By Scott Hawksworth
There are many schools of thought on how to build strong backlinks to a Web site. Some webmasters build reciprocal links, while others register their site in many directories. Still others do both of those, and rent links as well!
But one method used by a growing number of webmasters is that of building link popularity through the syndication of original articles. Syndicated articles are becoming increasingly popular because article syndication builds permanent links from many different, topically related, keyword rich pages. There are several steps one can take in order to ensure that an article is syndicated as much as possible, and that the links from those syndications are of the highest quality.
1) Write High Quality Articles
The amount of syndication an article receives is directly proportional to the demand for that type of article. Higher quality articles will prove more valuable to webmasters looking to reprint articles. Perfect spelling and grammar are requisite in order to ensure the widest syndication possible. Webmasters will be more inclined to reprint well-researched and well-written articles. Most articles are not of the highest quality, so a higher quality article will stand out significantly.
Articles should be more than simply a place to put a link in a resource box. The goal of article writing should be to make the article itself interesting. An interesting article can be syndicated on websites with high traffic and PageRank. Increasing article syndication will cause the link in the resource box to be copied by many Web sites.
In addition to building more links with higher quality articles, webmasters will find that quality content articles will result in an immediate traffic increase to a site. An article that is appealing to readers will naturally attract a large readership. The more readers an article has, the more likely those readers are to click on the link in the resource box.
2) Manually Submit to Related Sites
Another technique used by many webmasters to increase an article's syndication is to submit articles to related sites. The best syndications and links come from quality sites in a specific niche, not simply article banks. For example, there are many Web sites that will only accept business-related articles. Any webmaster of a business-related website looking to build link popularity should write an article concerning business and submit it to these sites. Potentially, other business sites could take note of a high quality business article and syndicate it on their sites (which are all related under the unique subject of business). Doing this will build topically related links which can improve a Web site's search engine rankings dramatically.
3) Write a Compelling Title
Articles have to be interesting in order to get the readers to scroll down to the resource box, or inspire webmasters to reprint the article on their Web site. The best way to draw a wide variety of readers is to have a compelling title. Catchy titles and sometimes even controversial titles can draw more readers. Coupling a compelling title with a high quality article is an excellent way to attract readers specifically looking for articles to syndicate.
Article topics should also be interesting. If a website is focused on a specific subject, an article about an interesting element of that subject will be syndicated more than a general article. For example, there may be hundreds of available articles about mortgage refinancing, but how many articles focus on ways financial advisors will try to manipulate someone seeking to refinance?
4) Stay Organized
Time should be taken when finding article sites to submit to. There are many Web sites that have large lists of article sites that accept submissions. A good technique is to submit articles to all of the article sites in a list and check later to see if those articles have been syndicated. Searching for the title of the article submitted in quotations on Google will show where exactly it has been reprinted. Backlink searches on MSN and Yahoo! can also be helpful. Building a solid list of verified article sites can help maximize article syndication and also time efficiency.
Some article sites only accept submissions via e-mail. Some SEOs shy away from e-mailing articles because it is more time consuming and often involves the creation of a biography and picture submission. E-mail submission article sites however are often more inclined to only reprint articles of high quality, and thus these types of sites' articles are often widely syndicated.
5) Write a Killer Resource Box
The heart and soul of a syndicated article is its resource box. The anchor text and link destination of the links in the articles should be varied. Varying anchor text will help avoid penalties in search engine rankings and create higher-value links. Often changing the resource box after submitting to each site proves beneficial. An article about dogs with the anchor text "dogs" should be varied with anchor text like "puppies" for the other article submissions. Using technology such as latent semantic analysis, search engines will notice "dog" and "puppy" as related words, but will not penalize the site for having unnatural links (e.g., if all of the links used "dog" as anchor text). This same effect can be achieved by varying the link target. Linking the first half of the article submissions to page A, and the second half to page B will avoid penalties from search engines like Google. Articles are a proven way to get links, but if a new site suddenly acquires 100 links to the same place in a short time, search engines might penalize it.
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Monday 19 July 2010
Blogs and RSS Boost Your Online Business, Rankings, Traffic and Sales.
By Richard Weberg
Blogs for Advertising?
Yes! Blogs and RSS boost your online business, rankings, traffic and sales. We all sometimes ignore the trends in advertising on the internet until the masses are allready doing it. That is why I felt compelled to right this article and hopefully help others to understand that Blogs are a very powerful advertising method and you do not want to ignore this trend, You will regret it!
A blog is a frequent, online publication of comments, web links and news. It is an online Enzine of sorts. People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with automated published systems, most notably is blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger alone.
I only realized myself how powerful Blog advertising was, after I submitted an article to one Blog, yes just one Blog. What happened next amazed me! Within one week my new site wich I used in my byline in the Blog was not only indexed, but every single page was indexed and I had over 200 other sites pointing links to my site! All from one Blog posting. See websites need content and Blogs are a great source for content, and search engines LOVE blogs! I really need to say that again, search engines love Blogs!
Want your site indexed? Want hundreds maybe even thousands of incoming links all pointing to your site?
Here are the reasons you should not ignore Blog advertising. Remember when all search engines were free, and simply submitting your web sites got you listed quickly? Gone. Then it wa FFA pages, they brought in a ton of free traffic, built links to your site, and added to your mailing list like crazy. Tried one lately? Safelists were an online goldmine for a while... until bottom less email accounts were introduced.
Every new technology does what you need, at first. Then slowly more and more learn the secrets, and by the time the herd has caught on it's too late. Technologies have changed, everything has slowed way down, or the search engines have decided that it's become another form of spamming the search engines and stop weighing it so heavily. Sometimes they even ban the technology from their databases, remember doorway pages and multiple sites?
So where is blogging along this curve today? The early adopters have been doing it for the last couple of years, and the leading internet marketers started coming into it over the last year, many are still just getting started with it. So you're at the perfect time, most of the expensive development time is done, the bulk of the bugs are out of the whole RSS and Atom feed systems, and engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google are embracing the technology and waiting to greet your Blog with open arms. So dont ignore this whole Blogging idea, embrace it you just might see your sales soar through the roof!
Blogs for Advertising?
Yes! Blogs and RSS boost your online business, rankings, traffic and sales. We all sometimes ignore the trends in advertising on the internet until the masses are allready doing it. That is why I felt compelled to right this article and hopefully help others to understand that Blogs are a very powerful advertising method and you do not want to ignore this trend, You will regret it!
A blog is a frequent, online publication of comments, web links and news. It is an online Enzine of sorts. People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with automated published systems, most notably is blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger alone.
I only realized myself how powerful Blog advertising was, after I submitted an article to one Blog, yes just one Blog. What happened next amazed me! Within one week my new site wich I used in my byline in the Blog was not only indexed, but every single page was indexed and I had over 200 other sites pointing links to my site! All from one Blog posting. See websites need content and Blogs are a great source for content, and search engines LOVE blogs! I really need to say that again, search engines love Blogs!
Want your site indexed? Want hundreds maybe even thousands of incoming links all pointing to your site?
Here are the reasons you should not ignore Blog advertising. Remember when all search engines were free, and simply submitting your web sites got you listed quickly? Gone. Then it wa FFA pages, they brought in a ton of free traffic, built links to your site, and added to your mailing list like crazy. Tried one lately? Safelists were an online goldmine for a while... until bottom less email accounts were introduced.
Every new technology does what you need, at first. Then slowly more and more learn the secrets, and by the time the herd has caught on it's too late. Technologies have changed, everything has slowed way down, or the search engines have decided that it's become another form of spamming the search engines and stop weighing it so heavily. Sometimes they even ban the technology from their databases, remember doorway pages and multiple sites?
So where is blogging along this curve today? The early adopters have been doing it for the last couple of years, and the leading internet marketers started coming into it over the last year, many are still just getting started with it. So you're at the perfect time, most of the expensive development time is done, the bulk of the bugs are out of the whole RSS and Atom feed systems, and engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google are embracing the technology and waiting to greet your Blog with open arms. So dont ignore this whole Blogging idea, embrace it you just might see your sales soar through the roof!
