Many have launched a business enterprise that is internet based but only a handful shall succeed despite many success stories about businesses making it good in the internet.

It takes good business sense and a lot of help and team effort. Most importantly, it is the eagerness to succeed and the determination to learn and the willingness to invest in a lot of hard work and some money.

The Very Basic

Without traffic, all your effort would just go to waste. Every business needs customers, without them you wouldn’t have anyone to sell your products to. In the internet world traffic is the walk in customer. The more traffic you have the more people would be able to sell your products to.

But like any business that’s in every corner building or in the mall, not everyone that goes in will buy, but the greater of number that do come in to browse your merchandise, the greater number of people that will buy your products. It is a simple and known fact.

But, how do you get traffic, traffic large enough that could make a small percentage of eventual buyers enough to make a good profit. Many big companies generate traffic of tens of thousands a day and a measly ten to fifteen percent actually buys, but that small percentage is enough to provide them with good business.

You have to spend money to make money. Many of these success stories get their traffic from paying others. Advertising is the key. The more people that knows that your site exists; the more people would of course go to your site, that’s common sense.

While there are many ways that can get you advertising for free, this do not generate the same high volume as those methods that are getting paid. These paid advertisements include advertising schemes by Google and Yahoo.

The Value of Searches

The search and will be the easiest and fastest medium in finding what a person needs on the Net. Since search engines are free and easy to use, they have been very popular because they provide a vital service to many people. . With this popularity, they get many visitors and clicks that they are the most common sites that people go to. As such it is easy to understand why so many companies would pay to advertise with these search engines.

Search engines provide information to the millions of users that they have each day. They provide links to many sites that a user may be looking for. If your sites link pop up in the high ranks of the search results page, you get a great chance that they will go to your site. While search engine optimization is a cheaper and low cost way to get your site a high rank, paying for advertisements will ensure that you will be on the top ranks.

When you pay for your advertisements, it is like paying for your traffic. This may sound like not such a good idea, but the payoffs would tell a different story. When you pay for your traffic, you are guaranteed of a consistent traffic flow to your site. You will never go with an empty sales day.

Paying for your Traffic

Usually, you will be charged with the number of hits a link gets when your ads is clicked, this is called pay per click. For some search engines, you will be charged with the number of times your ad shows up when a certain keyword or keyword phrase is searched. It is imperative that you have good keyword content in your ad. There are many tools that aid you in using the right keyword for the right moment.

All the money you spend in paying for your traffic will not be for naught. You will get an impressive boost in traffic which will also result to a great boost in your sales figures. Paying for your traffic would be a really good idea and you will get all the benefits it has to offer.

Article marketing is widely known as among the most powerful and effective Internet marketing techniques available for all businesses, big or small. There are many reasons why businesses resort to generating and producing article marketing outputs when promoting and advertising their products and services. One of those reasons is the overall costs. It is a common knowledge that article marketing outputs are usually disseminated and distributed for free. That way, advertising expenses can be significantly lowered. Another reason is the overall effectiveness. Experts would readily assert that article marketing is able to boost sales because the technique is effectively reaching out to intended readers, who would also be the target consumers of the product advertised and promoted.

The basic gist of article marketing is writing informative, resourceful, helpful and comprehensible copies that would be used and appreciated well by readers with convenience. For writers, writing good article marketing copies is not as hard as everyone thinks. As a matter of fact, there are many article marketing writers who are not actually experienced and seasoned writers. They are just honest about themselves and are sincerely writing based on what and how much they know and feel. For you to be able to write impressive and overall good article marketing copies, it would be imperative if you would be able to always take note of the following three simple guidelines.

1. Refrain from preferring to use too fancy and flowery words. During your elementary days, when you were asked to write simple compositions, you surely had the tendency to use complex and uncommon words in your writing assignments in hopes that doing so would make up for an impressive written output. That should not be the case when you are writing an article marketing output. As much as possible, experts say, writers should be as direct and less wordy as possible when writing to persuade. Writing to convince also mandates writers to be careful in choice of words. To prevent complexities and problems, going for the simple, yet convincing and powerful words would do the trick. You would be surprised at how more effective and impressive your article marketing could become if you would make your sentence construction simple, yet, very convincing.

