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Author Resource: Ric Raftis is a keen author who runs No Bull Online Business Coaching and is also a Community Partner with Cagora. Find out more about http://cagora.weebly.com where you can build your community. Submitted By ArticleUnited.comArticle provided by - Published-Articles.com

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A strange title for an article perhaps, but there are remarkable similarities between the two. Here we intend to explore these similarities and some differences as well and provide a clearer perspective on what SEO is all about – or perhaps is not!

One glaring dissimilarity between SEO and religion is that with SEO we have indisputable proof that a god exists and that gods name is Google. Not only that of course, but there are several lesser gods like Yahoo, MSN and others. All these gods dictate the status of our sites on the glory scale according to our good deeds and also our sins.

It may also surprise some people to know that the Social Bookmarking sites like Digg are also gaining a religious following. They also have their own rules about how sites or articles will be rated in their system.

Just as religion is broken down into various sects or branches which all have their own variation of what they call the truth, the same exists for the gods of the search world. Religion calls their rules their dogmas. The search engines call theirs the almighty algorithm.

Oh no! Another dissimilarity. Religion is more than happy to give you access to their dogma so that you can follow it, build up good deeds and avoid sin. The search engines on the other hand are not. There is no more closely guarded secrets than the algorithms of the search engines and social bookmarking sites.

Now it is pretty common knowledge that there are some important good deeds that one must do in order to be considered a good webmaster and fall under grace with the search engines.

Such things as:-

1.Use a decent description in your meta tag
2.Make sure you use an applicable title in your head section
3.Use title tags, don't just make the font larger
4.Use bolded words to emphasize key words
5.Write for visitors and not for the search engines, in other words, naturally.

There are also some mortal sins that one can commit as well which may see you cast into the fiery pit of the supplementary index or de-indexed altogether. These are known as black hat methods and should be avoided at all costs. There have been hundreds of them over the years and the search engines have countered every one sooner or later. If you are building a site for longevity, then stay with proven white hat methods that will not end up getting you banned.

When preparing your site for SEO, ask yourself this question. Am I doing this to trick the search engines? The emphasis there is on the word trick. If the answer is yes, then forget it. It will not last and eventually cause you more pain than it is worth.

A classic example of this which you can see on many pages around the place that are trying to trick the search engines is where people have stuffed keywords at the foot of the index page in the same color text as the background, I.e. white on white. Are you serious? Do you really think that Google has a staff of thousands that read all these pages? Absolutely not! Text readers crawl the web looking at these pages and it is clearly evident to them what is going on. Result – mortal sin recorded.

A major similarity between religion and SEO is that there are any number of churches you can follow. This is a major problem for many webmasters because for every opinion on one aspect of SEO, you will find a differing one from another SEO church. There are however good people around that are worth listening to and I have my favorites. It will be up to you to find yours. Just weigh up what you are told carefully.

I will recommend one source of information you should watch and that is Matt Cutts. Matt works for Google and whilst he does not speak on their behalf, one would like to think what is posted in his blog is coming from a knowledgeable source.

In summing up, there are considerable similarities between SEO and religion because of the variety of opinions. Just as some religious organizations can get you into trouble, so can some SEO advisors. Stick with the basics when doing your sites and read as much as you can in order to find one or two SEO bloggers you feel you can trust. Remember, it is your site that is at stake here, not the SEO advisors, so protect it as much as you can.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A freelance writer who meticulously structured and maintained blogs just for you:A LIFE SO FAR AWAYand my other blog:OFW: THIS IS MY LIFE AND STORY Thank you for your valuable time. Follow my business & writings and you'll find what life's meant to be.

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Author Resource: Jodi Ouellette. You can grow your home business by using the same network marketing strategies used by Jodi Ouellette and other top earners in the home business industry. Gain access here to my Free 8 Day Traffic Revolution Training Course to learn more about reverse marketing and using funded proposals to cash flow your business. Article provided by - Published-Articles.com



Go getters in the home business arena are in a never ending search for a network marketing strategy that will catapult their business and send them straight to the top. If you are one of the serious players, then you already know the market is saturated with what many would consider old school techniques for building a business. Being a trend setter and standing out from the crowd requires a network marketing strategy unique from every other sales pitch.