Sunday 18 July 2010
Blogging, Spamming and Blog Spam
By Trina L.C. Schiller
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things...
By Trina L.C. Schiller
Email marketing once proved to be immensely effective, but the greedy and idiotic polluted the well by spamming the planet with everything from weight-loss products to sexual enhancement drugs and beyond. Because of the stench, filters and laws have been created to attempt to fix the problem, but still the Internet is polluted with more and more junk each day. So obviously, filters and legislation are not the solution, for consumers, publishers, or marketers.
Everyone has been left scratching their heads and asking... What do I do to avoid this crap and make the Internet mine again? How do I build my business and promote it without having to deal with email? After all, what's the point in spending money on email advertising campaigns when there is no guarantee that the emails will even reach their destination?
Enter... RSS.
RSS is the perfect communication tool. It's applications far outreach those of email for marketing, publishing and personal communications. RSS is the answer to our communication woes.
Using RSS to create blogs for communicating with customers, affiliates, partners and family is far and away more effective and reliable than email ever was. As a marketing tool, it really packs a punch that email never could. The reason being is that blogs are targets for search engine spiders. They are themselves, a web presence, whereas email never was and never will be.
Just like a web page, search engine spiders hit blog pages and rank them. The difference between the static web page and the RSS feed is that web pages seldom update their content, RSS feeds, by design, are created to be dynamic and provide regularly updated content, in theory, depending on the blog owner of course. This prompts the search engine spiders to revisit and rerank them more often.
For writers, publishers and and anyone else with something to say, RSS has been a godsend. It has provided the answer to the question of what to do now. Blogging has replaced email for those who have become frustrated with dealing with the problems of email publishing and marketing. Publishers can now get their message out to their subscribers without the headaches associated with sending email, or posting static pages to the web. Even publishing an ezine to the Internet as a web page required the sending of email to make readers aware of the newest issue.
As with anything, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and blog publishing is no exception. Now that RSS has become the rage for marketing purposes, several people have taken it upon themselves, in the name of the almighty dollar, to pollute this well too. The newest rash of 'RSS tools' have created some issues of ethics and and credibility. With perhaps the honest intention of being search engine optimization tools, or an automated system for fetching content, this batch of stuff has too much potential for misuse. The result of misuse of these types of programs can be devastating. Already some of these programs have been banned from places like Google and Blogharbour because of this potential.
Programs such as these in the hands of the inexperienced, will cause future problems for bloggers down the road. More and more pages generated using these programs will be banned, and getting banned, right out of the gate, for a newbie, would be a sad thing indeed.
The right way to use blogging to increase your search engine presence is to publish good content. Period. Provide useful information to those who are looking for it. Become someone's trusted information provider, and you have a customer for life. Publish keyword rich articles that give the searcher what they are looking for... solutions for problems.
Publish your information regularly. Weekly is good, daily is better. Sending pings and things too often will get you blacklisted too.
And here is where networking comes in... Find content for your blog from article banks, where authors submit their work for reprint. List yourself in databases as one who accepts article submissions. Get to know other authors and publishers and share content with them. Syndicate your blogs in exchange with other bloggers. Watch your world explode with new opportunities.
Automation in business is a good thing, but it has its place. Nothing beats human communication when dealing with people and creating partnerships. Do you want to talk to an autoresponder? No, and I doubt anyone else does either.
Some of the new programs designed for the automation of article collection have legal issues to consider. The biggest being copyright infringement. Not every author wants their work reprinted, or they require control over where their work is displayed. (Which is as it should be.) Without manually seeking your content, you could very well find yourself being served papers for publishing someone else's work without permission.
Plagiarism is another issue. If you don't follow certain rules for reprinting contributory work, you stand to be hounded for plagiarism. Yet another sticky issue.
Some of the new programs mock safelists, or resemble FFA sites. Before long, those types of blog pages will become banned as well. Search engines will figure out a way to block non-informational blog pages, those that carry nothing but links or classifieds. (Is your head sore from hitting that brick wall yet?)
Still, there are other programs designed to post spam to blogs using the comments feature. This is referred to as comment spam. The only solution thus far, to battle comment spam, is to disallow your readers the option of leaving comments. This is a bad thing, because allowing your readers to interact with you is supposed to be one of the benefits of using this form of communication.
The makers of these programs may have had good intentions to start with, but have ultimately created Frankenstein's Monster. Many are stating that their programs are not spam, because they do not involve email. That is a cop out if I ever heard one. Spam is the transmission of unwanted stuff, whether it is sent to your inbox, or your blog, or even the search engines themselves. Search engines want relevant content, not pages of of keywords, or links. So feeding them page after page of nonsense is spam.
Everyone hates spam, except the spammers, so why be a part of something loathed by so many and embraced by a few? Bad business if you ask me.
The only real way to combat these issues is to simply not use the programs themselves. Do your due diligence and create a reputation as a trusted information provider, not a blog bomber, and your business will prosper. Using these programs will ultimately diminish your reputation and your livelihood.
Your customers are looking for information, a solution to a problem. Give that to them, not just endless pages of links. You will achieve your rightful spot in the ranks, and you stand a far better chance for longevity. There are good RSS tools available, you just need to look beneath the sales copy to find them. And if you are new to RSS and blogging, do some research. Find someone who knows, really knows what RSS is and how to use it, and ask some questions. Don't go out and spend buckets of money on something you're not sure how to use, because you could be doing yourself more harm than good.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things...
By Trina L.C. Schiller
Email marketing once proved to be immensely effective, but the greedy and idiotic polluted the well by spamming the planet with everything from weight-loss products to sexual enhancement drugs and beyond. Because of the stench, filters and laws have been created to attempt to fix the problem, but still the Internet is polluted with more and more junk each day. So obviously, filters and legislation are not the solution, for consumers, publishers, or marketers.
Everyone has been left scratching their heads and asking... What do I do to avoid this crap and make the Internet mine again? How do I build my business and promote it without having to deal with email? After all, what's the point in spending money on email advertising campaigns when there is no guarantee that the emails will even reach their destination?
Enter... RSS.
RSS is the perfect communication tool. It's applications far outreach those of email for marketing, publishing and personal communications. RSS is the answer to our communication woes.
Using RSS to create blogs for communicating with customers, affiliates, partners and family is far and away more effective and reliable than email ever was. As a marketing tool, it really packs a punch that email never could. The reason being is that blogs are targets for search engine spiders. They are themselves, a web presence, whereas email never was and never will be.
Just like a web page, search engine spiders hit blog pages and rank them. The difference between the static web page and the RSS feed is that web pages seldom update their content, RSS feeds, by design, are created to be dynamic and provide regularly updated content, in theory, depending on the blog owner of course. This prompts the search engine spiders to revisit and rerank them more often.
For writers, publishers and and anyone else with something to say, RSS has been a godsend. It has provided the answer to the question of what to do now. Blogging has replaced email for those who have become frustrated with dealing with the problems of email publishing and marketing. Publishers can now get their message out to their subscribers without the headaches associated with sending email, or posting static pages to the web. Even publishing an ezine to the Internet as a web page required the sending of email to make readers aware of the newest issue.
As with anything, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and blog publishing is no exception. Now that RSS has become the rage for marketing purposes, several people have taken it upon themselves, in the name of the almighty dollar, to pollute this well too. The newest rash of 'RSS tools' have created some issues of ethics and and credibility. With perhaps the honest intention of being search engine optimization tools, or an automated system for fetching content, this batch of stuff has too much potential for misuse. The result of misuse of these types of programs can be devastating. Already some of these programs have been banned from places like Google and Blogharbour because of this potential.
Programs such as these in the hands of the inexperienced, will cause future problems for bloggers down the road. More and more pages generated using these programs will be banned, and getting banned, right out of the gate, for a newbie, would be a sad thing indeed.
The right way to use blogging to increase your search engine presence is to publish good content. Period. Provide useful information to those who are looking for it. Become someone's trusted information provider, and you have a customer for life. Publish keyword rich articles that give the searcher what they are looking for... solutions for problems.
