One thing an internet marketer can definitely use more of is friends.  Friends can help you be more successful. Online friends that you network with can do a lot for you. You can have a sort of symbiotic relationship that does well for you both.  Beyond regular brainstorming sessions and getting insider secrets and leads about the next greatest money making options, there is also the potential for collaborative projects and scratching one another’s backs by social networking  for one another. Here are some tips:

Digg and Stumble Club

Follow your friends’ friend feeds and when they post something new, Tweet, Plurk, Stumble, Digg or Buzz it for them.  This can make a great difference in traffic levels and they will likely reciprocate which can bring you traffic and new visitors.

Blog Commenting

When your online friends comment on your blog, return the favour.If they write a great post, Digg it. Not only will you get a link but your witty and charming comment could bring you new customers as well.  You can have symbiotic online friendships that can make a great different in your social marketing efforts!

Not only can you find a few friends to do this with, consider making it a regular effort. There are networking clubs and social networking circles all over the web that can help one another by taking turns giving link love, guest posting, social bookmarking and more.

Can’t find a social networking club in your niche? Why not start your own? Tomorrow we’ll explore how to do it.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

How are your time management skills? Are you someone who gets lost in cyberspace sometimes and needs help staying on task? Do you have the equivalent of Internet ADHD? A timer might be in order.  The internet is a vast playground that can detract you from work and as someone who wants to earn an income online, you need to stay on focus.

Beware of Productivity Traps!

If you’re apt to go off to read a blog post or update your MySpace, Facebook or Twitter status and suddenly realise time has slipped away and you’ve been playing in cyberspace for the last hour and a half instead of working, a timer can help you. Set up a little egg timer by your computer and allocate time for tasks.  Here are a few tasks you might choose to do it for:

• Social bookmarking
• Link Building
• Bum Marketing
• Blog comments
• Social networking
• Keyword research
• Chatting

As an entrepreneur you are your own boss and as such, sometimes you need to crack a whip and make yourself get back to work! Feel free to dig through our archives here at www.seanseo.com for a few more minutes before you do so, though

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Being an active member of an online community such as MySpace can take up valuable amounts of time each week. Some people end up getting sucked into spending more time on these sites than they do promoting their business and figuring out how they can sell more online. There’s a point when social marketing and Web 2.0 can turn into a time waster.

Too Many Online Communities?

That’s where you need to be wary of how many online communities you join. There is no definite number, and what one person finds to be unmanageable might be just the right amount for someone else.

The key to getting the most out of your own online communities is to find out what your happy number is. If you get to the stage where keeping up with them all is getting difficult – and your work is suffering as a result – then you know you’ve got too many.

It can also depend on how particular online communities are set up. Some are much easier to understand and use than others, and by their very nature it’s going to be the easy to use ones that will get to stay if you find you need to start paring down your efforts in this area.

Get the Best Response

But you should also consider which sites get you the best response, and funnel the largest amount of traffic over to your website. Those will ultimately be the ones that should stay, since they are bringing in the largest volume of interested people.

Social networking has great potential when it comes to locating the target audience for whatever you are selling. When the sites don’t allow you to advertise directly to other members, you can still make a name for yourself because people will start looking for you and your website.

So choose your online communities wisely. Sometimes less really can be more.

Have a most outstanding day.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

OnlyWire is a great tool for doing social book marking in multiple places with the click of a button. It can be a great time saver which means you’ll do more social marketing with fewer keystrokes. The initial set up is a little bit of effort but well worth it. It was shown to me a few years ago and has had a home on my FireFox browser ever since.

Social bookmarking can get you more traffic. Plain and simple. Placing interesting headlines on sites that information-hungry people browse within hot categories can net you traffic, subscribers and maybe even some sales.

What is OnlyWire?

OnlyWire is a bookmarklet that contains many social bookmarking sites.  Instead of having to visit several sites every time you want to do some bookmarking, you can simply use the toolbar in your browser to bookmark them all at once.  Then, if you have a new website or new blog post you want to share with the world,  you can simply enter the details once.

Setting Up Social Bookmarking Accounts

Several of the tools in the system might be ones you already use but if not, you’ll want to visit all the sites first and create accounts.  Then you’ll need to set up the tool with your username and password for each site.  Sites covered by this bookmarklet include: del.icio.us, Furl, Wink, Blogmemes, Bluedot and others.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Should you use online answer sites to drive traffic to your website? Many people use sites like Yahoo Answers to try to increase their SEO value and sales. Today’s blog post will tell you how this can help you but it will also tell you about the potential associated problems with using sites like these to try to generate traffic to your website.

Using Yahoo Answers To Drive Traffic

Answer sites like Yahoo and others give users the ability to ask questions and other users the ability to answer them. You can use them to answer questions already posted and you can ask your own questions in an effort to raise interest in a specific topic.

If you search for questions related to your niche, you could reference your site or affiliate code in the answers section. This can increase your sales and SEO as many of these sites index in the search engines for anchored keywords.

Not only might people browsing those questions find you but you could also be indexed in the search engines for keywords in your post as well as the fact that the link to your site will count towards your search engine page rank.

Some of these sites have points associated with them that are awarded by the community, which can elevate your standing in the community and get you homepage placement.

Caution: Don’t Spam

Be wary of being banned for spamming if you use these sites excessively or push your links to others without good reasons.  The key to using these sites is to provide helpful information. You might choose to answer questions without always referring to your URL, for instance. Sometimes you might choose to refer to other URLs not owned by you to add extra value.

For example, if you are in the dieting niche you might choose to answer questions in that category. The same would apply to technology related questions for the technology niche. You wouldn’t want to simply push your url where it isn’t warranted. Refer to the terms of service when joining sites like these. These types of social networking sites can be helpful and useful if used wisely.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008