2. Strive to use real, factual and helpful resources. Many article marketers are falling on the fault of using hypes to promote products and services. As a rule of thumb, such marketing and writing schemes should be avoided. When writing, be sure to so some research about the topic. That way, you could expand your knowledge about the subject you are talking about. When gaining and collecting usable information, it is important that you filter and prefer those that are truly informative and juicy. When writing, also be as informative as you can. Remember, readers are discerning and are highly analytical. Most of them would not appreciate hypes and articles that deserve to go straight to the trash can. Being informative would not be possible if you are not informative yourself for how could you write educational copies if you are not well knowledgeable yourself? That way, it is imperative to invest in knowledge.

3. Write with utmost sincerity. In other words, write from your heart. Article marketing also needs some traces of human and personal touch. Articles need to be interesting enough for all readers and to do so, one of the best and proven strategies would be to give the outputs personal touch. When writing from the heart, there is sincerity and readers would readily feel that everything the writer is saying is based on actual experiences and opinions, which they like to hear about the most. When practicing such a tip when writing, you can be sure your personality and style would shine all throughout the duration of the article. Always remember that your readers are actually human beings who are very much interested in listening and knowing stories from all other people.

The content of any article marketing output is the soul of the copy. It is imperative that the content be made as helpful and interesting as possible. Selling and advertising products and services is very crucial to almost any business. Success in doing so is greatly needed and is considered a necessity to make all ends meet for the company. No business would be able to assert or even claim that it is not allotting particular and significant attention to such common marketing factors. That is why as a writer of article marketing outputs, you should always make sure that your copies would prompt readers and consumers to action. You would surely be surprised at how strategic writing could work wonders. Be simple, straight to point and very personal and sincere when writing any article marketing output. Those are the main points in a nutshell.

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. It’s simple. People want to read good content, and with good content comes ad revenue. Well, maybe it’s not that easy… We’ve finally unleashed the secrets of successful blog marketing. Do note that these are not guaranteed to increase your click-through ratios and they will not bring good karma to you or your ads.. If only.. Nonetheless, these tips should benefit your blog and make it more user-friendly, more easily accessible, and more content-enabled.

There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them, so here is a -short- list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:

1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!

2. Obtain and install customizable blog software – WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.

3. Customize blog look and feel templates – aka design.

4. Research keywords and develop a glossary – Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.

5. Optimize the blog:

* Template optimization – RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap

* Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT

* Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)

6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.

7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.

8. Setup Google acount for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.

9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.

10. Format archived posts, related posts.

11. Enable statistics for tracking – Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.

12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.

13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.

14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.

15. Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs – Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.

16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.

17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.

18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.

19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.

20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog – Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.

21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.

22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.

23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.

24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.

25. Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.

In this blog post, I’m going to give you six ways that having a blog helps your website. There are a lot more reasons to start a blog, but this post has to do with the benefits to your website.

1. A blog on the same domain name, (as part of your website like yourdomainname.com/blog) can help you add fresh content to your website without having to know html. Fresh daily or even weekly content can keep the search spiders coming back more often. Writing your blog posts on the topics or search terms you want to be relevant for helps as well. Each blog post becomes another webpage targeted for your keywords.

2. A blog on the same domain name will also help you increase the number of pages that are included as part of your website. Content is king and having a ton of relative content will increase your chances of drawing visitors to your website.

3. A Blog on the same domain name or on a subdomain of your domain name or even one that is on another domain name can help you reach out to potential and existing customers with special offers, information, surveys, and more. You can add sales offers on the fly without having to call your web designer to add it for you.

4. A blog on a subdomain like blog.yourname.com is another way to go. Subdomains in most cases are treated as a separate domain name, yet can bring yourname.com more traffic as well. Here link popularity also kicks in a little. You of course link to yourname.com from blog.yourname.com but you can also trade links with other blogs but have them link to yourname.com instead of blog.yourname.com. Those links will be treated as one-way-inbound-links and that helps your page rank, but also brings you more traffic.

5. A blog on it’s own domain name can do that as well, but the link from it to yourname.com is going to carry more weight.

6. Getting the spiders to find all of your new websites. I find that because I have several blogs, if I want to get my or a client’s new website crawled by the search engines I can do it faster by adding a link to my blogs than I can by submitting to the search engines. Because I update my blogs daily, the spider crawls the blog a lot and follows the links there. I have seen this work for getting a website crawled within 3 days. This only works for a blog that has been regularly updated for awhile. (around 6 months or more).