Publish your information regularly. Weekly is good, daily is better. Sending pings and things too often will get you blacklisted too.
And here is where networking comes in... Find content for your blog from article banks, where authors submit their work for reprint. List yourself in databases as one who accepts article submissions. Get to know other authors and publishers and share content with them. Syndicate your blogs in exchange with other bloggers. Watch your world explode with new opportunities.
Automation in business is a good thing, but it has its place. Nothing beats human communication when dealing with people and creating partnerships. Do you want to talk to an autoresponder? No, and I doubt anyone else does either.
Some of the new programs designed for the automation of article collection have legal issues to consider. The biggest being copyright infringement. Not every author wants their work reprinted, or they require control over where their work is displayed. (Which is as it should be.) Without manually seeking your content, you could very well find yourself being served papers for publishing someone else's work without permission.
Plagiarism is another issue. If you don't follow certain rules for reprinting contributory work, you stand to be hounded for plagiarism. Yet another sticky issue.
Some of the new programs mock safelists, or resemble FFA sites. Before long, those types of blog pages will become banned as well. Search engines will figure out a way to block non-informational blog pages, those that carry nothing but links or classifieds. (Is your head sore from hitting that brick wall yet?)
Still, there are other programs designed to post spam to blogs using the comments feature. This is referred to as comment spam. The only solution thus far, to battle comment spam, is to disallow your readers the option of leaving comments. This is a bad thing, because allowing your readers to interact with you is supposed to be one of the benefits of using this form of communication.
The makers of these programs may have had good intentions to start with, but have ultimately created Frankenstein's Monster. Many are stating that their programs are not spam, because they do not involve email. That is a cop out if I ever heard one. Spam is the transmission of unwanted stuff, whether it is sent to your inbox, or your blog, or even the search engines themselves. Search engines want relevant content, not pages of of keywords, or links. So feeding them page after page of nonsense is spam.
Everyone hates spam, except the spammers, so why be a part of something loathed by so many and embraced by a few? Bad business if you ask me.
The only real way to combat these issues is to simply not use the programs themselves. Do your due diligence and create a reputation as a trusted information provider, not a blog bomber, and your business will prosper. Using these programs will ultimately diminish your reputation and your livelihood.
Your customers are looking for information, a solution to a problem. Give that to them, not just endless pages of links. You will achieve your rightful spot in the ranks, and you stand a far better chance for longevity. There are good RSS tools available, you just need to look beneath the sales copy to find them. And if you are new to RSS and blogging, do some research. Find someone who knows, really knows what RSS is and how to use it, and ask some questions. Don't go out and spend buckets of money on something you're not sure how to use, because you could be doing yourself more harm than good.
Saturday 17 July 2010
Advertising Your Work From Home Internet Business With PPC Search Engines.
By Tom Worsley
If you want to make money online with a work from home business then you are going to need lots of good targeted traffic to your web site and or affiliate links. One way to get good targeted traffic is to pay for it. I know you were hoping to do this business of yours without spending a dime right? Well if that’s what you are thinking you better keep working for someone else and forget about working from home with your own internet business.
I have been paying for traffic ever since I started my online business over 4 years ago and one of the best sources of targeted traffic is through pay per click search engines (PPC) or pay for placement search alternatives like Google adwords or Yahoo Sponsor Listings, formerly Overture.com .
Google adwords and Yahoo Sponsor Listings are the kings of pay per placement search engines. They are also the most expensive but you will get the most targeted traffic from them. If you cannot get a free listing in the top 10 on their main search results under the sponsored listings then you may want to consider pay per placement. Sponsored listings usually appear at the top above regular listings on Yahoo, and down the right side of the page at Google.
If Google and Yahoo are too rich for your liking then try some of the smaller PPC search engines like 7Search, Findwhat and or Kanoodle. I have put together a web page with links to these PPC search engines at the following web page.
CLICK HERE-----> http://bigmoolla.com/ppc.html
The key to good PPC advertising is to find cheap key words under .50 cents per click that will land you in the top 5 positions. There is no need to be number 1. A number 5 placement may cost you a few cents per click less and you will likely get the same traffic or in some cases even more than a number 1 spot. Try to pick as many key words as you can that are directly related to your product or service.
If you are advertising a work from home internet business try breaking down what I just typed. Work from home, home internet business, internet business, work from home business, home business. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you want to advertise a product like multivitamins try keywords like vitamins, supplements, vitamin supplements, health supplements, diet supplements, multivitamins. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you don’t have your own web site and only an affiliate link you may have to get a redirect URL from someone like http://tinyurl.com . Most of the PPC engines will not allow you to use an affiliate link. But you can get a tinyurl for free and have it re-direct to your affiliate link. If your affiliate program allows you to key code for testing purposes like SFI does then you can get several tinyurls and direct them to a different key code. That way you can actually test your PPC ad campaign to see which key words are working the best for you. This is important if you want to reduce your advertising dollars without sacrificing traffic to your web site. (We all want to do this right?)
PPC is only one advertising method that you should be taking advantage of, but it’s an important one so give it a try if you have not already. It may just change the way you do business and effect how much money you make with your work from home internet business.
If you want to make money online with a work from home business then you are going to need lots of good targeted traffic to your web site and or affiliate links. One way to get good targeted traffic is to pay for it. I know you were hoping to do this business of yours without spending a dime right? Well if that’s what you are thinking you better keep working for someone else and forget about working from home with your own internet business.
I have been paying for traffic ever since I started my online business over 4 years ago and one of the best sources of targeted traffic is through pay per click search engines (PPC) or pay for placement search alternatives like Google adwords or Yahoo Sponsor Listings, formerly Overture.com .
Google adwords and Yahoo Sponsor Listings are the kings of pay per placement search engines. They are also the most expensive but you will get the most targeted traffic from them. If you cannot get a free listing in the top 10 on their main search results under the sponsored listings then you may want to consider pay per placement. Sponsored listings usually appear at the top above regular listings on Yahoo, and down the right side of the page at Google.
If Google and Yahoo are too rich for your liking then try some of the smaller PPC search engines like 7Search, Findwhat and or Kanoodle. I have put together a web page with links to these PPC search engines at the following web page.
CLICK HERE-----> http://bigmoolla.com/ppc.html
The key to good PPC advertising is to find cheap key words under .50 cents per click that will land you in the top 5 positions. There is no need to be number 1. A number 5 placement may cost you a few cents per click less and you will likely get the same traffic or in some cases even more than a number 1 spot. Try to pick as many key words as you can that are directly related to your product or service.
If you are advertising a work from home internet business try breaking down what I just typed. Work from home, home internet business, internet business, work from home business, home business. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you want to advertise a product like multivitamins try keywords like vitamins, supplements, vitamin supplements, health supplements, diet supplements, multivitamins. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you don’t have your own web site and only an affiliate link you may have to get a redirect URL from someone like http://tinyurl.com . Most of the PPC engines will not allow you to use an affiliate link. But you can get a tinyurl for free and have it re-direct to your affiliate link. If your affiliate program allows you to key code for testing purposes like SFI does then you can get several tinyurls and direct them to a different key code. That way you can actually test your PPC ad campaign to see which key words are working the best for you. This is important if you want to reduce your advertising dollars without sacrificing traffic to your web site. (We all want to do this right?)
PPC is only one advertising method that you should be taking advantage of, but it’s an important one so give it a try if you have not already. It may just change the way you do business and effect how much money you make with your work from home internet business.
Friday 16 July 2010
Advertising On A Budget -- Using Print To Drive Traffic Online
By Michele Pariza Wacek
I decided to try something a little different and illustrate the marketing challenges of a small business. I'm using one of my clients, PrescottWeddings.com.
PWC is an online resource guide for couples planning their weddings. Along with a ton of information for brides and grooms, the site includes a resource guide where local businesses can advertise their products and services.
