Site Review - Free Graphic Background

This blog has a rather interesting collection of free background graphics. They quite unlike any that I have seen on the web in that they are quite stunning, with "bold patterns and weird shapes". They are definitely not suitable for use as a background for your website but you can download the graphics and use them on your computer desktop. Or if you are a graphic designer, I'm quite sure you can find some uses for them.

A new graphic is released about once a week. The graphics are all 256 pixels X 256 pixels in size and can be tiled seamlessly. They are free and there are very little restrictions on their use.

In addition, the blog also has free website templates and WordPress themes for download. Restrictions on how they can be used are also very minimal.

Visit the site here: Free Graphic Background

Internet Marketing - A Primer On Niche Marketing

Niche marketing can be defined as marketing to a subset of a larger market segment. Although the market size will not be very big, the needs of such a market will have the advantage of being much more focused.

In the online world, niche marketing is primarily concerned with niches in which the search engine competition is low. Normally, you will carry out the following steps:

• Research keywords that a surfer will use to find what they want. Look out for those particular keywords which has a good potential for profit and not a lot of competition in the search engine rankings.

• Build a website to target those keywords.

• Optimize your blog posts, or website pages, for your targeted keywords.

• Get other websites and blogs to link to your website using the usual link building techniques like link exchanges, article submissions, directory submissions, etc.

• Keep building those anchored backlinks until you get to the number one spot in Google, or at least to the top of the first page.

You can do it in many different combinations but the basic steps are listed above.


Cost

In my opinion, you must pay for your domain name and web hosting. They will cost you less than $11 per month. The advantages of paying for those far weighs the small cost incurred.

Other than the obligatory domain name and web hosting, there are some services that can increase your productivity:

• Good content for your blogs, articles and websites is key to your success and, unfortunately, also takes the most time to generate. Paying for articles to be written might be a good investment.

• Submitting your article to the various websites, blogs and article directories will take up a lot of your time as there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them out there. Article submission software, especially those that avoids sending out duplicate content, is well worth the investment.

• Getting other webmasters to exchange links with you would also take up a large portion of your time. There are some services that brings together webmasters interested in link exchanges, and some would even monitor the backlinks resulting from link exchanges for you.

Recommended Skills

A relatively good command of English would definitely be recommended, especially if you intend to write the content and articles yourself. You don't have to be a writer, but you must at least be able to write grammatically correct sentences and be disciplined enough to spell check your work.

There is a lot of computer and web related work to do. On the computer, you might find yourself touching up some graphics, or installing a software application, or even doing some html. On the web, you would probably need to update your name servers and configure your hosting account. You don't need to be an expert to do all these, but some level of computer literacy would be needed.

I have broken down niche marketing into a series of simple steps. But those steps cannot be looked at in isolation. You must look at those steps as part of a business, a niche marketing business. As a niche marketer, you are the boss of your niche marketing business. And the decisions that you make for your business must be made not as the niche marketer but as the boss of the niche marketing business.

Hub - How To Get Followers On Twitter

It is really amazing how Twitter has taken off, and how you are starting to hear about celebrities using it. I think it probably started when Obama used it in his presidential campaign. It may also have something to do with today's short attention span so that 140 characters might probably be the longest you can hold a typical person's attention!

Anyway, I wrote a short guide on how to get followers on Twitter. Followers are people who have voluntarily subscribed to your tweets so that they get to see what you say in your timeline.

Read the hub....How To Get Followers On Twitter

Wordpress - Paragraph Spacing

WordPress and blogger are 2 of the more common blogging platforms available. It is generally agreed that wordpress has more functions but blogger is easier for the new blogger. I have used both platforms and I would agree.

But wordpress has a very irritating habit of stripping out your [p] and [br] tags from your html and the result is that there won't be as much space between your paragraphs as you might want. For some themes, there seems to be practically no space between paragraphs at all.

I have managed to find a simple workaround. Just insert [code][/code] into the html where you want an extra line spacing.

Remember to replace the square brackets with angle brackets, and to place each tag on a separate line. The html will look like the following:



Remember to switch the editor to html display.

Hub - Anchored Backlinks - A Simple Guide (Part II)

I found out that my hub about anchored backlinks is on the first page of Hubpages's best hubs category and that would probably account for the traffic and the high number of comments. And therefore, a good way to get exposure would be to write good comments at hubs that are on the front page of Hubpages.

Nevertheless I still believe that clear and simple information is very lacking on the web.

Read the hub ..... Anchored Backlinks - A Simple Guide

Hub - Anchored Backlinks - A Simple Guide

I wrote a simple guide to anchored backlinks on Hubpages about 1 week ago. It was in response to a request on the best ways you can get anchored backlinks to your hubs. In the guide, I categorized the different ways you can get anchored backlinks into 3 categories:

• Links from your own sites
• Links you can post on other sites
• Links you can get other people to post on your sites

I go into some detail as to how the links in the various categories can be implemented. The information I presented is rather basic, so I was rather taken aback by the response. To date, there have been 23 responses.

Judging from the responses, I think it might be fair to say that while the information on SEO is there for everybody, what is lacking is a clear and simple way of explaining it so that those not in the field can easily understand it.

Could be a good market there, whether or not the subject is SEO.

Read the hub .... Anchored Backlinks - A Simple Guide

Home Based Business - "Sir, Tell Me How To Make Money On The Internet"

"Sir, tell me how to make money on the Internet"

I have received quite a few such emails from my site about home based businesses. In the beginning, I took the trouble to reply properly, trying my best to outline the extremely complicated business that is making money on the world wide web.

Every single time, I did not receive a second email. Quite obviously, the sender was looking for a one paragraph answer that is probably the equivalent of: go to a certain site, sign on, and make money.

In fact, I actually have an email asking about how the sender can join my site! I had to explain to him that my site is an informational site and that I do not run nor promote a business opportunity.

I am an electronics engineer. I was in school for 3 years and it was only after 10 years of working experience that I consider myself worth a few thousands dollars a month to an employer. That's a total of 13 years before I consider myself having acquired some measure of proficiency.

Many online business opportunities advertise results of a few thousand a month after a few short months. No experience is required to pull it off and we may be talking of working only an hour or 2 per day.

All I can say is: "Wake up, people!"