As I said above, these are only the benefits you get from blogging as it applies to your website. What I haven’t mentioned is that by building up a steady readership on a blog, you will gain a lot of new customers. They get to know you and trust you by reading your blog every day.

I welcome all comments and suggestions. There are a lot of other advantages to your website, but the six I have just mentioned should be enough to get you started blogging right away!

If you are attempting to create a successful blog for personal or business reasons, you should know that looks do count. Many bloggers make the mistake of thinking that looks are not as important as content, since readers are essentially reading your blog for the words, not the way it looks. This is true to some degree. The fact is however that people will not take your words seriously if your blog looks less than attractive. To have a successful blog you have to have it all. You must have interesting content as well as a great look. If you want to update the look of your blog, consider these areas of importance.

Easy To Scan

The way your blog reads on a page is an extremely important part of your blog’s look. You should always remember to keep your blog posts short and to the point. If you are treating your blog as a personal diary, your posts may be a little longer than normal. But, if you are trying to get more traffic to your blog, then you really want to focus the attention with short posts that offer the main point easily. Most blog readers will only scan your posts, not read them word for word. So keep this in mind when you are writing. The shorter the post, the more likely they are to read the entire thing. If your blog is easy to scan because the posts are short and the breaks are clear, you will have a great looking blog.

Professional Edge

When designing or redesigning your blog, try to make it as professional looking as possible. Even if the blog is not for a business, the more professional it looks, the more seriously people will take it. Not everyone knows a lot about programming, so you may need to research a bit. If you have the extra funds, you might even want to get a professional to program it for you. No matter what you have to do, just keep a level of professionalism in your mind throughout the designing process.

Friendly Colors

Most people don’t think twice about what colors they choose for their blog. The facts are that some colors come across better on the web than others. Blue and black are easy to see, so they are always great choices to use. Sea-green, beige, or purple are also great soothing colors to use for a blog. You should stay away from using colors like pink, yellow, or any neon varieties. They are extremely hard on the eyes when reading them online and can deter people from reading your blog. Keep these color tips in mind when you design your blog to get the best results available.

Appropriate Graphics

It has been noted that the use of pictures on your blog is a great way to boost traffic. Blogs that offer pictures that correlate with their content are fantastic. Readers love to connect with the content further through pictures. With most blogging software offering ways to easily add pictures, it should not be a problem for most publishers to add them right into the blog. If you do have trouble, consider checking the “help” area in your blogging software for more information. The information there should provide you with step by step instructions to help you get on your way.

Successful Layout

Most people who design blogs and websites will tell you that the layout does matter as well. The way a blog looks to the reader in important in terms of layout. The layout should be clear and defined. If the reader is confused by the layout, they will likely not stick around to explore. They will most likely go right on to the next blog available. If you are letting a professional design your blog, you will likely not need to worry much about the layout. However, if you are doing it yourself, take a look at other successful sites to get ideas about what works and what doesn’t. Look at your site like a reader would to get the best advice you can. Lastly, simply test different layouts on your friends and family to see which ones they find the most suitable for your blog.

Spend about 2-3 hours per day browsing through these DoFollow forums. Your daily goal is to make at least 20 posts in 3 selected forums related to your niche. It would be good if you can answer some of the questions that other forum users have and they would probably visit your website if they find your answers constructive. You gain in 3 aspects this way… What are they?

1. Free Traffic For Your Site (Other users may also be enticed to visit your website)

2. A One Way Backlink To Your Site (Increases Your Site Popularity And Pagerank)

3. Even If You Can’t Answer Their Questions, You Can Learn From Many Other Experts There

The top 3 forums that I can’t spend a day without visiting are: Warrior Forum, 5Star Affiliate Forum and DreamTeamMoney.

Why? Because they have a high traffic flow of readers. You have a very high chance of finding solutions that you need or the opportunity of being a solution to other newbies. You can get a steady flow of traffic in return. Be a resource to others!