We launched PWC in November 2001. Like many start-up businesses, PWC didn't have much money for marketing. Yet we had two major challenges (three counting the limited budget):
1. PWC had to attract two kinds of target markets to the site -- advertisers and couples -- essentially at the same time. And if that wasn't bad enough, we had to appeal to each group even though one was dependent on the other -- advertisers wanted brides and grooms logging onto the site, and brides and grooms wanted a complete resource center.
2. Several bridal print publications had come and gone in Prescott -- and had burned their advertisers while racing out of town. Businesses were understandably hesitant about sinking their money into another bridal venture.
Armed with those challenges, we went to work. Now, just over two years later, PWC enjoys well over 40,000 hits a month and has increased its advertising base by over 600%. On top of that, PWC is well on its way to establishing a reliable brand in not just Prescott but throughout Yavapai County.
So how did we do it? A great Web site with great content plus three main marketing strategies:
1) Using print to drive traffic online
2) Thinking small
3) Frequency, frequency, frequency
I'll cover number two and three in the next two articles. Today we'll talk about number one: Using print to drive traffic online.
The cornerstone of PWC's marketing program has been print advertising, more specifically monthly advertising in the local newspaper. Print advertising is an excellent choice for many businesses -- from small to large. In fact, it's not uncommon for small and medium-sized businesses to build their advertising program around print.
The strength of print advertising is its flexibility. Print publications come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They can appeal to a broad readership or a narrow one. They can be published every day or once a year. This variety gives you a lot of flexibility in fitting print advertising into your campaigns.
You can also track print to a certain extent (coupons in newspapers for example). Print is physical, allowing your customers to carry something around with them.
However, print's weakness is also its strength. It's a visual medium only, so it requires more effort and interaction from your audience to make an impact (they need to stop and read it).
In the case of PWC, we chose monthly advertising in the local paper as the foundation of our marketing program. We decided upon the local newspaper because it has the broadest reach. Prescott isn't big enough to have its own evening television news, so the newspaper is the best vehicle for local news.
If you live in a big city, the local newspaper may not be practical because of cost. In that case, you may want to try a niche newspaper or magazine, like a business or lifestyle journal, or maybe a regionalized newspaper. In Phoenix for instance, the Arizona Republic is the main newspaper, but all the cities around Phoenix, like Scottsdale and Tempe, also have their own papers.
Because PWC is a Web site, there's an assumption we should be using only online methods to advertise. Online methods are good, and PWC does use them, but they only take you so far. Print is a part of the "real world" -- something you can touch and pick up, not virtual like a Web site. Print has also been around a lot longer, and carries more trust with it. We found by using print, some of that trust and "real world" essence rubbed off, making PWC seem less anonymous and more like a "bricks and mortar" business (a business with a store front).
Also, since we were trying to drive local traffic to the site, it made sense to advertise locally rather than attracting people from all over the world. But even with our local advertising, we still have a substantial number of visitors from around the state, including Phoenix and Tucson, as well as all over the globe.
I decided to try something a little different and illustrate the marketing challenges of a small business. I'm using one of my clients, PrescottWeddings.com.
PWC is an online resource guide for couples planning their weddings. Along with a ton of information for brides and grooms, the site includes a resource guide where local businesses can advertise their products and services.
We launched PWC in November 2001. Like many start-up businesses, PWC didn't have much money for marketing. Yet we had two major challenges (three counting the limited budget):
1. PWC had to attract two kinds of target markets to the site -- advertisers and couples -- essentially at the same time. And if that wasn't bad enough, we had to appeal to each group even though one was dependent on the other -- advertisers wanted brides and grooms logging onto the site, and brides and grooms wanted a complete resource center.
2. Several bridal print publications had come and gone in Prescott -- and had burned their advertisers while racing out of town. Businesses were understandably hesitant about sinking their money into another bridal venture.
Armed with those challenges, we went to work. Now, just over two years later, PWC enjoys well over 40,000 hits a month and has increased its advertising base by over 600%. On top of that, PWC is well on its way to establishing a reliable brand in not just Prescott but throughout Yavapai County.
So how did we do it? A great Web site with great content plus three main marketing strategies:
1) Using print to drive traffic online
2) Thinking small
3) Frequency, frequency, frequency
I'll cover number two and three in the next two articles. Today we'll talk about number one: Using print to drive traffic online.
The cornerstone of PWC's marketing program has been print advertising, more specifically monthly advertising in the local newspaper. Print advertising is an excellent choice for many businesses -- from small to large. In fact, it's not uncommon for small and medium-sized businesses to build their advertising program around print.
The strength of print advertising is its flexibility. Print publications come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They can appeal to a broad readership or a narrow one. They can be published every day or once a year. This variety gives you a lot of flexibility in fitting print advertising into your campaigns.
You can also track print to a certain extent (coupons in newspapers for example). Print is physical, allowing your customers to carry something around with them.
However, print's weakness is also its strength. It's a visual medium only, so it requires more effort and interaction from your audience to make an impact (they need to stop and read it).
In the case of PWC, we chose monthly advertising in the local paper as the foundation of our marketing program. We decided upon the local newspaper because it has the broadest reach. Prescott isn't big enough to have its own evening television news, so the newspaper is the best vehicle for local news.
If you live in a big city, the local newspaper may not be practical because of cost. In that case, you may want to try a niche newspaper or magazine, like a business or lifestyle journal, or maybe a regionalized newspaper. In Phoenix for instance, the Arizona Republic is the main newspaper, but all the cities around Phoenix, like Scottsdale and Tempe, also have their own papers.
Because PWC is a Web site, there's an assumption we should be using only online methods to advertise. Online methods are good, and PWC does use them, but they only take you so far. Print is a part of the "real world" -- something you can touch and pick up, not virtual like a Web site. Print has also been around a lot longer, and carries more trust with it. We found by using print, some of that trust and "real world" essence rubbed off, making PWC seem less anonymous and more like a "bricks and mortar" business (a business with a store front).
Also, since we were trying to drive local traffic to the site, it made sense to advertise locally rather than attracting people from all over the world. But even with our local advertising, we still have a substantial number of visitors from around the state, including Phoenix and Tucson, as well as all over the globe.
Thursday 15 July 2010
16th Annual Bioneers Conference Marin Center, San Rafael
By Dawn Van Zant
The Nation’s Premier Solutions-Centered Summit
Addressing Innovative Strategies for Restoring the Earth and People
Before Anyone Knew Katrina Would Strike, Bioneers Programmed:
Bill McKibben on Global Warming and the Transition to Renewable Energy
Diane Wilson on Ending Chemical Contamination of the Gulf Coast
Dr. Bernice Reagon on Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement for Environmental Justice
It was only a matter of when, not if, our country would have to face these profound crises of both environmental degradation and social injustice. Since 1990, the Bioneers conference has been at the forefront of highlighting a plethora of practical and visionary solutions. See why well over 3,000 annually attend the Bioneers conference, and why this year another 6,000 more people will be attending local live Beaming Bioneers satellite conferences across the US and Canada.
The Bioneers Conference 2005 presents a dazzling array of leading figures across all fields and disciplines including Andy Lipkis (nationally recognized urban restoration in Los Angeles), Michael Ableman (ecological and community-based farming), Janine Benyus (biomimicry for applying nature’s operating instructions to technology), Van Jones (social justice and green jobs), and Jodie Evans (co-founder of Code Pink: Women for Peace). Over 150 visionary speakers, 15 plenary sessions, 50 panels and ample networking. Learn more about the conference and how to attend at www.bioneers.org
Among the other highlights at Bioneers 2005:
Bold Precaution: The Precautionary Principle Gains Traction
The wellspring of a new political agenda, the Precautionary Principle grows from renewed respect for the natural world, the wealth we all hold, and our collective responsibilities. Carolyn Raffensperger, a leader in seeding the Precautionary Principle in the U.S., describes remarkable successes in applying this “better safe than sorry” approach to governments, companies, and communities.
Fast Food, Slow Food: From Addiction to Health
Is the contemporary American diet leading to literal addiction, permanent neurochemical changes in individuals and a major public health crisis? What alternatives are emerging? With Margaret Adamek, founder and director of the Sugar Project, and Esther Cook, resident chef at Berkley’s Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Junior High School.
