The year has passed and for me it has been a long year to be quite honest with you, but I have my priorities straighten out I know exactly where I need to go or what I need to focus on so our company can continue to grow. The whole reason I decided to write this post up is to share my thoughts with you on what I personally think you should do to build a profitable website or something that will create you income.

Read on…

• Coordinate Your Brand: Focus in on your brand, decide and think what kind of personality am I going to give me brand. You need to create something thats going to connect with your consumers whether it being your blog or company website. When I say create a character create something thats unique and one of a kind or at least something that will differentiate your self out of the market.
• Keep in mind - momentum: Try to keep in mind building a business is about momentum and leverage just keep promoting and turning things. As you keep promoting things will start to turn for you just make sure you keep them going because if not it will go away very fast.
• Define your Blog Goals: Set some time out and think are you going to blog like crazy such as high quality posting 5 times a day or 1 post a day whatever you decide stick with it, but quite honestly I would suggest posting as much as possible specially in your beginning stages or at least something that will create turns for you.
• Define and Build Links: Stay focused on your current link building techniques that are working, but try to push it even more and try to find new techniques that will work for you. Generally if you keep working you will discover new techniques that work for you.
• Become Active and Learn to Leverage: If you haven’t been that active in Web Communities then try to become more active and learn to leverage these communities to your advantage, social networking can be very beneficial if leverage properly.
• Focus on Your Niche: Try to focus in on your niche this is something I catch my self doing I lose my focus on whats working and I try to move onto other things that are not working or I try to learn new things when I already got something working most generally if you find something thats starting to work then work it like crazy once it gets on the ball you can start coaching your self in other aspects of the web.
• Try to create Media: If your at this point and feel comfortable with it try to create media through news sites, news on TV, magazines, and etc. It can be done, but takes time. The idea behind this is to build something that people can talk about.
• Remap Your Website Tunnel: If you think your website needs to be improve or remapped then remap it. Try to map it into a structure that will become effective into certain markets that are related to what your doing. Make it so you can tunnel and suck people into your vision and make the sale.
• Improve Your Weakness: Try to improve your weakness if at all possible, but remember stay focused on your particular niche. If you feel there is certain areas in your niche that are slacking and you can improve them then define it and work it.

Conclusion
I could honestly probably set here all day and define things that would help people on building a better website for search engines and for marketing in general. The idea thought is to just stay focus and keep things turning when I refer to turning I’m referring to when your keep things growing and moving.

Building a blog takes time and most generally you won’t get results right away unless your one hell of a viral king (excuse my language), but most generally in the 1st year or so you won’t see no results specially if your domain is new. What your doing in your beginning stages is seeding your blog just like you would with any company in general.

Problogger did a great post on this called Sometimes Blogging Is Like Watching Grass Grow in this video he explains exactly on what your doing in your first year of building a blog. The thing is most generally in your first year you are researching, promoting, analyzing, and etc. Your basically trying to find your niche and whats working vs whats not working its like a structure your trying to build something that will will fit into a market place.

In other words your building a character, you are developing somebody pratically. Not really like a human being, but almost your trying to get something to move and come alive, but keep in mind it takes time and will not happen over night, so don’t expect to make much money in your first year if any at all try to make sure you have other sources of income coming in to ease things up which granted you can make money in your first year, but if your someone new and starting out don’t expect much right off the bat.

Sometimes I think its great to actually start with no money when building a business the reason being is because you’ll need to educate your self before you actually start to invest money. Learning the hard way can sometimes be beneficial to people instead of having a golden spoon in your mouth because when you build something from scratch and earned your keep you learned how to be responsible and you’ve dedicated your self more then someone that has had money passed down to them, so your what really matters in your blog / company.

When promoting content try to at least promote around 3+ post a day if you can, but keep in mind focus on high quality content and stay persistent because persistence can pay off. As you stay persistence you’ll notice things start to turn and you’ll start figuring out whats working and whats not working. It takes time when it comes down to it.

