and most effective online advertising networks. Through its advanced display advertising and lead generation platforms, ValueClick Media offers extensive reach, precision targeting and market-leading optimization technology.

What are the WebSite Specifications?
ValueClick Media does not accept web sites that:

• Contains adult, sexual and/or illegal drugs or related content.
• Engage in activities such as pirating, hacking, spamming and infecting.
• Are hosted by a free service
• Are under construction
• Generate less than 3,000 page views per month
• Contain non-English content

Read more about the Publisher requirements, ValueClick media

Available Types and Formats:
They currently have ten media types available at this time; Banners (468×60), Leaderboards (728×90), Skyscrapers (120×600), Wide skyscrapers (160×600), Rectangles (180×150), Medium Rectangles (300×250), Half Pages (300×600), InVue, Interstitial and Pop-under ads.

Apart from CPC (Cost Per Click) ads, ValueClick Media provides a lot of CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) ads as well. So that if your website / web application does not generate high click through rate, it is better for you to use the CPM ads. You will earn money for each impression you serve even no one clicks on your ads.

Control Panel:
Display ads are controlled by a control panel that users can access by logging in to their account. This control panel offers users a remarkable degree of control (somewhat equivalent to AdSense).

When do I get paid?:
Payments are made the 20th of each month for the previous month. If your balance for the previous month is over $25 and you have provided complete payment information, you will receive a payment shortly thereafter by direct deposit, check or PayPal. Unpaid balances are rolled-over to the next month.


Original picture: Zacjohnson.com

Is there any referral program:
When a publisher is linked to the advertising network through your reference and signs up, you will get a bonus equivalent to 5% of the new user’s earnings for the first twelve months of service.

How do I join ValueClick Media?
Here is the link to the Official website. Fill out a simple membership form and wait for their approval (it generally takes about 24-48 hours).

More Information:
Two accounts are necessary at ValueClick Media to run both the CPM display ads and the affiliate marketing ads, and they are run through two separate control panels. Both panels, however, are very straightforward and detailed.

Related Topics:

• AdBrite - The Internet's Ad Marketplace
• BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice
• Clicksor - Webmasters Affiliate Programs
• Oxado- Smart Matching System
• ValueClick Media - The Pure Performance Advertising Network

Clicksor - Webmasters Affiliate Programs

What is Clicksor?
Clicksor uses contextual advertising technology to deliver ads that are relevant to your website content, allowing your visitors to enjoy the content of the website while you gain additional earnings.

Is it free to join?
It is absolutely free. But Websites that contain information including but not limited to warez, rom, emu, newsgroup postings, and SPAM emails will not be accepted.

Types of Ads:
You may choose from a wide variety of ad formats, including pop-under, inline text links, text and graphical banners. Clicksor offers two options for contextual PPC – keyword or channel matching. If you chose Keyword Match, your ad’s keywords will be underlined, and as a visitor hovers over the keyword, a text banner appears describing your product/service. The user is taken to your website if they choose to click on the text banner or keyword. Channel Match works similarly, but concentrates more on the context of your website than keywords you have chosen in placing your ad on search results pages. 

Payment:
All payments are made bi-weekly, usually on the 1st and 15th of each month. You may select to receive your payments by check or Paypal with a minimum payout of $50. Revenue totaling less than the minimum payout amount will be rolled into the following period. They claim that a publisher can get paid upto 70% of advertising revenues generated by the website, although it depends on geographic levels and overall traffic levels.



Is there any referral program:
Publishers will be able to earn 10% if they refer either a publisher or advertiser to the Clicksor network. For referral program details, please visit http://www.clicksor.com/

Detail Publisher Requirements: 

• Participating sites must have 5,000 page views per day or 150000 page views per month.
• Site must be in English written content.
  
• Participating sites must not be a personal or free hosting websites.
• Participating Sites cannot be under construction, incomplete or contain little original content.
• Participating Sites cannot be used for software trading (warez).

