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SWeCS NEWSLETTER - 4 October 2004

In this issue...

- Buying & Selling Links
- This Fortnight's Question
- Affiliate Program Additions
- Computers As Depicted In The Movies
- Resources For Small Business

BUYING & SELLING LINKS

It's well known that increasing the amount of links pointing to your website is very important for search engine ranking and traffic growth.

For this reason, most websites on the Internet today actively seek links with other sites (if you're not, you should be). But the word going around in cyberspace is that reciprocal links are great (in most cases), but "one way" (inbound only) links are even better. This is because search engines are likely to view one way links as definitely not a "link swap", and instead as a true recommendation from one website to another.

This has created a market for link buying and selling. That is, websites selling links on their pages. For example, I could charge $50 to place a link to your website on one of our pages.

Some might say "Wow, $50!!". But what if we said that some people are paying over $300 per month for a link on certain web pages? It's true. The rate varies depending on how "popular" your website is. Some links may only sell for as little as $5 or $10 per month. But if you've got a number of pages on your site, that can add up to some nice extra pocket money per month.

Or perhaps you want to increase the amount of links to your site, but don't have the time to search people out and ask them for links. There are many sites out there who will gladly place links to your site in return for a fee.

Now, if you're going to go down that road (buying or selling links), it's important to do it carefully. Google and other search engines are opposed to websites buying and selling links because they feel it affects the integrity of their systems. So, if you buy or sell links it is important to do it through a broker service so that your details are kept private from the search engines. That way, you'll avoid any penalties.

Because of the nature of the services performed by South West eCommerce Strategies, we are in contact every day with sites who are willing to buy or sell website links. So if you think you might want to buy or sell links on your site, let us know. We can find buyers willing to pay you between approximately AUD$7 and AUD$280 per link (depending on the quality of your site). Or if you want to purchase links, we can find willing sellers from as low as AUD$15 per link.

Email us if you want any further information.

THIS FORTNIGHT'S QUESTION

This fortnight's question comes from Michael:

"Why do most people say it will take many months to increase your rankings in the search engines? I need to be at number 1 now!"

You can be number 1 now (in a matter of minutes), but only by paying "per click" to be listed at the top of the major search engines. Almost all of the major search engines provide "Pay Per Click" results at the top of their results, and you can be listed there within a matter of minutes.

When people say it takes a lot of work and time to be listed high, they're talking about the free results (that normally come after the paid results). These results are based on how relevant the search engine thinks your site is, and is based on a number of factors including what is written on your website and the number of websites linking to yours. This second factor is a very important one, and is the main reason why it takes so long to increase your rankings. You first have to find lots of sites to link to you, then the search engines need to notice the links, then they need to factor that into how important your site it. If the search engine only updates it's database every month, then any changes out there take a while to filter through.

Got a question? Send it to us at admin@southwestecommerce.com and we'll do our best to answer it, as well as publish one every fortnight for everyone to see.

AFFILIATE PROGRAM ADDITIONS

The SWeCS Affiliate Program (where we pay you for referrals) has been expanded to cover 2 new products we offer. We will now also pay:

1. US$6 (around AUD$8.50) every time someone purchases our "Make Money As An Affiliate" eBook
   
   
2. US$20 (around AUD$28.50) every time someone purchases our "Build Your Own Website" eBook

You need to be registered with our Affiliate program first before you can earn these referrals. We provide commissions for most of our services. More details can be found at www.southwestecommerce.com/affiliates.htm.

COMPUTERS AS DEPICTED IN MOVIES

Have you ever noticed that in the movies, computers and electronics act differently to how they act in real life? For example, in the movies:

1. Word processors never display a cursor.
   
   
2. You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences.
   
   
3. All monitors display inch-high letters.
   
   
4. High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, will have easy to understand graphical interfaces. Those that don't, have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.
   
   
5. Corollary: you can gain access to any information you want by simply typing "ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard.
   
   
6. Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS" (see "Fortress").
   
   
7. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.
   
   
8. Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn't go faster than you can read. The really advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer.
   
   
9. All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backwards.
   
   
10. People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data.
    
    
11. A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
    
    
12. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function (see "Demolition Man" and countless others).
    
    
13. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems usually appear to transmit data at the speed of two gigabytes per second.
    
    
14. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
    
    
15. If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.
    
    
16. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has (Aliens). However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren't labeled.
    
    
17. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional, active animation, photo-realistic graphics capability.
    
    
18. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY Supercomputer .
    
    
19. Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face (see "Alien", "2001").

RESOURCES FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Ecommerce Library

Browse through the SWeCS Ecommerce Library, full of FREE information about getting more out of the Internet. Sections include Web Site Development, Web Site Promotion & Internet Marketing, Online Commerce, Computer & Technical Issues, and Miscellaneous.

Newsletter Archives

The SWeCS Newsletter archives provides a wealth of FREE information on small business and the Internet. Browse through the main topics or search for your particular query.

SWeCS Affiliate Program

Start up another income stream, by earning commissions for each referral who signs up for one of our services.

Affiliate Directory

Browse through a list of reviewed Affiliate programs. Let us do the work of testing it out for you!

Do you know of a resource that should be added here? Email us and let us know. There is only one condition - it must be free.

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