Newly introduced e-commerce sites often require some extra explanation so that online shoppers can fully understand the benefits.  This was the case with DubLi when I entered North American in the Spring of 2009 and more recently in Australia and New Zealand.  This post will address some of the common questions I get about the auctions and its shopping portal.

First, DubLi is a German-based company that features two distinct reverse auctions.  The auctions feature the latest and more in-demand retail items.  Popular items range from Playstation 3s and digital camera’s to designer purses and gift cards.  Customers have the advantage of bidding on things that are guaranteed to be priced below retail price, sometimes much lower.

Both the Unique and Xpress auctions require users to buy credits up front to take part in the great buys.  Each 80 cent credit is used to reveal the hidden price as well as to purchase the item.  DubLi offers volume discounts to avid customers looking to purchase larger amounts.  In fact, many business associates have bought credits for just 60 cents, equaling a 25% discount.

The Xpress auction is where users have the ability to buy auction items at will.  They do this buy first using a credit to reveal the price which in turn dropped it by 25 cents, hence the name ‘reverse auction’.  It 100 customers clicked on revealed price without deciding the purchase, the price would be $25 less than the initial price.  At any point the item can be purchased via credit card and the auction would end.  Currently there are hundreds of Xpress auctions available for bidding.

The Unique Bid auction is similar to the Xpress auction in that customers use credits to win brand new items.  However, this type of auction is timed such that the lowest unique bidder bidder wins the auction at the specified end time.  Bids are placed on 25 cent increments from $0 all the way up to the retail price.  Unique Bid winners often attest to a strategy in placing a range of bids to hedge against competing bidders.  Additionally, DubLi will notify users if their specific bid price was duplicated so that users can bid again to find the lowest unique price.  The more people that learn how this new and exciting form of online shopping, the more that prices will quickly drop below retail standards.

The second half of the DubLi website is the shopping portal, where a larger number of products can be bought from the largest worldwide retailers.  It includes well over 1000 retailers that feature unique discounts for DubLi shoppers.  Each item lists a percentage that is credited to shoppers in the form of  points.  Once sufficient points are accumulated, users can redeem them for cash- or gift-cards for flexible spending.

DubLi quite literally has something for everyone, regardless of a person’s shopping needs or customs.  Look out for it to quickly become a household name as its appeal spreads through online and social networks for years to come.

Additional DubLi Marketing Videos:

Using Onlywire for Social Bookmarking DubLi Content.

How to Use .Edu Blogs for Backlinks.

How to use Ping.fm for DubLi Blog Auto-posting.

In this post I want to talk about using anchor text in blogs and articles.  I find that many novice internet marketers are still new to this concept so here’s my take on what it is and how to utilize it.

What is Anchor Text Optimization?

First let’s start with anchor text, which is the readable section of a text link.  It is the clickable, blue, and typically underlined word or phrase that is contained within the html tags of a link.  The two major types of anchor text are internal, which redirects readers to additional pages within a domain, and external, which forwards readers to entirely new websites.

More specifically, anchor text optimization is the process by which internet marketers create anchor text with just the right location, relevancy and keyword structure so as to maximize SEO of the target site.  The target site is the subsequent webpage that clicking on the anchor text produces. 

External anchor text optimization is accomplished through link exchanges, blogs & forums, and article directories, among others.  Link exchanges are conducted between two or more related websites.  The mutual relationship obvious aids each party, however, achieving 100% and consistent compliance is often a challenge.  I prefer using article directories, blogs and forums which allow anchor text in their resource boxes or signature files.  This strategy gives the marketer the majority of the control in link building.

How To Create and Use Anchor Text?

I use two variations of html code for my anchor texts.

1)      Redirecting current page:

<a href=http://www.domainname.com>anchor text here</a>

2)      Opening brand new tab (retains former page):

<a target=”_new” href=http://www.domainname.com>anchor text here</a>

Store these templates in a word or excel file that you regularly access.  This will save a lot of time as you begin to use these html tags more frequently.

Try integrating two separate anchor texts in each article resource box, either varying the text and/or the target website.  Seek out high pagerank, dofollow article directories that support anchor text like ArticlesBase, EzineArticles and GoArticles.  For blog posts create a template containing one to three related links following each post (like you see concluding this one).  You’ll have to amend this to achieve relevancy but the general structure remains the same.  Just be sure not to overdo the inter-liking.  Some marketers have encountered a Google-slap from excessive internal anchor text.

Another practical measure is to vary the target webpage by linking a specific page to a given article.  In other words, don not solely use your root domain as the target site.  For instance use anchor text from an Ezine article or other non-video directory to route readers to the specific video-containing post (e.g. at domain.com/video-about-article) that accompanies the text.  Your readers will surely recognize the extra care given to your linking.

And lastly mix up your anchor text itself.  If your site is all about green widgets, try varying the anchor text as opposed to just using “green widgets.”  Over-optimizing like that can create an unnatural pattern and keeps you from ranking for other modifying keywords (e.g. “green widget discounts”).  Now you should have a clearly understanding of what anchor text is it and how to produce it for your specific websites.  Check out my second half of this blog post about why using it is vital to any marketers sales copy and SEO campaigns.

Related posts:

Why Using Anchor Text Is So Important.

How to Use .Edu Blogs for Backlinks.

