Maki at DoshDosh has just written an excellent post showing you How to Dominate Your Niche Competitors.

While most bloggers and Internet marketers focus on the technical aspects of increasing traffic and improving conversions–SEO, keywords, linking, copywriting, site design, etc.–Maki offers 9 activities that are, in my opinion, far more important:

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Are you a web designer at heart? Do you like to explore cool new software tools?

If so, check out this color picker application called AdesClrPicker.

While you're at it, get a free PR 7 backlink from the guy who created it. That's right… he has a PR 7 blog and is doing one of those "review my (insert noun here)" promotions.

It's actually quite smart, and something worth taking a close look at if you have a product yourself that you'd like to promote.

He gets tons of links for his specific anchor text plus lots of eyeballs (and potential customers) checking out his AdesClrPicker product, and review participants get a PR 7 backlink. Sounds like a win-win to me.

It's very hard to resist a backlink from a PR 7 site. Obviously, I jumped on the bandwagon.

Get the details on how to participate (it's easy; took me all of 5 minutes) at AdesBlog.com.

Oh yeah… don't forget to review the product. Here's mine: AdesClrPicker is the best color picker! Seriously, it's quite good and very reasonably priced.

I need to tell you about an event that my friends at the Authority Site Center are putting on in September. It's called the 2007 Authority Summit, and it's going to be the premiere Web 2.0, internet marketing and business-building event of the year!

Let me give you some of the details. First, clear your calendar and make plans for September 7-9. Also, you can buy plane tickets for beautiful (and tons of fun) Las Vegas.

The list of speakers is incredible and there is a great event planned for everyone who is going to attend.

Here's the full list of speakers and their topics:

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Dean Hunt at Marketing What Works has a great idea. Well, I'm sure he has more than one, but here's the specific idea I'm referring to: Say No to Google PageRank.

My buddy Dave at Affiliate Profit Center gave me the heads-up on Dean's post.

Dean starts his post with:

"This is a war cry to all webmasters who have better things to do than to be listening to endless threads, blog posts and nonsense about the upcoming Google Pagerank Update."

Yeah Dean — I'm with ya!

So I'm following Dean's instructions:

"All you have to do is copy the info below, and put it into your site/blog. Then email me at : contact@deanhunt.com and I will update the list with your website/blog link.

"As this spreads your site will be mentioned on hundreds, perhaps even thousands of sites."

You should do this, too!

Step 1: Highlight the links below, right click, then click “View selection source”
Step 2: Paste the “Say No To Pagerank” list into your blog or site
Step 3: email me at: contact@deanhunt.com
Step 4: Get a mention and link here at DeanHunt.com and every other site that plays the game
Step 5: Update your list daily to reflect the new websites and blogs that join in

***
SAY NO TO PAGERANK, YES TO LIFE WEBMASTERS LIST***

Buzz Marketing Blog
Young Entrepreneurs Blog
No Nonsense Business Advice
Sell your blog
CS Developer
Aplliance Journal
Madkane Humor Blog
Find New Leads
PHPied
UK SEO Directory
Bikinifigur: Abnehmen ohne Hunger
Bob Meets World
BlueJar Webmasters Guide
All Sux Dot Com
CodingPad
The Next Post
Tech Blog
Reality Wired
Tom Wilson Google Blog
Price Filter
a few loose screws
Clickon Web Design
Woody Maxim
Crystals Quest
What Simply Works
Affiliate profit center
Internet Marketing Blueprints
Cash 4 blogging
Hits USA

***List Ends Here** - UPDATED DAILY *** Please update your lists

I definitely think Dean's onto something here:

WHILST EVERYONE ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT PAGERANK, WE CAN GET BUSY IMPROVING OURS

"User friendly" is a phrase we most often associate with website design. Have you considered that same desirable quality for your autoresponder series or ezine?

Of course, if we're following the rules, the email messages we send to our opt-in subscribers have these elements of user friendliness:

* A quick and easy way to unsubscribe (ouch!);
* Our snail-mailing address.

But is that enough? Heck no!

As a subscriber to about 3,230 email lists (I'm trying to cut back), here are additional user-friendly elements I think all senders of subscriber emails should include in their messages:

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The first website I created (in 2003) is about job interview strategies.

It’s ranked Number 1 in Google for the keyword phrase “job interview strategies.”

Isn’t that great?

No. Other than some bragging rights, this accomplishment is virtually worthless to me.

Why? Because no one is searching for that keyword phrase!

It’s like having the best steak for sale at a vegetarian convention.

What keyword phrase is my target audience searching for? “Job interview.” More than 18,500 searches per month!

But there’s also a lot of competition. When you search Google for that keyword phrase, it finds more than 2 million matches!

My site is ranked Number 30.

Which would you rather have—the Number 1 spot for a phrase no one searches for, or the Number 30 spot for a highly searched phrase?

This is just one example of how a lower Google rank can be far better than a higher one. Successful ranking depends on the keyword phrase and the number of searches for that phrase.

When doing your initial research, first find the keyword phrases for your niche that people are actually searching for—not phrases you think would be good. I recommend using the free Bulk Keyword Research Tool at itarget.info.

When I began designing my job interview site, “job interview strategies” seemed like a great phrase. It isn’t. If I’d done better research, I would’ve known this from the beginning.

My job interview site is not a blog, but it is an authority site. It took me years to achieve a decent ranking for a good search phrase. With today's tools (blogs, social networking, The Authority Black Book, etc.) you can get there much quicker.

Just make sure the keyword phrase you’re focusing on is worthwhile!

Tip: While you’re waiting for your site to climb in the rankings, be sure to write and market articles for your niche. In the early stages of my site development, several of my articles were published on websites with much higher rankings (and far more traffic) than mine. I’ve no doubt the backlinks from those authority sites, and the visitors they generated, helped my interview site to achieve success.