List Of Forums That Allows DoFollow Signatures

1. Warrior Forum – By far the most helpful and responsive internet marketing forum that I have visted.There are people who are always ready to answer you questions and attend to your need.
2. 5Star Affiliate Forum – Another favorite affiliate marketing forums.
3. Ableton – Audio and musical forums
4. Abestweb – Affiliate Marketing forum for both newbie and experienced affiliates to learn and earn more by sharing information about networks, merchants and best practices
5. Abundance – Free advertising forum
6. Addicsports - Baseball, basketball, and sports forum.
7. Affiliateseeking.com – webmaster and affiliate forums.
8. Acorn Domains – A growing community of UK Domain Name owners, buyers and sellers.
9. Admin Zone Forums – Resources for community administrator and webmaster.
10. Adult Webmaster Info – One of the largest “dofollow” adult webmaster forum.
11. Affiliates4U – UK’s leading affiliate and marketing forums
12. Allcoolforums - Online Free discussion board
13. AMD Forums – official AMD processors support forum
14. Baseballtalkpro – baseball forums.
15. Blogger Forum – Focused on blogging community, monetizing and promotion of blogs.
16. Blogger Talk – Forums for bloggers.
17. Business Forum – business-related forums.
18. BZ Image – SEO Forum – Web Design Help – Webmaster Forum – Web Hosting Talk
19. Capital Theory – online moneymaking forum.
20. Clickbank Success – A “dofollow” forum dedicated to clickbank users.
21. Clicks Forum – Internet marketing for business.
22. Cnet Forums – Software and technical forums.
23. Code4gold – Free Webmaster Resources, Webmaster Tools and Search Engine Optimization
24. Comic Book Resources – Discussion about comic books and resources
25. David Castle – UK SEO & Internet Marketing Forums.
26. Deviantart – Join the largest art community in the world!
27. DDBoard – Domain name “dofollow” discussion board.
28. Digitalppoint – Internet marketing and search engine forums
29. DirectoryJunction – New but cool webmasters forum.
30. Discuss Names – Another dofollow domain names discussion forum.
31. DN Forum – Domain name sales, domain name appraisals, domain name discussions
32. DN Lodge – Domain name and webmasters forums. Dofollow signature advertising.
33. DN Scoop – Domain and webdevelopers forums.
34. Domain Name Forums – Domain name discussion, appraisals, buys and sell, and domain marketplace.
35. Dreamteam Money Forum – Moneymaking forums. One of the hottest moneymaking forums offering dofollow forum signature.
36. Ecauldron – Pagan and religious forum
37. Egadforum – general community forum.
38. Ewealth.com – Internet Marketing and webmaster forum.
39. Filesharingtalk – file sharing forum.
40. Free Ad Forum – Dofollow free advertising forum
41. Free Advertising Forum – Unlimited ad posting. Content and signatures both dofollow.
42. Freewebspace – Free webhosting guides and forums.
43. Fogengine – Web directories forum
44. Geek Village – Large moneymaking “dofollow” forum.
45. Gento Forum – technical and programming forum
46. Golden Talk – High Yield Investment Programs forums.
47. Googlecommunity – Everything about google
48. GPT Boycott Forums – Get-paid-to forums and ratings.
49. Hablarmierda – a Spanish dofollow forum
50. Harmony Central – Musicians Community Forums
51. Hit Tail – Real traffic, real time, real result.
52. Hot4s Online Forum – Australia’s cars and motoring forums
53. Hotsurfs – Focusing on making money out of autosurfing.
54. HTML Forums – Free webmaster forums and help
55. HYIPs Talk – High Yiled Investment Programs forums.
56. IDN Forums – International domain names forums, sales, appraisals, and general discussion.
57. Intel Forums – Intel software developers community forums.
58. Im4newbies – Affiliate marketing forum guide for new affiliates.
59. Internet Marketing for Business – Internet Marketing and SEO Webmaster Forums