How to use Ping.fm for Social Networking Auto-posting.

n a previous post I discussed what anchor text is and how to use it.  Now let’s review why using it is so important both to search engines and to human readers.

I.The Search Engine Aspect

In the most basic analysis, anchor text ‘tells’ a search engine what the page is about in an efficient manner.  Major search engines like Googe, MSN and Yahoo give significant weight (hence the name) toward anchor text as opposed to the same text that is not hyperlinked.  This point underscores the reason why including relevant keywords is so vital, especially when placed on authority sites with high pagerank.

Begin with the end in mind by brainstorming the top three to five keyword phrases that web users interested in your business would initially query.  Those should be your keywords used to create your anchor text(s).

For example, it’s futile to use “click here” as your clickable anchor text when your site is about “dog grooming”.  While a human reader may still click through, the search engines think your target page is about “click here”.  Obviously, you’re not trying to rank for that keyword and yet many websites still make this careless mistake.

An addition variable when using anchor text that bears mentioning is the nofollow status of the website.  More and more blog owners are implementing this hindrance to backlink-seeking commentators by placing a “nofollow” tag by default for anyone placing anchor text on their site.  You can check for this by clicking “highlight nofollow links” in the SearchStatus firefox add-on or clicking ‘control U’ and viewing the pages code.  Google essentially dismisses the anchor text completely when accompanied by the nofollow tag, so steer clear of those sites.  Stick to ‘dofollow’ blogs, forums and directories that do not contain the nofollow tag.

So to sum up, each time your link appears on another website, the search engines will note the sites pagerank, the nofollow status, and the keywords used in the anchor text.  Consistently using keyword-rich anchor text on high pagerank, dofollow sites should be your primary goal!  This game plan is what top marketers use to rank for those specific keywords.

II. The Human Aspect

Remember that real humans will read your links as well as search engines, so the words in your anchor text need to make sense.  Generally speaking readers are more likely to click on anchor text as opposed to a long drawn out url, perhaps in part due to curiosity but also because its appears cleaner and more professional.  Internet newcomers reveal their inexperience by copy and pasting excessively long urls that ideally should be converted to anchor text. 

Anchor text can also play a role in posting status updates in various social networks which limit the number of characters a message contains.  Although most people have resorted to shortened urls, using anchor text is preferred whenever allowable.

Internal anchor text increases the likelihood of your readers staying on your domain longer.  Google actively tracks this parameter and in fact preferentially ranks websites with higher viewing lengths.  So the goal is to capture your readers’ eyes through multiple web pages and for as long as possible.

Now you have a better understanding of how proper anchor text usage plays a valuable role in onsite and offsite search engine optimization.  Its high-tech and high-touch implications to both search engines and human readers cannot be overlooked.

Related posts:

Beginner’s Guide to Anchor Text.

How to Use .Edu Blogs for Backlinks.

How to use Ping.fm for Social Networking Auto-posting.

The one question that every small business owner or internet marketer seem to ask is “how to leverage social networking without going insane??”  Seriously, there are so many to choose from and so little time to actively participate in all of them.  The solution is this is using a free auto-posting service called ping.fm.  This handy site allows you to submit status updates, shorter blogs and longer blogs to dozens of the top social networking websites.  This post is going to cover the primary advantages to syndicating longer blog posts using ping.fm.

Url Shortening. You can now auto-generate a ping.fm url in place of a long website.  This benefit eliminates the need to visit an additional url-shortening site like bit.ly or budurl.  One trick that many marketers exploit is putting a link to the main blog within the first few sentences.

Doing this increases the chance of that link being viewed and clicked on when appearing in an RSS feed blog summary.

Increasing Blog Title Listings. Instead of solely relying on your primary blog to get ranked, Ping.fm adds at least twenty other possible listings for your blog title.  This is important since no one knows for certain which site Google will rank highest.  It could be one, two, or even five of your blog posts.  I’d rather submit to all of the ping.fm sites than play a guessing game to tweak each individual site.   Functionally, the submission sites will act as feeders to funnel visitors to my primary blog. 

Improving Blog SEO. This requires an extra minute of specialization but it’s worth it.  Create anchor text with some basic html coding like what is shown in my blog post’s Youtube video.

Choose a 1-3 word phrase that contains the most relevant keywords related to your topic and what you wish to optimize for future Google searches.  For instance, my hyperlinked anchor text was “DubLi blog”, so readers are most likely to find my blog when searching “DubLi blog”.

This affect is underscored by the fact that ping.fm’s sites not only contain high Google pageranks but most of them are ‘dofollow’.  This last point is vital since Google only considers dofollows backlinks in their ranking calculations.

Saving Time.  I hinted at this advantage above in describing its more specific benefits.  It’s undeniable the power that ping.fm affords to increase social networking productivity in the shortest time possible.  

Marketers and business owners view time as money.  And up until now too many critics abandon social networking and social media due to its time consumption or intangible return.  However Ping.fm solves many of these drawbacks thus allowing more time for other marketing efforts.

Ironically, the most time consuming part of the entire service is initially establishing accounts with all the social sites.  This could take thirty minutes or more however each individual post typically takes about three minutes tops!

Leave your comments below if you have questions or think of additional benefits of Ping.fm.

Related posts:

Social Bookmarking with Onlywire.

How to Use .Gov Blogs for Backlinks.

Why Long Tail Keywords Improve SEO.