The Nation’s Premier Solutions-Centered Summit
Addressing Innovative Strategies for Restoring the Earth and People
Before Anyone Knew Katrina Would Strike, Bioneers Programmed:
Bill McKibben on Global Warming and the Transition to Renewable Energy
Diane Wilson on Ending Chemical Contamination of the Gulf Coast
Dr. Bernice Reagon on Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement for Environmental Justice
It was only a matter of when, not if, our country would have to face these profound crises of both environmental degradation and social injustice. Since 1990, the Bioneers conference has been at the forefront of highlighting a plethora of practical and visionary solutions. See why well over 3,000 annually attend the Bioneers conference, and why this year another 6,000 more people will be attending local live Beaming Bioneers satellite conferences across the US and Canada.
The Bioneers Conference 2005 presents a dazzling array of leading figures across all fields and disciplines including Andy Lipkis (nationally recognized urban restoration in Los Angeles), Michael Ableman (ecological and community-based farming), Janine Benyus (biomimicry for applying nature’s operating instructions to technology), Van Jones (social justice and green jobs), and Jodie Evans (co-founder of Code Pink: Women for Peace). Over 150 visionary speakers, 15 plenary sessions, 50 panels and ample networking. Learn more about the conference and how to attend at www.bioneers.org
Among the other highlights at Bioneers 2005:
Bold Precaution: The Precautionary Principle Gains Traction
The wellspring of a new political agenda, the Precautionary Principle grows from renewed respect for the natural world, the wealth we all hold, and our collective responsibilities. Carolyn Raffensperger, a leader in seeding the Precautionary Principle in the U.S., describes remarkable successes in applying this “better safe than sorry” approach to governments, companies, and communities.
Fast Food, Slow Food: From Addiction to Health
Is the contemporary American diet leading to literal addiction, permanent neurochemical changes in individuals and a major public health crisis? What alternatives are emerging? With Margaret Adamek, founder and director of the Sugar Project, and Esther Cook, resident chef at Berkley’s Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Junior High School.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
12 Things You Really Should Know About SEO
By James Doc Lewis
From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and "buy" traffic, by various means.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and "buy" traffic, by various means.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
10 Benefits of Being a Blogger
By Nicholas Dixon
by Nicholas Dixon
I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.
In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:
1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.
2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.
3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static webpages. I have had webpages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.
4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everwhere. The more content you have the better.
5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.
6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.
7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.
8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.
9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.
10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.
11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that
you have updated your content.
by Nicholas Dixon
I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.
In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:
1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.
2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.
3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static webpages. I have had webpages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.
4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everwhere. The more content you have the better.
5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.
6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.
7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.
8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.
9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.
10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.
11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that
you have updated your content.
Monday 12 July 2010
10 Adsense Tips for Maximum Click Through Rates.
By Christos Varsamis
1) You should make your Adsense ads look as a part of your web page. They shouldn't look like an Ad. People are negative to advertising. They search the internet for content not ads. Especially Banners have a less of 0,5% response. Their days are over. Imagine if you have an Adsense ad looking like the typical Banner with different colors. It will not be profitable.
2) Text ads are better than image ads. Like before, people are more responsive to text than images. In a way it is considered as a part of the online document and is more clickable.
3) No Border ads. One of the best tricks is to erase the borders of Adsense ads and make them again having the same color with your website's background.
4) No other advertisements. The first reason is to be legitimate according to Google's Rules and the second more practical reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.
5) Placement. Even if you have the best Ad, people will not respond if they don't see it instantly. The best place to see the ad is the top of your web page and the next is aside
your document's text. Visitors will click it more frequently since it will look like your text.
6) Traffic. Try to use legitimate ways of traffic. Some people use Google Adwords and other Pay per Click search engines. The problem here is to search very carefully for the right niche and keywords in order to make your campaigns profitable. Other ways is link popularity techniques like link exchange directories, software or even mass blog submission techniques. Don't use link farms and classifieds for that, because search engine's algorithms are extremely clever and they will ban your listings.
7) Do not rely on one website. Yes you can make money with one website but try to make as more as possible.
8) Relevant content is King. Articles are one of the best tactics to create huge websites that will be crawled by search engine's robots. Don't forget search engines exist to provide relevant content at first. One excellent resource to automate your article directory procedure is http://www.articleequalizer.com .You can create an article database in minutes which otherwise is time consuming and it would take you a week!
9) Use site maps. Google's site maps visit your site and crawl it much sooner that any other submission process. More information is here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps
10) Relevant ads. It's one of the most important factors for Adsense success. If the internet user can't find relevant ad in your page he or she won't click the ad. Would you act differently? So it's critical to create relevant resource for your web page. In order to do that, you must do the following steps.
1) You should make your Adsense ads look as a part of your web page. They shouldn't look like an Ad. People are negative to advertising. They search the internet for content not ads. Especially Banners have a less of 0,5% response. Their days are over. Imagine if you have an Adsense ad looking like the typical Banner with different colors. It will not be profitable.
2) Text ads are better than image ads. Like before, people are more responsive to text than images. In a way it is considered as a part of the online document and is more clickable.
3) No Border ads. One of the best tricks is to erase the borders of Adsense ads and make them again having the same color with your website's background.
4) No other advertisements. The first reason is to be legitimate according to Google's Rules and the second more practical reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.
5) Placement. Even if you have the best Ad, people will not respond if they don't see it instantly. The best place to see the ad is the top of your web page and the next is aside
your document's text. Visitors will click it more frequently since it will look like your text.
6) Traffic. Try to use legitimate ways of traffic. Some people use Google Adwords and other Pay per Click search engines. The problem here is to search very carefully for the right niche and keywords in order to make your campaigns profitable. Other ways is link popularity techniques like link exchange directories, software or even mass blog submission techniques. Don't use link farms and classifieds for that, because search engine's algorithms are extremely clever and they will ban your listings.
7) Do not rely on one website. Yes you can make money with one website but try to make as more as possible.
8) Relevant content is King. Articles are one of the best tactics to create huge websites that will be crawled by search engine's robots. Don't forget search engines exist to provide relevant content at first. One excellent resource to automate your article directory procedure is http://www.articleequalizer.com .You can create an article database in minutes which otherwise is time consuming and it would take you a week!
9) Use site maps. Google's site maps visit your site and crawl it much sooner that any other submission process. More information is here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps
10) Relevant ads. It's one of the most important factors for Adsense success. If the internet user can't find relevant ad in your page he or she won't click the ad. Would you act differently? So it's critical to create relevant resource for your web page. In order to do that, you must do the following steps.
Saturday 10 July 2010
8 Ways To Promote Your Affiliate Products
By Jason Gazaway
Many affiliates fail in affiliate marketing because they limit their marketing strategies to placing referral links in their web sites, distributing links to business sites through multiple emails or posting their links to other web pages. Doing any of these alone would not guarantee sales and thus, your commission.
You have to exert effort to promote your affiliate products and make yourself ahead of the thousands of other affiliate marketers who are selling the same products in the Internet. There is actually no perfect sure-win get-rich-quick scheme or formula in affiliate marketing; but using tried and tested ways to promote your affiliate products can be of great help. The following are eight promotional techniques used and proven to be effective by experienced affiliate marketers.
First, provide visitors of your website enough information about the product. Aside from your website design, the content of your web page counts a lot in capturing the interest of the guest. Your web pages must contain factual and objective articles on the product, such as product reviews. In the informative articles, state the products’ special features, benefits and advantages over other brands of its kind. Take note, you are not selling but informing.
You are trying to establish the value and desirability of the product and thus, convince the visitor that the product matches his needs and wants. He will then follow the link and complete his purchase. Spice up the content of your web pages with statements like “And not only that, there’s more..” that does not only create suspense but likewise hold the interest of the reader to know more of the product. There’s no perfect product, of course, so you can also reveal some of its negative attributes but don’t let them overshadow the good ones.