60. IQ 69 – Mainstream Webmasters Forum
61. Iwebtool – Offers preview of site in signatures. Webmaster tools forum
62. Lex224 - Computer and gaming forum.
63. Live Journal – creating a community forum.
64. Microsoft Forum – Official Microsoft support forum.
65. Money Maker Group – Internet marketing and webmaster forum focusing on HYIPs.
66. Movie Lists - Movies and show business.
67. Moneyfanclub – A “dofollow” online moneymaking forum focusing on HYIPs and autosurfs.
68. Mygamebuilder – gaming forum
69. MySQL Forum – database and programming forums
70. Namepros.com – An active community of domain name owners, investors, buyers, and sellers of all kinds
71. Online Books Club – Book & Reading Discussion
72. Oracle Forums – Support forum for Oracle
73. Paganforum – pagan and religion forum
74. Payment Processing – Online payment and credit card processing forums. Ecommerce forum.
75. PhpBB Forum – official support community forum for PhpBB users.
76. PokerBRB Forum – Anything about Poker
77. Revenue Source - Affiliate Marketing and SEO forums
78. Search Engine Forums – Discussion Forum of SEO and Webmaster Related Topics
79. Search Engine Roundtabe – Search Engine Forums
80. SEO Chat – Programming and development forum online. Folders for all programming languages.
81. SEOForum – Australian SEO Forum
82. SEO.com Forum – Search Engine Optimization discussion.
83. SEO Guy – Search Engine Optimization Forum. Dofollow signature.
84. Sidetalks – general forum
85. Simplemachines – SMF official support forum.
86. Siteowners – A dofollow webmasters forums
87. Sitepoint – Webmaster and programming forums.
88. Sitesell Forum – webmaster community forum
89. Small Business Forum – A “dofollow” business forum for small entrepreneurs and online moneymakers.
90. Startups – Business start-up and innovation forums
91. Static-Subs – anime forums
92. Submitexpress – Search engine forum
93. Talkfreelance.com – Freelance webmasters, webdesign, and seo community.
94. Tattoo – tattoo forums.
95. Textpattern – textpattern support forums
96. The Free Ad Forum – Largest free advertising forum now has a “dofollow” signature.
97. The Green Nation – Another “dofollow” HYIP forum.
98. The V7 – Webmaster Forums
99. TheHYIPforum – Another “dofollow” forum owned by Talkgold. Best if you are promoting a HYIP site.
100. TriPHP Webmaster Forums – TriPHP Webmaster Forums is a friendly Community for Webmasters of all experience levels
101. Ubuntu Technical Forum – technical and PC-related forums.
102. W3SEO – SEO forums
103. Webdegity - webmaster forum
104. Web Design Forums – The place for web designers. A dofollow forum.
105. Web Developer – Generally about programming and scripting websites with sections on domain names, and other money related topics.
106. Webicy – Webmaster community forums.
107. Web Life – A HYIP forum sowned by Talkgold.
108. Webhosting Canada – Industry Discussion, Webmaster Forum, Web Host Reviews and Deals forums.
109. Webhosting Talk – Geared towards hosting resellers but has some relevant sections on making money selling hosting and running a website
110. Webmaster Forums Online – News and Discussion Forums for Webmasters about SEO, Internet Marketing and Advertising, Website Design and Development, Web Hosting and General Topics.
111. Webmasters Help – Webmaster and seo forum. Lionks on posts are “nofollow” but offer “dofollow” signatures.
112. Webmaster-talk – Programming, webdesign, seo, and webmaster forums
113. Webproworld – The world’s forum for ebusiness professionals.
114. Webtalkforums – Webmaster Forum is a revenue sharing webmaster discussion forum
115. Windows Forum – windows community forums.
116. Winamp – Official winamp forum.
117. Work at Home Moms – Moneymaking forum for Moms.
118. Work-at-Home Moms – Internet marketing message boards for moms.
119. World of Warcraft – online gaming forum
120. Xandros – website design, themes, and lay out forums.