Read more about the Publisher requirements, Clicksor.com

Summary:
Well, at first look Clicksor would appear to be one of the better alternatives to Google's Adsense however, there are some CONS which one might consider before joining Clicksor.

• Ads appear to load very slowly which may deter visitors from waiting until the page is fully loaded.
  
• Not suitable for small publishers since your sites must have 5,000 page views per day (must be kidding!)
• Site must be in English written content.

If you are okay with these conditions, then Clicksor is definitely for you.

How to join Clicksor:
Here is the link to the Official website. Check this out yourself!

Related Topics:

• AdBrite - The Internet's Ad Marketplace
• BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice
• Clicksor - Webmasters Affiliate Programs
• Oxado- Smart Matching System
• ValueClick Media - The Pure Performance Advertising Network

Adsense Tips, Tricks for Higher CTR

Google Adsense is perhaps the easiest way to attract advertisers from across the globe to your blog. Just submit your blog to Google for approval. If Google likes what it sees, it will place contextual ads linking to products likely to appeal to the readers. Each time a reader clicks a link, the advertiser pays Google a small fee, and Google splits that with you.

The next interesting question - How to Make Money with Google Adsense ? Here are The best Google Adsense Tips and Tricks for making more money (profit) from Google adsense program.

1.  Strictly follow the rules mentioned in Adsense policies. You will always earn more revenue from Adsense by playing it clean.
   
2. Never modify the Google Adsense HTML code.
3. Don't ask your friends or visitors to click on your Google ads.
4. Don't click on your own ads - Google is much smarter than you think.
5. Don't place ads in pop-up windows, error pages or even empty pages.
6. Don't start a "adsense asbestos" or "home equity loan rates" website merely to make money from accidental clicks (accidence). You will never make money out these "made-for-adsense-only" websites. Instead, write on topics what you are passionate about. Don't waste your money on high-paying adsense keywords lists.
7. For short articles, CTR is best when ads are placed just above the content.
8. For long articles, CTR improves if ads are placed somewhere in middle of the content - visitors read the long content and then they are looking for more resources.
9. Use Text Ads instead of Image Ads as users get more options. If you still want to display image ads, consider ad formats that support image ads - Choose either the 300x250 medium rectangle or the 160x600 wide skyscraper - or both, if you display multiple ad units on a page.
10. Google Ads without background color and borders always perform better. Make the border color and background color same as your page background color.
11. Always put ads above the main fold. Make sure that the ad unit with the highest clickthrough rate is the first instance of the ad code that appears in the HTML. Since the first ad unit is always filled before the rest, you want to make sure that ad unit is located in the best placement on your page.
12. Try setting the ad link URL color to a lighter shade. If your text is black, you may make the adlink as light gray.
13. Blend AdLinks with other navigation links or place horizontal adlinks at the top of your webpage. AdSense publishers are permitted to click on link unit topics on their web pages, provided that they do not click on any Google ads on the resulting page.
14. The first few lines of your content are an important factor for determining what Ads are served on your webpage. That's the right place to put keywords in bold (strong or &ltb> tags) or header tags (h1, h2, etc).
15. Always select the setting to open Google Adsense search box results in a new browser window, so you won't lose your visitors. Click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox and this add target="google_window" to your form tag.
16. Maximum people think the search box is on the top right corner. So you know where to put it.

Remember, you are the best judge when it comes to choosing ad formats. Even Google doesn't offer the best advise always. For instance, in the visual heat map, Google suggests that webmasters are best served by positioning ads on the upper left-hand side of a Web page. But on the Google homepage, you will find ads on the far right.

Enhanced AdSense Security - Allowed Sites

Google has just announced another weapon in the war against AdSense fraudsters - a list of allowed sites. Each publisher can now submit the URLs of sites displaying their AdSense ads. Only earnings accrued from these sites will be credited to the publisher's account. This great new feature should seek to reassure AdSense publishers that Google are taking seriously their concerns about account.

To register your own allowed sites just click the 'Allowed Sites' link under your 'AdSense Setup' tab in your account. Read the full story at Inside AdSense.

Don't forget to update your AdSense account today.