I have been a marketer since 1996. Through the years I have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. I don’t know about you, but I have had my fair share of losses too. I have spent money on the next biggest thing that came along.

I have looked at what the customer’s needs are, what their expectations are. So many people are lost out there trying to make a quick buck and eventually make millions online. So I wondered; what could I do to help them but at the same time be different than the rest?

Truth is no matter how you try to be different from the rest, sooner or later you try to copy what they do, to make it to where they are. In the end we end up with multiple goals, and multiple ideas, still looking like the rest.

The point I am trying to make here is that I have found a way to be different. If you want to be different than the rest and at the same time make it big online, you have to be YOURSELF!

Focus on what it is you know and love the most. And be yourself through it all. Let who you are come though what you do. Write your ebooks, blog posts, and articles sound like you talk. Help the reader feel like they are right there with you, connect with them.

With that said, I want to let everyone know that I have decided to take the plunge and narrow my blog to simply making money online. I will no longer be focusing on keywords, SEO, traffic , etc.

I realize that I will lose many subscribers to my blog, with the sudden change. However I cannot give you my best unless I focus on one thing. I have 4 blogs. AutoProsper.com (my ranting as a parent) , SoloAdsOnly.com/solo_advertising, MaggyTyger.com, and my favorite: this one!

I bet you are thinking, “how can I do all these blogs, when I am trying to focus on one area?” Well, these are 4 topics that I love. This is me. I am an internet marketer, a parent, and a blogger. I do what I love. But to help you, I need to alter this blog to be more concrete.

I want you all to know, I love feedback, I love hearing what you have to say. I will still allow comments on this blog. However I will be posting my new policy for comments on this blog sometime this week.

As always I look forward to hearing from you, so please do continue to post a comment.

1. Update the pages on your website frequently. Stagnant sites are dropped by some search engines. You can even put a date counter on the page to show when it was last updated.

2. Offer additional value on your website. For affiliates and partners you can place links to their sites and products and ask them to do the same for you. You can also advertise their books or videos, if these products relate to your industry and are not in competition with your own product.

3. You can allow customers to ‘opt in’ to get discounts and special offers. Place a link on your site to invite customers to ‘opt in’ to get a monthly newsletter or valuable coupons.

4. Add a link to your primary page with a script ‘Book Mark or Add this site to your Favorites’.

5. Add a link ‘Recommend this site to a Friend’ so that the visitor can email your website link, with a prewritten title, “Thought you might be interested in this”, just by clicking on it.

6. Brand your website so that visitors always know they are on your site. Use consistent colors, logos and slogans and always provide a ‘Contact Us’ link on each page.

7. Create a ‘Our Policies’ page that clearly defines your philosophy and principles in dealing with your customers. Also post your privacy policy as well so that clients know they are secure when they visit your site.

8. Create a FAQ page which addresses most of the doubts and clarifications about your product or your company that are likely to be asked. This helps to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site.

8. Ensure that each page on your website has appropriate titles and keywords so that your customer can find their way back to your site if they lose the book mark.

9. Never spam a client, who has opted for newsletters, with unsolicited emails. Later if they decide they want to ‘opt out’ of the mailings, be sure you honor their request and take them off the mailing list. They may still come back if they like your products. But they will certainly not come back if you continue to flood their email box with mails they no longer wish to receive.

You can’t just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites. There are many useful tools to help you find out what exactly is happening.

1. A tool which you can use to test your own website links or other websites for broken links:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

2. With this tool you can check search engines for the number of back links to your URL i.e. other web pages linking to your site:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/backlinks/

3. It sometimes becomes important to know where the servers of your hosting company are physically located. Because, some search engines like Google have the ability to filter search results based on their physical location called geotargeting. This could be used to determine why your site is showing in only a certain country. This link can also be used to research the country location of a particular competitor’s website:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/website-country/

4. In order to track the location of the visitor or a customer to your website:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/geovisitors/

5. In order to check the Yahoo! web ranking of your’s or your competitor’s website use :
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/webrank/

6. Here is a link to check the web ranking of a website using a Mac or Apple computer:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/pagerank-mac/

7. You need a Google AdSense account for using this. This link provides you with charts and reports which will help you analyze traffic, clicks, and results from your AdSense advertising
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-charts/

8. If you have an AdSense account, you can analyze your website address or another website address to see what Google ads will be displayed when the customer selects certain website names or keywords:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-sandbox/

9. This link will take you to a cooperative advertising network where you can join to display and
share your ads with other website owners:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/

10. You can add the Search Functionality on your website which uses Google. This works only if your site is listed in the Google Index.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/

11. Here are some links to free website counters which you can use on your website to track your traffic and hits:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/counter/
http://www.amazingcounters.com/?ref=gad033
http://www.cyber-counter.com/signup.php
http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html
http://www.free-counters.net/