Second is through the use of testimonials and endorsements from respected or relevant individuals who are using the product. This sounds like a familiar marketing strategy but this still works. These testimonials validate the information you are presenting about the product; this way, you build confidence and trust of the client.
In addition, you exude an impression that you are an expert in the field since you are able to prove that the product and services you are offering really works as assured. Remember that your prospects are also conducting researches on their own so make sure you can back up every claim with facts and figures.
Next promotional strategy is through marketing banners. Make these banners attractive enough for visitors to click them. However, don’t overuse banners as they can make your site messy, too. Webmasters say users generally do not have negative remarks about banners. In fact, they appreciate that they can shop through the site they frequently visit.
Others, however, find crowded banner ads annoying, so limit your use of banner ads. The fourth is offering newsletters, which guests of your site can opt-in to. In the newsletter, you can place informative articles, advertisements, affiliate program links, news and features. In this way, you can regularly inform them of the hottest products available or you can get their interest to check your site every now and then.
You can add to your site a forced opt-in page, the fifth most effective marketing strategy. Here you may put an emphatic headline, a problem, an offer, which is a solution to that problem and an autoresponder opt-in box. As the visitor signs up, he is directed to the business site, while you increase your highly targeted mailing list.
Remember that signing up signifies his interest, so it’s not a waste of time sending emails to that possible buyer. Statistics show that most sales are generated from second and third mailings, so follow up. Using the same mailing list, you can also promote affiliate products through “thank you” emails.
If emailing doesn’t work well for you, then try the sixth way to effectively promote your affiliate products, using advertising services like Google AdWords. The Google AdWords helps you meet your marketing goals in a fast, effective and easy manner. Through this, your own ads are connected to a large number of users who are exactly in need of your products and services.
After you have created your ads, you can see them on Google right away and many buyers online likewise can. You get quick response to your ads and you get to advertise with Internet users who are actually interested in buying. You can also define or choose your target market area, allowing you to get the best possible results.
Although you are not involved in the actual selling process, you are responsible for referring a customer to the merchandisers’ business website and convincing him to buy so you are sure of your commission.
The seventh most effective way of promoting the product and compelling a visitor of your website to go to the merchants’ site and buy is to tell something about the price. Higher-priced items give you the most commissions but they are hard to market since customers always have the propensity to go for the lowest priced.
But you can work on this by breaking down the total cost and putting it in words to make it appear cheaper. Instead of stating the lump sum, state how much he has to pay in affordable installments or how much dollars or cents he has to spend everyday.
Many affiliates fail in affiliate marketing because they limit their marketing strategies to placing referral links in their web sites, distributing links to business sites through multiple emails or posting their links to other web pages. Doing any of these alone would not guarantee sales and thus, your commission.
You have to exert effort to promote your affiliate products and make yourself ahead of the thousands of other affiliate marketers who are selling the same products in the Internet. There is actually no perfect sure-win get-rich-quick scheme or formula in affiliate marketing; but using tried and tested ways to promote your affiliate products can be of great help. The following are eight promotional techniques used and proven to be effective by experienced affiliate marketers.
First, provide visitors of your website enough information about the product. Aside from your website design, the content of your web page counts a lot in capturing the interest of the guest. Your web pages must contain factual and objective articles on the product, such as product reviews. In the informative articles, state the products’ special features, benefits and advantages over other brands of its kind. Take note, you are not selling but informing.
You are trying to establish the value and desirability of the product and thus, convince the visitor that the product matches his needs and wants. He will then follow the link and complete his purchase. Spice up the content of your web pages with statements like “And not only that, there’s more..” that does not only create suspense but likewise hold the interest of the reader to know more of the product. There’s no perfect product, of course, so you can also reveal some of its negative attributes but don’t let them overshadow the good ones.
Second is through the use of testimonials and endorsements from respected or relevant individuals who are using the product. This sounds like a familiar marketing strategy but this still works. These testimonials validate the information you are presenting about the product; this way, you build confidence and trust of the client.
In addition, you exude an impression that you are an expert in the field since you are able to prove that the product and services you are offering really works as assured. Remember that your prospects are also conducting researches on their own so make sure you can back up every claim with facts and figures.
Next promotional strategy is through marketing banners. Make these banners attractive enough for visitors to click them. However, don’t overuse banners as they can make your site messy, too. Webmasters say users generally do not have negative remarks about banners. In fact, they appreciate that they can shop through the site they frequently visit.
Others, however, find crowded banner ads annoying, so limit your use of banner ads. The fourth is offering newsletters, which guests of your site can opt-in to. In the newsletter, you can place informative articles, advertisements, affiliate program links, news and features. In this way, you can regularly inform them of the hottest products available or you can get their interest to check your site every now and then.
You can add to your site a forced opt-in page, the fifth most effective marketing strategy. Here you may put an emphatic headline, a problem, an offer, which is a solution to that problem and an autoresponder opt-in box. As the visitor signs up, he is directed to the business site, while you increase your highly targeted mailing list.
Remember that signing up signifies his interest, so it’s not a waste of time sending emails to that possible buyer. Statistics show that most sales are generated from second and third mailings, so follow up. Using the same mailing list, you can also promote affiliate products through “thank you” emails.
If emailing doesn’t work well for you, then try the sixth way to effectively promote your affiliate products, using advertising services like Google AdWords. The Google AdWords helps you meet your marketing goals in a fast, effective and easy manner. Through this, your own ads are connected to a large number of users who are exactly in need of your products and services.
After you have created your ads, you can see them on Google right away and many buyers online likewise can. You get quick response to your ads and you get to advertise with Internet users who are actually interested in buying. You can also define or choose your target market area, allowing you to get the best possible results.
Although you are not involved in the actual selling process, you are responsible for referring a customer to the merchandisers’ business website and convincing him to buy so you are sure of your commission.
The seventh most effective way of promoting the product and compelling a visitor of your website to go to the merchants’ site and buy is to tell something about the price. Higher-priced items give you the most commissions but they are hard to market since customers always have the propensity to go for the lowest priced.
But you can work on this by breaking down the total cost and putting it in words to make it appear cheaper. Instead of stating the lump sum, state how much he has to pay in affordable installments or how much dollars or cents he has to spend everyday.
8 Sure Fire Tips To Creating Crafty, Money Making Ads
By Andrew Murray
Online advertising on the Internet leaves a lot to be
desired. We have ads that emulate Windows-warning boxes. We
have pop-ups and pop-unders. All of these are developed with
the intent to make people notice them. However, most of them
only end up irritating them. Advertisers, especially those
with small budgets, can't afford to waste money on
ineffective buys. In order to optimize your advertising
buys, you need to concentrate on improving your creative.
Here are some tips that might help:
Step 1: Define clear goals of your advertising campaign
The most important aspect of any advertising campaign is to
have a clear objective in mind. You may be targeting a
specific group of people, your initial aim may be to target
at least 1000 internet surfers and so on and so forth. Have
a well defined, clear purpose.
Step 2: Identify the most effective sites for achieving your
goals
Sites that are most relevant to your product or service
will, more than likely, be your best bet; but also consider
larger sites or networks that can target the audience you're
trying to reach. They can be very cost-effective. If you
have multiple products or services that appeal to various
target markets, you'll have to consider sites that reach all
those various segments.
Step 3: Craft your message to fit the needs of the audience
you're targeting
This comes down to understanding the audience of the sites
you're advertising on. The message you use on a technology
site to appeal to technologically savvy customers won't have
the same appeal for visitors on a small-business site. Focus
your campaign.
Step 4: Content of your Ad
Pay particular attention to the content of the Ad. The
content should be such that it clearly distinguishes your
product or service from your competitors’. Have a catchy
headline. The headline is probably the most important part
of the Ad – It is the customer puller.
Step 5: Formulate the specific promotional messages that
correspond to your goals
The promotional messages should concentrate on the major
selling points of your product or service and have a strong
call-to-action.
Step 6: Make the desired action clearly visible
This certainly doesn't mean the desired action should
necessarily blink, bounce or do flips, but it should be
visible within an accepted format for the media you're
using. In the case of the Internet, underlined text links,
"click here" text entry boxes, and pull-down menus are all
ways you can make the desired action clearly visible.