Link building is vital process of optimization as we all know, so in other words link building is the most important factor when ranking in search engines. It can be a time consuming task specially when your trying to get permanent links that have value and that will keep value. The thing is link building takes time, but persistency pays of anyways I’ve have listed some tips below that will help with your link building campaigns.

Directory Submissions: Since big G penalized all the directories out there a lot of people are hesitate of submitting to directory, but quite honestly there is nothing to worry about there is a lot of web directories out there that carry major bang and value just try to submit to the ones that have been more organically grown.

Article Links: Article submissions are great to get links from just make sure when your submitting you write up unique content you can get massive links like this if you submit to enough article sites. Most generally if you don’t want to write your content hire a content writer to write you up maybe 50 unique articles a week and start submitting them.

Presell Pages: Presell pages are known as the perfect links because you get a one way unique link to your website. Its a page dedicated strictly to you and no one else there great links, but if there rentals stay away from them try to find permanent presell pages.

Link Brokers: This is the best way to go generally link brokers got large inventories of links if not they have access to them one way or another. Try to choose a broker company that doesn’t show there inventory because most generally brokers that show there inventory have a bunch of penalized blogs if you see blogs that are old and have a bunch of incoming links, but have a page rank 0 then stay away from them they probably carry no value what so ever.

Blogs: Blogs can be very effective, but the down fall is it takes a ton of work to build a blog subscriber list up, but the outcome of it is amazing. You can use blogs to leverage your brand into direction you never imagined.

E-Books: Write unique e-books up and place them on your site people love online e-books its very effective if done properly. The purpose of this is to get people to link to you one way or another.

Link Exchanges: You can do link exchanges, but be careful with this its not effective as what it use to be. Try to get one way unique links if possible. Only time I would really suggest doing a link exchange is maybe if your friend wants to link to you and you’ll link back such as a higher authority site.

Conclusion
There is a ton of ways of getting links just see what works for you, but the most effective fastest way of getting them with your desired anchor text is to contact a broker company. Directories can be very effective to, but the bottom line is don’t get carry away and buying a ton of links right away let them build slowly therefore it looks more natural also if your going to buy links I would suggest installing a blog or start creating viral content on your website to give the users something and have links going to the content.

Connecting with other communities on the web is very important specially if your wanting more links not only will you get links, but its a way of networking with people its a good feeling specially when you connect with 100’s of blog publishers and create massive links ;).

Read the following below on why connecting with communities is important and how it can benefit you.

• Creates Brand Buzz: Joining communities and connecting with other people on the web builds brand its seriously does. If you learn to leverage blogs, forums, social sites, and etc in the right patterns you’ll find out its very valuable I have created an extra 10-15k a month in sales from certain forums before by just leveraging them right. Which granted sales always come in, but there is things I have figured out where it generated extra income and its the same for any one else find your leverage and play with it.
• Link Love Baby: We all know when other bloggers connect with other bloggers they always link to each others and this is for damn sure, so connect with other people and link out find ways of connecting with other blog publishers.
• More Traffic: There again if you leverage social networks properly you can create more traffic to your website some people might get frustrated with it and say its a waste of time such as social networks, but remember if you leverage them right they can be very very beneficial.

There is numerous reason why connecting with communities can be very beneficial, but the idea is to just test, test, and test then see whats working for you. You’ll find out not everything will work for you right off the bat, but sooner or later you will start to find stuff that does work and when you do stay focused always keep that in mind, don’t ever lose your focus I do this my self sometimes on occasions I get to doing 30 things at once or trying to do everything at once and lose my focus on whats actually working.

You know I have wrote about this many times on the blog, but I don’t think a lot of people really understood where I was coming from, but John Scott (v7n.com) wrote a post called Tips on Advertising take a moment to read that and I have referred to similar things a ton of times on our blog.

The thing is with advertising it can be costly and sometimes you might want to keep that money for your self specially in your beginning stages when your budget is small, but anyways advertising might not create leads right away or get a automatic ROI (Return On Investment) right away, but then again you are getting your monies worth you might not see it right away, but what your creating through these market channels is brand awareness an image for your consumers.

