FreelanceMom.com Newsletter

Happy Holidays! I hope that you all have enough work to keep you energized and enough free time to keep you balanced!

This month I wanted to send a few tips your way on promoting your website. We all want more traffic - and most of us are up against some strong competition.

With online business, promotion really goes hand and hand with optimization. Your best friend is a high search engine ranking. But not just any search engine ranking. You want a ranking for your 'target keywords'. That is, THE keywords that you would search on if you were trying to find a website offering what you offer.

There are some very specific methods to 'optimize' your website to improve your website's search engine rankings. If you are the webmaster for your own website you can implement very helpful changes by yourself. I will list some helpful articles and indispensible resources for you below.

A lot of women involved in business opportunities such as Tupperware, Avon or Melaleuca often use templates that are given to them by the company. I don't think it is as easy for you to access your website files for optimization and I wanted to let you know of an excellent way that you can still promote and drive traffic to your website for FREE.

Write articles. Writing articles about subjects you are knowledgeable about is one of the best ways to generate interest in your website, and also increase your search engine rankings. If for example I was selling tea tree oil, I might write an article on the health benefits of tea tree oil. Now, the important thing is NOT to promote yourself in the article. The article should strictly be about your subject. When you go to submit it to websites you will have a much better chance of being published if the article content isn't blatantly advertising your business.

However, as compensation for your article you will be allowed to have a 'resource box' or 'bio' at the end of the article. This is where you can briefly describe your website. You might say something like, "Jane Doe is a work at home Mom who has discovered a line of products that are enviornmentally friendly and have made an extraordinary difference in her family's health. Find out more by visiting her website: http://www.teatreeoil/janedoe.com."

Not only will you get some targeted traffic from these articles, but the more times your article gets published, the more incoming links to your website are out there on the Internet. That increases your visibility to search engines and gains you higher rankings.

Now, taking that a step further you can actually optimize your website for your chosen keywords in your bio IF the website you are submitting to supports HTML. If your chosen keyword phrase is 'tea tree oil' then you would change the last sentence in your bio from:

To do that you would use the following html code:

For more information visit her website about <a href="http://www.teatreeoil/janedoe.com">tea tree oil</a>

Remember only to submit this way when the website specifically says that HTML is supported. By having your keywords as the incoming link this way you increase your search engine results for those keywords.

I hope that you all have wonderful holidays with your families. I have enjoyed this first year of FreelanceMom so much and am really looking forward to seeing how well members of the FreelanceMom family businesses flourish!

P.S. As my Holiday gift to you I am sharing the list I maintain to submit articles to. Enjoy it! And please don't forget to join us in the home business forum to talk about your success :)

Not an Affilate? Why Ever Not?
By Marianthi Iatridou

If the idea of pursuing a living on the net has repeatedly crossed your mind but you still haven't found a way to implement it, then affiliate programs are going to break the ice for you.

Affiliate programs are a lot like learning how to swim in a pool before you go to the open sea. Anyone can try them at least once without having to worry about the consequences.

The good ones are usually safe and do not require a great commitment of time and money from your part. Of course, at this point, some people would argue that this is the exact reason why most people fail. But that's another issue.

Besides, in many cases, signing up for the right program can be as rewarding as launching your very own enterprise. But above all, it's a good start.

Sometimes we can all use a friendly reminder to keep us from backsliding into old ways of thinking about selling that lead us down the wrong path with potential clients.

I was inspired to write this article after a few coaching sessions with a client named Michael, who sells a technology solution. Michael had been struggling with a mental block about how to detach from the traditional sales thinking he had learned from old-school sales "gurus".

You know who they are. You may even have some of their books or tapes. And you know their sales messages too: "Always be closing," "Think positive, and you'll overcome all your cold calling fears," "All you need to boost your sales is a few new sales techniques.

"But all these outdated sales messages fail to address the core issue of how we think about selling. And unless we get to that core, and change it once and for all, we'll go on struggling with the same counterproductive sales behaviors. We'll go on experiencing the same difficulties and frustrations. And we'll continue to believe that we're always just one new sales technique away from the breakthrough we're looking for.

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