Step 7: Design the ad so it looks like it belongs on the
sites where you're advertising
For instance, you may want to use the site's font faces in
your text, color schemes in your background, font color
choices overall, and emulate images where appropriate. Try
to conform to the environment so potential customers
visiting the site don't gasp in shock when they see your ad.
Step 8: Produce multiple versions of each ad
Create three or four versions of each ad, changing the
promotional message, call-to-action, font faces and color
schemes. This is especially important if you're doing price
testing or gauging reaction to specific promotions. By
splitting your advertising buy among the various versions of
your creative, you can then start to optimize your buy based
on the message that works best.
Online advertising on the Internet leaves a lot to be
desired. We have ads that emulate Windows-warning boxes. We
have pop-ups and pop-unders. All of these are developed with
the intent to make people notice them. However, most of them
only end up irritating them. Advertisers, especially those
with small budgets, can't afford to waste money on
ineffective buys. In order to optimize your advertising
buys, you need to concentrate on improving your creative.
Here are some tips that might help:
Step 1: Define clear goals of your advertising campaign
The most important aspect of any advertising campaign is to
have a clear objective in mind. You may be targeting a
specific group of people, your initial aim may be to target
at least 1000 internet surfers and so on and so forth. Have
a well defined, clear purpose.
Step 2: Identify the most effective sites for achieving your
goals
Sites that are most relevant to your product or service
will, more than likely, be your best bet; but also consider
larger sites or networks that can target the audience you're
trying to reach. They can be very cost-effective. If you
have multiple products or services that appeal to various
target markets, you'll have to consider sites that reach all
those various segments.
Step 3: Craft your message to fit the needs of the audience
you're targeting
This comes down to understanding the audience of the sites
you're advertising on. The message you use on a technology
site to appeal to technologically savvy customers won't have
the same appeal for visitors on a small-business site. Focus
your campaign.
Step 4: Content of your Ad
Pay particular attention to the content of the Ad. The
content should be such that it clearly distinguishes your
product or service from your competitors’. Have a catchy
headline. The headline is probably the most important part
of the Ad – It is the customer puller.
Step 5: Formulate the specific promotional messages that
correspond to your goals
The promotional messages should concentrate on the major
selling points of your product or service and have a strong
call-to-action.
Step 6: Make the desired action clearly visible
This certainly doesn't mean the desired action should
necessarily blink, bounce or do flips, but it should be
visible within an accepted format for the media you're
using. In the case of the Internet, underlined text links,
"click here" text entry boxes, and pull-down menus are all
ways you can make the desired action clearly visible.
Step 7: Design the ad so it looks like it belongs on the
sites where you're advertising
For instance, you may want to use the site's font faces in
your text, color schemes in your background, font color
choices overall, and emulate images where appropriate. Try
to conform to the environment so potential customers
visiting the site don't gasp in shock when they see your ad.
Step 8: Produce multiple versions of each ad
Create three or four versions of each ad, changing the
promotional message, call-to-action, font faces and color
schemes. This is especially important if you're doing price
testing or gauging reaction to specific promotions. By
splitting your advertising buy among the various versions of
your creative, you can then start to optimize your buy based
on the message that works best.
5 Ways to Promote Affiliate Programs
By Jason Gazaway
After having chosen several programs to join, you probably realize that customers won't knock on your door - you have to come to them. By promoting your affiliate programs successfully, you build your own success!
So what should you do to promote your affiliate programs? Here are five methods which have succeeded for millions and can succeed for you, if you choose to follow the same steps as those millions before you!
#1 Create your own marketing affiliate program materials.
Many people use the marketing materials provided by the program they signed up for. Guess what? Thousands of people are using those same materials, those same ready-made websites and those same advertisements. People are easily bored and those ads get old really, really fast. Create something brand new and all your own!
* Create your own promotional website instead of using a stale, pre- packaged website. This is not very expensive and the returns can be huge!
* Create your own brochures and pamphlets. Whether using email or mailing materials to prospects in the old-fashioned way, be sure your material is fresh and new.
* Create compelling business cards. The business cards you hand out to contacts that you network with should also be fresh, new, and cause the person reading the card to feel compelled to contact you. A simple byline such as "Information on Becoming an Overnight Success" can be all it takes to make that person call you for more information.
* Write original articles and submit for publication to ezines for exposure of your fresh material.
#2 Generate Leads from an Opt-In Email List
Sure, you can buy names from email lists, but are those people even interested in the type of product you have to offer? Probably not! Create an opt-in mailing list by allowing prospects who come to your website to choose to receive a free newsletter. This gives you the opportunity to include information in the newsletter about your products. Why is this the best way?
* Allows contact with people who have at least some interest in the product you are promoting on your website
* Generates mailing list for future products you may promote
* Saves tons of money compared to buying mailing lists!
After all, think of all those flyers that come in the newspaper. What do you do with them? If you are like most people, you throw them away because they don't pertain to you. If all the flyers in your newspaper were placed there because you, personally, had expressed interest in them, you probably would read them all! This is the difference between random mailing and mailing to prospects that share an interest in your product type!
#3 Network, Network, Network
Never miss an opportunity to network with others who may have an interest in your products, or even be interested in joining the affiliate program under you.
* Share your own success story with others you encounter. Many will be interested in joining you in your endeavor.
* Offer to mentor new prospects to ensure their success.
* Exchange business cards and make follow-up calls to encourage them to talk with you further about your programs.
#4 Use Blogs to Promote Your Programs.
In the past year, blogs have become extremely popular. You can use this forum to your advantage in promoting your affiliate marketing programs.
* Generate top-quality content to place on the blogs.
* Be sure that the blogs you choose are not over saturated by affiliate marketers already. Locate fresh blogs to use in your promotions.
* Content should compel the reader to action. Make them HAVE to check out your program.
#5 Use banner exchanges to your advantage.
Most marketers know that banner exchanges can help them promote their products, but there are a few tricks to success.
* Make sure your banner is placed on sites that will attract the same client base that will desire you product.
* Create attractive and compelling banner content. Plain-Jane banner ads won't attract, those that send acompelling message to act will!
* Always look for new places for your banner to appear. Don't become complacent because you have three or four sites showing your banner. There are new websites every single day!
These five tips will help you successfully promote your affiliate programs. There are many other ways to promote products, but these are proven to work for people who dedicate themselves to ensuring their programs get the necessary exposure to succeed.
After having chosen several programs to join, you probably realize that customers won't knock on your door - you have to come to them. By promoting your affiliate programs successfully, you build your own success!
So what should you do to promote your affiliate programs? Here are five methods which have succeeded for millions and can succeed for you, if you choose to follow the same steps as those millions before you!
#1 Create your own marketing affiliate program materials.
Many people use the marketing materials provided by the program they signed up for. Guess what? Thousands of people are using those same materials, those same ready-made websites and those same advertisements. People are easily bored and those ads get old really, really fast. Create something brand new and all your own!
* Create your own promotional website instead of using a stale, pre- packaged website. This is not very expensive and the returns can be huge!
* Create your own brochures and pamphlets. Whether using email or mailing materials to prospects in the old-fashioned way, be sure your material is fresh and new.
* Create compelling business cards. The business cards you hand out to contacts that you network with should also be fresh, new, and cause the person reading the card to feel compelled to contact you. A simple byline such as "Information on Becoming an Overnight Success" can be all it takes to make that person call you for more information.
* Write original articles and submit for publication to ezines for exposure of your fresh material.
#2 Generate Leads from an Opt-In Email List
Sure, you can buy names from email lists, but are those people even interested in the type of product you have to offer? Probably not! Create an opt-in mailing list by allowing prospects who come to your website to choose to receive a free newsletter. This gives you the opportunity to include information in the newsletter about your products. Why is this the best way?
* Allows contact with people who have at least some interest in the product you are promoting on your website
* Generates mailing list for future products you may promote
* Saves tons of money compared to buying mailing lists!