Your creating an image in the consumers head, so in other words your getting them famaliar with your brand such as who you are  and what you do. This can be a very powerful technique if used right (promoted properly). For example if someone sees your ads here and there there going to get more comfortable with your name and yes believe it or not it works like that.

People get connected with your brand with out even realizing it I have caught my self getting too connected to other peoples brands to be honest, but I’ve learned a lot from it. Its hard to explain what I’m talking about and where I’m coming from, but the bottom line is that advertising does work and creates brand awareness, so learn to connect people with your name.

I’m setting here thinking and looking at our website and thinking of our new year for 2008. I think things are going to go very well I know they will, but the thing is I think I lose my focus a lot on what were doing and where were heading and that right there is where I think a lot of people mess up at including my self.

When building an image try to stay focused once you find out something is working keep working it and let the image grow. Building a strong brand image is very important, but most generally the image won’t be that strong in your consumers heads until you start staying focus and let that one see grow.

Some things that might cause you to lose your focus is focusing on what other people are doing to much and you will lose your focus with out even realizing it. See the thing is in business you must stay focus at all times and this becomes very relevant to internet marketing if you want to be successful I think we all lose are focus in life one way or another some might lose there focus faster then other, some might be less interested in something and lose there focus on that particular thing, and etc.

You ever notice some people that are successful in certain areas in life that others weren’t successful at the reason being is probably because they found there niche and they focused on it. The reason I brought this up for is because I think its very important for every one to know and its something that I have caught my self doing here latly I have been wondered off doing other things thats totally irrelevant to what is working just becuase I wanted to learn new things which is fine, but there is still certain areas I need to focus on because if not it will go fast.

Just give it some thoughts and remember when you find something that is working in different areas in life or in business stay focused and don’t give in.

Improving brand image is pretty important, I mean think of it does someone decide to hire your company because you have no experience or do they decide to hire your company because they know your an expert. I have manage to bump into a few sites or have had a lot of questions from newer people wanting to get into the search marketing field or web development, but it never fails I see a weak image being promoted.

For example have you ever shown up to a site that just basically says hey my name is David and I’m a PHP programmer and here is my resume I mean come on think of it what reputable company or high paying client is going to hire another company when they show there resume.

Which granted don’t take me the wrong way if your just an individual freelancer type guy then go for it or if your applying for jobs, but if your wanting to build something such as a reputable brand a more corporate look then you must give your consumers a corporate image of you and your company.

Your probably asking me how can I do this well take your time out to read the following below.

Certificates: Show your certificates on your website for example if your in the PPC game and your company is a qualified Google Adwords Professional Team then use the badges / images they provide and put these on your site. Also be sure to put any other certificates on your site you have earned this will brand you a little better.

News Sites: Have you been mentioned on numerous news sites if show then brag about it on your website. Well I probably shouldn’t say brag about it, but promote it for example if your company has done something that created buzz across news sites then promote it.

Memberships: Show all your memberships such as BBB (Better Business Bureau), Sempo, and any other professional organization your part of. Be sure to list only professional organizations that are very well known this will greatly help you and make you look more conducted towards your company and what you have to offer.

Recent Speaker: Are you a recent speaker in trade shows such as search marketing or anything related to your company if so put your badges on your screen. I think Jim Boykin did a very good job at this.

Client List: This is highly important show what type of clients you have worked with in the pass or are working with this gives your consumers an idea of what type of organizations you have worked with. I know before I go make a sale to an SEO company I always check to see who there working with.

Testimonials: If you have testimonials be sure to show these on your website this always draws clients attention quite honestly I don’t pay much attention to them I always just check to see what companies my clients are working with and etc and go from there, but then again I don’t always depend on that either, but either way this will help :).

The idea behind promoting a strong brand is to promote a image that will hook people into calling you and hiring your company. Make your website different from the other 1000’s of websites in your field and promote your self as the best and let people know why you are the best.