Submit your Blog Url or RSS Feed to as many blog directories as possible and gain maximum exposure. It is a very efficient way of advertising and gaining free targeted traffic for your blog. It is also very useful for getting quality inbound links if your blog provides valuable content and resources to others. By your blog to blog directories, blog readers are able to locate your blog easily and I believe that is your main goal for setting up your blog. That is to reach out to many concerned readers as possible.

If there is a blog directory that I have missed out or if you wish to list your blog directory, just leave a comment with the necessary details here and I will update it as soon as I see it. Thanks!

List Of Blog Directories

1. 2Rss
2. 5starblogs
3. Addurlblog
4. Addyourblog
5. Allblogs
6. Answers
7. Bestblogs
8. Biggerblogger
9. Blloggs
10. Blog Catalog
11. Blog Search
12. Blogadr
13. Blogannounce
14. Blogarama
15. Blogbib
16. Blogbunch
17. BlogCatalog
18. Blogcode
19. Blog-collector
20. Blogdigger
21. Blogdir
22. Blogdirectory
23. Blogdirectory : Blogtory
24. Blogdirs
25. Blogdup
26. Blogdust
27. Blogexplosion
28. Blogflux
29. Bloggapedia
30. Blogged
31. Bloggeries
32. Bloggernity
33. Bloggernow
34. Bloghints
35. Bloghop
36. Bloghub
37. Blogintro
38. Bloglines
39. Bloglisting
40. Blogpoint
41. Blogpulse
42. Blogrankings
43. Blogroll
44. Blogs BOTW
45. Blogs For Small Business
46. Blogscanada
47. Blogscholar
48. Blogscollection
49. Blog-search
50. Blogsrating
51. Blogstreet
52. Blogsweet
53. Blogtagstic
54. Blogtoplist
55. Bloguniverse
56. Blogwatch
57. Bloogz
58. BOTW Blog Directory
59. Britblog
60. Browseblogs
61. Bulletize fee
62. Chinabloglist
63. Chordata
64. ContentsMatter
65. Crayon
66. Delightfulblogs
67. Diarist
68. DreamTeamMoney Directory
69. Eatonweb
70. Emarketingblogs
71. Etalkinghead
72. Feedage
73. Feedboy
74. Feednuts
75. FeedsFarm
76. Feed Directory – 88tem.com
77. Findingblog
78. Findory
79. FyberSearch
80. Geekyspeaky
81. Getblogs
82. Globeofblogs
83. Gobignetwork
84. Highclassblogs
85. Iblogbusiness
86. Industryblogs
87. Jenett
88. Kmax
89. LSBlogs
90. Misohoni
91. MyBlogLog
92. NewsGator
93. Photoblogdirectory
94. Plazoo
95. Portal.eatonweb fee
96. Postami fee
97. Pressradar
98. Quickblogdirectory
99. Rateitall
100. Readablog
101. Redtram
102. Sarthak
103. Scienceport
104. Search4blogs
105. Small Business Blog
106. SmallBusiness.com
107. Sportsblog
108. Strategic Board
109. Syndic8
110. Tailrank
111. Technorati
112. Thevital
113. Tomstopsites
114. Top 100 Bloggers
115. Topblogsites
116. Topix
117. TruthLaidBear
118. Weblogalot
119. Wilsdomain reciprocal
120. Wingee
121. Yahoo Blog Directory

P.S: There may be some directories that are defunct, so if you ever come across any of them, kindly let me know so I can update this list too!

Everybody knows that Page Rank is important. It indicates the content volume of a site, and it also proves the site’s popularity, or how many external links it has pointing to it. We all strive for the highest Page Rank we can muster for good reason. Having a high ranking means traffic, and traffic means more sales potential. Which is why we write and submit articles. Placing articles on your site increases its relative content volume, and submitting the articles with a bio box creates external links pointing to your site.

It’s all about exposure! The more we have the more profit we make.

Simple!

But then the plot thickens . . .

Site Popularity doesn’t come from having your links just anywhere. You see, there’s a method to the madness that brings it all full circle. To achieve a higher Page Rank through external links, you need to put your articles on sites that have an equal or higher Page Rank than yours does.

But does this apply to Article Directories?

If you’re one who submits articles manually and are under time constraints, the quick answer would be yes, it does apply. You have only so much time to get your articles into sites that will bring you the quickest exposure you can get. However, when we look at Page Rank for Article Directories in these times of rapid fire article submission software, services and scripts it becomes hard to judge the validity of the every day statisics. Some Article Directories of late have appeared out of nowhere one week, and the next have well over 1,000 articles already submitted to them. After a month’s time, some have even reached the 5 to 10 thousand article mark.

Now considering that Google adjusts a site’s Page Rank every three months, an Article Directory could show a big fat “0″ Page Rank one day, and after Google makes their adjustments, could climb to a PR4 or PR5 the next. So, thinking logically, the only time an Article Directory’s Page Rank should concern you is the day after Google makes its adjustments. And even then, that would still only matter if you’re in a time rush to get quality links to your site and manually submit to 5 to 10 of the best known sites to do it.

So the answer is twofold . . .

For those who submit their articles manually, yes, current page Rank for Article Directories should concern you. But for the rest of us, what should matter most is that, when you submit to every possible site you can, you’re helping to establish more Article Directories with a higher Page Rank than ever before! This can only bode well for everybody.