After all, think of all those flyers that come in the newspaper. What do you do with them? If you are like most people, you throw them away because they don't pertain to you. If all the flyers in your newspaper were placed there because you, personally, had expressed interest in them, you probably would read them all! This is the difference between random mailing and mailing to prospects that share an interest in your product type!
#3 Network, Network, Network
Never miss an opportunity to network with others who may have an interest in your products, or even be interested in joining the affiliate program under you.
* Share your own success story with others you encounter. Many will be interested in joining you in your endeavor.
* Offer to mentor new prospects to ensure their success.
* Exchange business cards and make follow-up calls to encourage them to talk with you further about your programs.
#4 Use Blogs to Promote Your Programs.
In the past year, blogs have become extremely popular. You can use this forum to your advantage in promoting your affiliate marketing programs.
* Generate top-quality content to place on the blogs.
* Be sure that the blogs you choose are not over saturated by affiliate marketers already. Locate fresh blogs to use in your promotions.
* Content should compel the reader to action. Make them HAVE to check out your program.
#5 Use banner exchanges to your advantage.
Most marketers know that banner exchanges can help them promote their products, but there are a few tricks to success.
* Make sure your banner is placed on sites that will attract the same client base that will desire you product.
* Create attractive and compelling banner content. Plain-Jane banner ads won't attract, those that send acompelling message to act will!
* Always look for new places for your banner to appear. Don't become complacent because you have three or four sites showing your banner. There are new websites every single day!
These five tips will help you successfully promote your affiliate programs. There are many other ways to promote products, but these are proven to work for people who dedicate themselves to ensuring their programs get the necessary exposure to succeed.
5 Secret Tips to Effective Pay Per Click Advertising
By Jan Peterson
Yes, pay per click advertising will cost you but if you do it right, it should make you money. If you are running pay per click advertising campaign and more money is going out than coming in, something is not right. Here are 5 steps to targeting the right keywords and minimizing costs.
Are your keywords too broad?
Let's just say you have developed an amazing diet drink that is safe, effective, tasty and will guarantee that people will lose 15 lbs in 30 days. You know you have a product that is a winner and are excited about marketing it on the World Wide Web. However, you are relatively new to the Web and pick keywords that are too general and expensive like 'dieting' or 'weight loss'. Not only are you perhaps disappointed by your PPC advertising results but it will likely be draining your bank account. This is why niche keywords are so important. Look at bidding on keywords such as 'weight loss supplement' or 'weight loss drink'. Go to Overture or Word Tracker and find keywords that are more niche oriented and not so competitive.
Is your ad dull or attention getting?
It is worthwhile to spend some time learning about effective copy writing. It could be the difference between mediocrity and success. You want to know how to get someone's attention. Unfortunately saying "I have the best diet drink on the planet" doesn't work. You have to motivate and inspire people to take their time to look at what you have to offer. And, in pay per click advertising you have to do it in very few words. This can be a challenge. Learn the words that sell or attract or grab someone's attention like "Must see", "Quick results", "New…", "The truth…", "Groundbreaking…", "Instant…"
Double Check your URL!
Sounds like a no-brainer but many times people either misspell their URL or send someone to their home page instead of the page that directly relates to their question. In other words, you may have a website that is dedicated to weight loss but in your pay per click advertising, you want to direct them specifically to your diet drink. So, you would want your URL to read http://www.myweightlosssite.com/dietdrink.html. There is nothing more frustrating to the website visitor than having to go hunting for the information. Your job is to make it easy to find and informative. If they have to look long, they will leave. These are dollars lost to you.
What is your competition doing?
It is likely that your competitors who have a high PR (page rank) and continue to advertise, are doing something right. Learn from those who are successful. While the differences may seem subtle to you, in the World of PPC advertising a word or sentence can discourage or invite a potential website visitor.
What should my title be for my PPC ad ?
Plain and simple use the keyword that is being searched on. Don't get fancy or creative here. If someone is looking for diet drink then your ad title is 'diet drink'.
Give the website visitor what they want.
The bidding war is on
Try your best not to get caught in the bidding war game. There are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your site without spending a fortune. General keywords will always have high prices like 'dieting.' Don't fall for the trap. Most refined keywords will have lower priced bids but are excellent because they will target your traffic. A Website visitor may only be looking for diet recipes and dislike diet drinks. They are not your customer. Same for the website visitor who may want to tone-up while they are dieting. The more specific you can target your market, the better you will do.
Two other tips: If all the bids are around 25 cents and the lead bid is at $5.00, you know someone is trying to own the number 1 position. If you want to have fun bid $4.99 and they will get nailed $5.00 for every click and you will only pay 26 cents if they click on your ad. Warning though: if you want to play this game, keep an eye out so they don't drop their bid. I sometimes do this as a temporary measure to bring someone back to fair playing grounds.
Secondly, keep any eye on all of your bids. People do change what they are willing to bid on any given keyword or search term. I do an overview every few days.
The test results are back
Yes, pay per click advertising will cost you but if you do it right, it should make you money. If you are running pay per click advertising campaign and more money is going out than coming in, something is not right. Here are 5 steps to targeting the right keywords and minimizing costs.
Are your keywords too broad?
Let's just say you have developed an amazing diet drink that is safe, effective, tasty and will guarantee that people will lose 15 lbs in 30 days. You know you have a product that is a winner and are excited about marketing it on the World Wide Web. However, you are relatively new to the Web and pick keywords that are too general and expensive like 'dieting' or 'weight loss'. Not only are you perhaps disappointed by your PPC advertising results but it will likely be draining your bank account. This is why niche keywords are so important. Look at bidding on keywords such as 'weight loss supplement' or 'weight loss drink'. Go to Overture or Word Tracker and find keywords that are more niche oriented and not so competitive.
Is your ad dull or attention getting?
It is worthwhile to spend some time learning about effective copy writing. It could be the difference between mediocrity and success. You want to know how to get someone's attention. Unfortunately saying "I have the best diet drink on the planet" doesn't work. You have to motivate and inspire people to take their time to look at what you have to offer. And, in pay per click advertising you have to do it in very few words. This can be a challenge. Learn the words that sell or attract or grab someone's attention like "Must see", "Quick results", "New…", "The truth…", "Groundbreaking…", "Instant…"
Double Check your URL!
Sounds like a no-brainer but many times people either misspell their URL or send someone to their home page instead of the page that directly relates to their question. In other words, you may have a website that is dedicated to weight loss but in your pay per click advertising, you want to direct them specifically to your diet drink. So, you would want your URL to read http://www.myweightlosssite.com/dietdrink.html. There is nothing more frustrating to the website visitor than having to go hunting for the information. Your job is to make it easy to find and informative. If they have to look long, they will leave. These are dollars lost to you.
What is your competition doing?
It is likely that your competitors who have a high PR (page rank) and continue to advertise, are doing something right. Learn from those who are successful. While the differences may seem subtle to you, in the World of PPC advertising a word or sentence can discourage or invite a potential website visitor.
What should my title be for my PPC ad ?
Plain and simple use the keyword that is being searched on. Don't get fancy or creative here. If someone is looking for diet drink then your ad title is 'diet drink'.
Give the website visitor what they want.
The bidding war is on
Try your best not to get caught in the bidding war game. There are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your site without spending a fortune. General keywords will always have high prices like 'dieting.' Don't fall for the trap. Most refined keywords will have lower priced bids but are excellent because they will target your traffic. A Website visitor may only be looking for diet recipes and dislike diet drinks. They are not your customer. Same for the website visitor who may want to tone-up while they are dieting. The more specific you can target your market, the better you will do.
Two other tips: If all the bids are around 25 cents and the lead bid is at $5.00, you know someone is trying to own the number 1 position. If you want to have fun bid $4.99 and they will get nailed $5.00 for every click and you will only pay 26 cents if they click on your ad. Warning though: if you want to play this game, keep an eye out so they don't drop their bid. I sometimes do this as a temporary measure to bring someone back to fair playing grounds.
Secondly, keep any eye on all of your bids. People do change what they are willing to bid on any given keyword or search term. I do an overview every few days.
The test results are back
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