Social Media websites like Digg started off as a good idea. Kevin Rose was capable of finding better news than major media outlets, so he built Digg. The concept was that users could find and then collectively vote on which news, blogs or articles became the front page of Digg.

That's how social media websites started. Then they started to grow and gain attention. More and more submissions came in. Internet marketers started paying attention, and now many marketers claim social media is a way to market websites. Based on this advice bloggers submit even more posts. Social media websites are bombarded with submissions. So many that it's hard to keep up. It's not the spam, it's the volume.

In the beginning you were able to peruse all the submissions, and voting for the top stories was a fairly democratic process. The current volume makes it impossible for any users to view all the submissions. That has lead to a breakdown of the democratic system of voting.

Rather than read through volumes of submissions, users congeal into social networks. These are cliques within the social media websites where users have developed virtual relationships. The top users on the social media websites filter the submission volume by means of the virtual relationships. They read and vote for submissions from within the clique. This makes them top poster simply by the fact that the virtual relationship is quid pro quo. The members of the clique vote up the posts from the clique, knowing their submissions will reap similar rewards.

This is a well publicized strategy on social media websites. You are encouraged to build relationships, and then twitter your clique when you want them to vote for your new post.

Members of these social media cliques tend to professional marketers. These are people whose job is to spend on day on Digg, Sphinn or StumbleUpon. Live bloggers flourish on social media websites because their job is blog instantly from conferences. How does the average user with a day job compete with the professionals?

This is what causes some submissions to reach the top pages of social media websites. It's no longer the best content. More often than not, mediocre or poor content reaches the top. Meanwhile, some of the best content is lost in shuffle, just as it used be to before the social media websites.

There are already problems arising with social media websites. Marketers have started offering votes on these websites for cash. One in particular paid users to vote for certain submissions, and simultaneously collected fees from the author. Social media websites reacted by locating the offending users and terminating their memberships. But the real question is if the social networks are less damaging? Instead of accepting cash for votes, the quid pro quo nature of the clique is trading services for services. Votes are the currency of choice, and I'll vote for you if you vote for me. Is it hypocritical to support this trading of votes, but then terminate votes for cash?

Does the clique need to defend its status as the top posters? If every post suddenly got 50 diggs, sphinns or stumbles, wouldn't the top posters also be lost in the volume? Are the top posters likely to be dismissive any new authors achieving success? I read discussions where the top posters take it upon themselves to report spam. Do they judge everything as spam, either consciously or subconsciously to protect their turf. If so what chance does new and unique content stand.

Is this the fault of social media websites? No, it's more a result of being released to the masses. Should the social relationships be disbanded by the social media websites? I don't think so because it is a means to filter the volume of submissions. What can be done? I don't know, but I think social media is at its pinnacle. The next method that recognizes the quality content, no matter who the author is, will eventually replace it.

The golden rule of Google Adwords is relevance. Google will grant you low minimum bids if you master the science of relevance. Without relevance you'll be paying too much per click and your competition will beat you in the market.

The google search engine is the undisputed search engine leader. Google beat out Yahoo, Altavista and MSN in the search engine market by building a better mousetrap. Google's search engine algorithm is a complex formula using many variables to return pages highly relevant to the search term used. The Google search engine is the best search for pages relevant to the search term. That's how they beat their competition. Relevance.

Google uses the same principal with Adwords. Advertisers with a message relevant to the search term are rewarded. Advertisers who are not relevant are allowed to compete, but they pay much higher rates per click.

Google determines relevance by two primary methods. The first is by examining each of you keywords and ads. Google checks the keyword, the ad headline and text, and the landing page to determine how relevant they are to each other. An automated program, or robot if you prefer, will crawl your landing page and determine if your page is relevant to the search term. A relevant page may only need to bid five or ten cents per click. A page not relevant will have to pay ten dollars in a competitive market.

The second method Google uses to measure relevance is the ads click through rate (CTR). Every time Adwords shows your ad to consumers, Google records that it gave our ad an impression. Every time a consumer click on the ad, Google records the clicks. The CTR is the number of clicks divided by the impressions. Adwords will assume that if consumers are clicking your ad frequently then the ad is relevant to the search term and will adjust the quality score upwards. Adwords will adjust the quality score down if the ad is not getting clicks. There will be more information on the CTR later.

You can verify the keyword, ad and landing page relevance for yourself with an experiment. Take a competitive keyword and create an Adwords ad for it. For example, try adwords marketing as your competitive keyword. Go and create an Adwords ad for it and set the landing page to some website that is not about adwords marketing. Any website will do, as long as it's not about internet marketing. What did Google set the first page bid at, five dollars, ten dollars or more?

Adwords will tell you why you got such a high first page bid. The magnifying glass icon next to you keyword will give you diagnostic information. Adwords will tell you your quality score on a scale of one to ten. The quality score is how Google has scored the relevance of you keyword, ad and landing page. In this experiment, and in the example on the right, you have a poor quality score.

Adwords will event provide details of your quality score. Click on the details and recommendation link. Google will tell you your landing page is not relevant, and perhaps identify other problems.

You have just created poor ad. Go ahead and delete the ad group and campaign. You are not about to pay that much per click.

Start another Adwords experiment. Create a new campaign and a new ad group for adwords marketing. Use only that keyword as a phrase match. You can also add an exact match for the same keyword. Do not use the broad match. Do not use any other keywords except the phrase and exact match.

This time, use the keyword adwords marketing in the ad headline, and only this keyword. As you'll see later, having the keyword in the ad itself boost the quality score.

Use the landing page http://www.adwords-marketing-tool.com/adwords-marketing/adwords-marketing.aspx as the destination URL. The URL is complex, and for a specific reason, but more on that later. This is a customized landing page on this website, tailored for the keywords adwords marketing.