What is natural linking? That is an easy question to answer. Natural linking occurs when someone places a link to your blog from another site or blog. The reason that someone might link to your blog is not really important, the fact that they placed the link is the only thing that matters.

Some of the reasons that someone might place a link to your blog or to a page within your blog are:

1) Your blog offers some information that supports a fact or reinforces a position contained within another site.

2) Your blog offers some tools or resources that would be helpful to others.

3) Your blog contradicts a common misconception that others want use to validate their own views on that topic.

4) Your blog represents a controversial viewpoint that others might want to showcase for their own purposes.

5) Your blog is just so very cool that others need to be made aware of it and seeing as my website links to your site, my site must be cool too!

Regardless of the reasons why someone might be linking to your blog, these natural links are very important. Even if someone is linking to your blog because they think it is a sad joke and they want others to see how bad your blog is, it really doesn’t matter.

Knowing that these types of links are important the next question is, “How do you get people to link to your blog?” There are several ways you can get people to link to your blog with the easiest being, make a useful blog. Easier said then done you are thinking eh?

When you think about it, creating a useful blog isn’t that difficult, it just requires time. Time to find helpful tools to share with others, time to find sound advice regarding your blog’s topic of interest and time to make your blog ooze the “It” factor. The amount of time it will take is solely dependent upon how much effort you want to put in to it.

OK, so you finished your blog, now what? How do you let people know that your blog is ready to amaze others? There are several ways to let people know about your blog. If you have a budget set aside you could set up a PPC campaign that may bring in some traffic. You could join groups or forums that share your interest or even better, that are totally opposite to your blog’s message or theme. Perhaps one of the best ways is to write articles that others can use on their sites that are seeded with a few well placed links pointing back to your blog.

One of the next big trends that is about to take off is, the “Bartered Link”. Bartered links are where you offer space on your blog to host an article written by other webmasters, which contain text links to their sites in exchange for a one way link back to your blog. Are bartered links considered to be natural links? If they aren’t then they sure do a fine job of mimicking them.

Regardless of the motivation behind someone linking to your blog, even if it is because they think your blog is bad or your opinion is wrong, just remember this… the fact that they did is all that truly matters as the link is the thing.

Blog Marketing is something that many take seriously. However, if you are into blog marketing and make your living off of your blogs, you are quickly going to realize how important staying on top of the blogging news is. Blogs are also known as web logs, and are used for many things. They are used for journaling, promoting things, and just getting your point across at times. Using a blog to get any of these things done is a great thing. That is because so many people love to read blogs, and they like to hear what others have to say. If you are a blog owner, then chances are you read blogs yourself and often appreciate other’s views on things. Whether it is something that you are looking to purchase, a hobby, or news. Blogs are loved by many.

Blog marketing is only as hard as you make it. You market a blog a lot like you do a website. You are going to find that blog marketing is somewhat less expensive than owning a website though. For example, when you buy a domain, you do not buy it for life, you only buy it for so many years. That can be just one year, or more. Which is a personal preference. So, starting a blog does not have that cost up front that you are looking at for a website, nor does it cost anything monthly to host as a website would. With all of the free blog options that are available to you, there is no need to pay for one.

When you are blog marketing, it is a great idea to stay on top of the news for blogging as well. This will ensure that you are aware of the new things and tools that become available to bloggers. Whether they are promotion tools, or tracking tools, any of them will allow you to keep track of your blog and market it better than ever. Whenever a new tool or technique comes out, you can bet that it will be talked about in the blogging news. Which is great because that makes you as well as other bloggers aware of what is going on.

Not only does blog marketing news make you aware of new things, but it also keeps you up to date on old things that you all ready use. For example, if pinging your blog no longer was good for a blog, you would definitely find out about it in the blog marketing news. So, it can be used for new techniques and tools as well as old ones.

Blog marketing news can be found anywhere that you would go to find website marketing news. You will see that it is also blogged about so if there is anything particular in the news that you are looking for to read about blogging, you will not have to go far. But by reading other blogs about the new news, you are able to get others views on the tools and techniques as well.

As you can see, it is very important to keep up to date on blog marketing and the new things that come out for it. You never know when the latest thing is going to hit the blogging world again, so keeping your eyes peeled is great idea.