Marketing online or anywhere in general is something that can be tricky at times. I know it makes my head feel like its spinning in 5 different directions sometimes its like I have multiple paths in my head that are spinning, but anyways the thing is when marketing online you must be able to leverage not everything is not going to go your way.

There is multiple ways to leverage and build momentum, but this is up to you and you need to find these patterns and you’ll find out some things work better then others. For example take a look below at some of the things that you can use as tools for your strategy.

• Blogs: You can use blogs to leverage your brand and gain more traffic. For some people it might work, and for others it might not work.
• Search Marketing with Link Building: This should work for every one, build links and gain traffic you can leverage this into sales of course and build your client list up with it.
• Forums: Most generally you need some type of momentum to build a forum such as leverage from other areas, but once you get a forum going you can leverage the community into multiple directions.
• PPC (Pay Per Click) Marketing: You can even use PPC to leverage your brand and create sales.

There is tons of ways to leverage your brand, and you will find out that you’ll be changing things around all the time to see what works and what don’t work, but thats the fun part, but keep in mind to always focus on whats working. Not everything is going to work it might work at one time or another, but maybe its not working at the moment its really hard to explain on what I’m trying to express.

Just keep in mind to leverage, leverage, and leverage. Always keep the momentum going in different direction and trying new things thats why a lot of online business fail because they don’t leverage there self into other areas or try new things changes are always good, you know were in the top 10 for website design and getting ready to hit many other competitive key phrases and believe me sometimes i think to my self how many times did I fail before I got there or learned what worked, but I had to remind my self marketing is leverage things will constantly change and things will constantly grow as long as I keep our company going in whatever direction that work if not I will fail and we will be out of business.

Building brand is vitally important specially if your really trying to move your company to the next level. The thing is a lot of people are probably good at what they do, but they never put the full effort into what there doing if that makes any sense, so in other words they don’t apply there self.

The reason brand building is so important is because its whats going to take you to that next level possibly millions, but a lot of people fail at this. I’ve seen some people even start to move into a positive direction with there business and they give it up when its actually working, but they don’t realize it because there not making much money at first, but the facts are you won’t make much money at first when your building a brand unless its something very innovative, but most generally even if it is innovative I’m sure you’ll have to put sometime in somewhere before you actually release your ideas.

Another thing is some people will depends on search engines which is fine and dandy, but if people are no talking about you virally then what the hell. I mean you could constantly generate leads, but if people are not talking highly about your brand and referring you then there is something wrong you should have a brand that is so strong that it will virally spread through social networks and word of mouth thats what you need right there.

Granted content is a plus plus, but quite honestly there is more to it then just posting content you need a way to hook people. I see a lot of blogs talking about this is what you do and etc, but the honest facts are no one is going to share there trade secrets there just posting quality content to get people famaliar with what there doing or maybe give them some tips.

I mean think of it how many times do you go to a blog and they share there in depth secrets it don’t happen. Which granted I’ll be honest I know we don’t I don’t share every single thing, but then again in a way if you have been around my blog for awhile you have probably learned some things cause I have gave out some pretty valuable information, thats for sure.

When starting a blog and trying to get links you need to think virally use things thats going to hook people into your feed such as e-books, free give aways, and etc. Always make sure you promote your bait in areas that people are going to nibble on. You need a market place to promote your bait whether its through adwords, search engines, forums, social networks site such as Digg, Reddit, and etc.

The bait is where its at, which granted content does help and content can be the bait, but generally it gets deeper then that speaking your wanting to increase your feed faster and if this is the case find out how your going to hook people which you can use content to hook people, but you need to tunnel them into your feed some how and this is something you must figure out but as time goes on you’ll find multiple things that work then before you know it you will be replicating it into other things and it will just keep you expanding.

The good thing is when your feed does start to grow you got leverage, so for example once you hit that 1000 mark start leveraging it which you should be leveraging the rss subscribers all the time, but generally at this stage you got more to work with such as leverage for market.