About a month ago I had privilege of giving a demo of next version of Sonic Page Blaster to attendees at Yanik Silver’s “Underground Online Marketing Seminar”. I fielded a couple questions afterwards that bear a better treatment than I could manage on spur of moment and in less than 60 seconds.

Q: If we create “feeder” sites that point to our main sales page or “money site”, won’t they be adversely affected by Google’s sandbox?

A: Let’s first define what we mean by “Google sandbox”. Over last seven months or so it has become apparent that new web sites do not tend to show as high a page rank as older established sites. The reason for this is not a raw prejudice against new sites. According to my sources, it is instead an attempt by search engine giant to discount effect of reciprocal linking, especially paid linking. If links cost you money and they have no immediate effect, chances are most people will abandon practice.

And that’s exactly what Google is hoping for. Frankly, I understand and support this move. The reason is that Google’s motives and mine coincide. Google is trying to make sure they return most relevant and highest quality results available for a given search term. If I have most relevant and authoritative web site for a given subject that encompasses those same search terms, I want Google to return my results at top of heap. I don’t want spammy link farms to change this.

The key is quality. Really, over time, best search engine marketing strategy is to create a killer web site. Wouldn’t it be nice if all energy we direct towards search engine optimization could instead be focused on quality of our web site? Google feels same way, believe me, and refinements they make to their alogorithms are designed to move in that direction. For that reason alone, quality and focus of your web site is your best long-term SEO play.

Q. Could automatically generated web pages be penalized as "spam" by search engine spiders?

A. I call Sonic Page Blaster “SPB” a lot, and I definitely don’t think of “S” as standing for “spam”. On contrary, Sonic Page Blaster simply saves you time in creating search engine-friendly web pages that contain really good articles that pertain exactly to content of your web site. No “automatic” content system can find content that best fits your niche. You need to either write or find articles that will help your web site visitors or subscribers most. I know that a few of seminar attendees I talked to had spam-filled stars in their eyes when they saw SPB churn out a bunch of pages at push of a button.

Trust me, you don’t want to go there. Google will eventually punish you in a big way.

Here are some rules that I believe will not only help your search rankings, but also drive right kind of traffic to your primary web site (at seminar Jeff Johnson called these “money pages”).

Do you have a fresh ezine ready to start taking subscribers but don't know how to attract them?

Maybe you have a list already operating that you want to enhance.

There are many practical methods available online that can be applied to either situation, some free and some not. This article will cover basics of:

•Buying leads •Submitting to ezine directories

Buying Leads:

The easiest way to build your list is to buy “leads” from companies such as ListOpt or LeadFactory. Leads are people who have shown an interest in what you offer, and provide you their name and email address.

What you do is create an ad, usually about three lines long, 60 characters to a line, and lead company will put your ad out on Internet and capture potential prospects for you.

What you must absolutely avoid are companies who sell pre-assembled lists of email addresses. These addresses are not “opt-in”, and are not only worthless but can get you accused of spamming!

An “opt-in” lead is a person who has specifically seen YOUR ad and shown an interest in what you offer by giving out their email address JUST for purpose of getting on your list.

It is important to distinguish between “single opt-in” and “double opt-in” when buying leads. Most good lead companies will offer both, double opt-in being slightly more expensive.

In case of single opt-in, when a potential prospect gives their email address in response to your ad, it is then supplied to you as-is. You don’t know for SURE that address you got really belongs to person who supplied it.

With double opt-in, lead company will send a “confirmation” email to address supplied by each potential prospect, requiring them to click a link to verify that they are indeed owner of that email address. As you can imagine, double opt-in leads are more safe and secure.