Reverse marketing seems to be a highly under used network marketing strategy even though it has been around for years. The reason I believe it is not widely used, is basically because not enough people know how to teach or train the method effectively enough to duplicate and produce serious results for their teams. In understanding how to use reverse marketing, you also must know how not to use it.

What A Reverse Network Marketing Strategy Is Not

First, think about standard marketing practices. This is where a person or company directly markets their product or service to a consumer pointing out the benefits of why they need that product and how their life will be different by using their product. With traditional marketing the approach is geared more towards appealing to the consumer’s emotions, creating feelings of what they'll be missing without using their product or service. This is basic targeted marketing.

A network marketing strategy that uses a standard approach starts with an ad or sales pitch which leads with the product or opportunity. In other words, your main objective is to expose your products or opportunity to generate leads for potential clients or business partners. Using straight sales practices for your network marketing strategy works, although because people don't like to be sold to, it usually requires a higher advertising volume. Whether you share links to your business on social sites, use classified ads, traffic exchanges, or use paid lead vendors, if you share specific information about your company and product, that is direct marketing, and you wanting a sale is always obvious.

What Is A Reverse Network Marketing Strategy?

Reverse marketing in terms of a network marketing strategy can also be thought of as attraction marketing. If that sounds confusing, it’s not when you understand the meaning. Using a reverse network marketing strategy is an indirect approach. You wanting a sale are not quite as obvious. Instead of promoting your products or biz operations, you focus more on providing beneficial information to your intended market and your service is introduced more subtly.

There are various avenues people prefer to use for a reverse network marketing strategy. For instance, someone may research why a consumer would want their product, and address the need in the form of information like an e-book. An example of this would be, maybe a particular company promotes a health product that addresses a specific ailment. The reverse network marketing strategy may be producing content that educates a person about the condition and answers questions about viable solutions. The content directs the person reading to more information about the author, and a specific product that can solve their problem. This is a value motivated proposal, since the content is not focused on the product, but rather on informing the individual on the ailment or addressing key questions people may have about the problem. Since you have given something of worth to someone, they are more apt to trust you and buy from you. Other methods can include article marketing, how to videos, free reports, free or paid training programs, etc.

The principal intention is that a reverse network marketing strategy must focus on giving first, while leading a person to make a decision to purchase what you have, entirely devoid of you having to convince them. If you have a great reverse network marketing strategy in place, you might never have to talk with your leads until after they've made a purchase!

To Do Or Not To Do With A Reverse Network Marketing Strategy

Do – Provide content or offer that is always relevant to what the customer is really looking for. In other words, whatever information you give must answer the questions that are posed by the person who is searching for information. Irrelevant information will yield zero and just make you look bad.
Do- Make sure you are giving information or tools of actual value. Sowing dead seed returns dead leads, so choose your offers wisely.

Do- Make sure you have some sort of opt-in lead capture form to collect each person’s information, so you can follow up with them either by phone or by using an auto-responder email system.

Don’t – Use Spam reverse marketing. This one is very significant. If you have ever been on the receiving end, you know how infuriating it is. Let me give you an example. You receive a communication from somebody asking if you are still with ABC business or do you still market XYZ merchandise, and if so they must speak to you as they need some answers. They request your reply. So you do, and it results in your inbox being bombarded with email after email regarding everything great they have to offer you. Ouch! This is the lack of ethics rearing it's ugly head in the form of a so-called reverse network marketing strategy!

Don’t – Friend anybody and everybody on social networks looking to network, while only intending to spam their email. I loathe this one too, as yes, my inbox has been filled with offers.

Don’t- Spam period. Except of course you don’t mind being blacklisted, then spam away. It comes down to this - either make the decision to promote ethically and give something of worth, or don't use a reverse network marketing strategy.

No matter the approach you elect to employ as your reverse network marketing strategy, the key is in providing value driven information that is relevant to your intended audience. Again you must aim to give first, establishing trust, and let your content direct your potential customer to making the right choice to purchase what you have.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A freelance writer who meticulously structured and maintained blogs just for you:A LIFE SO FAR AWAYand my other blog:OFW: THIS IS MY LIFE AND STORY Thank you for your valuable time. Follow my business & writings and you'll find what life's meant to be.