The landing page is now highly relevant to the keyword. Adwords rewards you with a lower minimum bid. The same keyword went from ten dollars per click to much lower. Stop and pick your jaw off the floor.

You may not get the same low first page bid or a 7 out of 10 quality score as in the screenshot. First, you are probably not using all the proper techniques in your ad. You'll learn all of those techniques in just a moment. Second, the campaign in the screenshot has an established CTR, which assists the quality score. The ad you just created doesn't have any impressions or CTR.

You'll notice in the screen capture that you don't even have a good or great quality score. The quality score is just ok. The keyword adwords marketing is extremely competitive. There are many existing pages on the web about adwords marketing with established traffic and backlinks. These pages have good and great quality scores. You are not going to rise above these pages on day one. The keyword is simply too broad and too competitive. That's why the quality score is only ok. Build a solid Adwords click through rate (CTR), develop organic traffic and get some backinks and you can achieve a good or great quality score for competitive keywords. Alternatively, select a more specific and targeted keyword. You can become a good or great quality website for targeted keywords.

You are now spending much less than you were with a poor ad. A reduction from ten dollars to ten cents is like paying one dollar for what you used to pay a hundred dollars for. The savings are amazing.

There are three main components to any Google Adwords ad. You'll want to examine each part of the ad. The parts of the ad are listed below.

1. The keyword or phrase that triggers the ad to appear
2. The landing page the ad will send the consumer to
3. The actual text of the ad, or sales copy if you prefer

The key to the strategy is get all three parts of the ad working in harmony. A good keyword, a focused ad and a highly relevant landing page will get you a good or great quality score. A good quality score will allow you to bid very little for your keywords. You will be able to get traffic at a fraction of the cost for an uneducated advertiser.

You are now ready to proceed with the Free Adwords Strategy.

You are Kneau Reeves. This is a hostage situation. You need traffic, lots of traffic. What do you do, hot shot? What do you do?

There are several methods for generating traffic to your website, and this post is about knocking them down. Let's examine the drawbacks to all the tools in your internet marketers handbag. And then I'll tell you the lazy marketers way to internet traffic.

Organic Search Results
Organic traffic is the holy grail of internet marketing. If you go looking for it, be sure to bring a shrubbery. You need time to build organic traffic. Anyone saying they get good traffic from organic search two weeks after launching a website is probably targeting a long tail keyword that no one is looking for.

Backlinks
Backlinks are the key to Googles organic search results. So get out there and spam every forum, blog or directory you can to get those backlinks. There are even websites telling you to use PAD submission software to spam. After a couple of weeks you wind up pretty unfulfilled.

Social Media
Sounds easy right? All you gotta do is quit your day job, get a divorce, lose your friends and hang out at Twitter building new virtual friends. Did you ever wonder why the top posts that are supposed to have such great content usually stink? The guys that rule the top of the social media sites belong to social media cliques where it's quid pro quo (you digg my post and I'll digg yours). Social media websites even tell you flat out that's how it works. And worse, they squash websites that offer to digg you in exchange for cash. I totally understand why this is banned, but isn't it hypocritical to ban diggs for cash but encourage and reward begging for diggs from your virtual friends?

Article Marketing
That's sooo 2004 dude. Article marketing websites are now the spam of the spam. It's the fastest way to disappear inside a pile of crap since Windows Vista.

The Lazy Marketers Guide to Internet Traffic
I am an American. It's my right to have whatever I want, as soon as I want it. I have been conditioned through television and advertising to have no more than a 30 second attention span and to crave instant gratification. I am used to spending massive amounts of money, and I'm prepared to go to into debt to have the next IPod, IPhone and IWhatever. You too? Then the obvious solution is PPC advertising. Google Adwords delivers traffic today with no (or very few) questions asked. All you have to do is pay for it.

In order to run a business online or be a successful internet marketer, there are a few tools you're going to need. The cost for brand name software tools are often too expensive, especially when every dollar counts. Fortunately, there are alternatives to the big software names. Not only are these alternatives capable of filling your needs, but they are a also free.

FTP Utilities
Everyone needs an FTP program right? FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers. It's an add-on for your Firefox browser. It starts as a new tab within your Firefox browser and you FTP right from your browser.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/684

AutoMailer
Marketers need to manage their email lists. Rather than pay a monthly fee to a service like aweber.com, here is a free (GNU license) PHP script you can install. poMMo is versatile Mass Mailing software. Add a mailing list to your website, or organize stand alone mailings. Unique features such as the ability to mail subsets of your subscribers set it apart from alternatives.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pommo/

Antivirus Software
You really can't afford to work online without some virus protection. ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003 and Vista. ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge.
http://www.clamwin.com/

ZIP Utility
You absolutely needed a ZIP utility to work online. 7-Zip is open source ZIP utility software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license. You can use 7-Zip on any computer, including a computer in a commercial organization. You don't need to register or pay for 7-Zip.
http://www.7-zip.org/

Spreadsheet and Word Processing
You'll always use Spreadsheets and Word Processors. OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It's a replacement application for Microsoft Office, and can even use Microsoft Office files.
http://www.openoffice.org/

Adobe PDF generator
The Adobe PDF format is everywhere online. PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Video Capture Utility
Do you need to create a video? These days more and more tutorials are in video format. Jing is free program that lets you record video of what you do, or what you see. The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere.
http://www.jingproject.com/

Graphics Editor
Would you like an alternative to the very expensive PhotoShop? Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
http://www.getpaint.net/

Photo Editor
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
http://www.gimp.org/

Encryption
Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.
http://www.truecrypt.org/