Posts filed under 'Online Marketing'
Savvy Marketing – Business Internet Advertising
Savvy marketing – business internet advertising depends on it and it is the key to a successful internet business. Taking into account how many competitors are fighting for your client’s credit card number, it is anticipated that marketing, business internet advertising, and online promoting have become buzz words that every entrepreneur who took a home based business to the Net has become familiar with. Ibrahim’s goods and services are simply not enough to draw customers and clients, but spreading the word of where these can be had is just important.
In the earlier days of marketing, business internet advertising took the form of banner ads. Many of these banner ads sought to draw clients by being brighter and more colorful than the competition. This soon translated into neon orange banner ads that would make your eyes ache. Shortly, this color war was not enough, and animation was added to the banners. Hence, banner ad marketing – business internet advertising, at its natiest in some cases, got a dreadful reputation and numerous webmasters took down a lot of the more unbearable ads. Undoubtedly, this left merchants clamoring for other ways of advertising their commodities and services.
Individuals who were ad savvy toned down their banner ads to be elegantly constructed and pleasing to the eye. Rather than going for amaze value they enrolled the help of affiliates to publicize the word about their products. Furthermore, these internet entrepreneurs looked to other media to spread the word of their merchandise, and quickly these leaps of faith paid off. Print ads are now regularly taken out for online businesses, and in countless cases a website takes the place of a telephone number. Savvy marketing – business internet advertising at its best, has once again reclaimed the world wide market place and made it a sociable place for consumers and a competitive environment for merchants.
Add comment August 5, 2008
How I Use Email Automatic Responders
An email automatic responder or autoresponder is the second most important marketing tool
I have to make money online. The first would be my hosting company. Without these 2 tools my internet marketing business is dead in the water.
In the world of internet marketing, millions of sites are fiercely competing with each other to gain new clients. For any ecommerce site to succeed, it must capture the interest and the trust of its visitors. It is not enough that your site is perfectly designed or has the latest in animation of content.
You should focus your efforts not only in attracting visitors but also in leading them to make a purchase. There are dozens of marketing strategies you can use to attract more buyers and pump up your sales. One of them is by establishing an excellent and professional reputation for prompt and efficient response.
As more potential customers visit your site, you should expect a flood of inquiries and requests for information. This is an excellent opportunity for you to capture more clients and lead them to buying from your site. Thus, it is important that you carry out an efficient and prompt response to every email you receive. The fastest and most effective way to do this is by utilizing an email automatic responder.
Autoresponder services use a computer program that automatically return a prewritten message to anyone who sends an email to your site. It is widely used for responding to consumer inquiries and visitor comments and suggestions.
Follow up automatic responders are also used by e-zines in responding to people who subscribe or unsubscribe to their online magazines. Companies, who send out their e-newsletter regularly, also use utoresponders.
How can effective autoresponder services help boost your business? The answer lies in its ability to return a prompt response to any e-mail the site receives. By responding rapidly and efficiently, you create a very good impression on your potential customer. Good email autorespondrs help you get important information back to these customers immediately. An effective autoresponder service helps you communicate your message promptly, creating a sense of professionalism and efficiency that your clients will definitely appreciate.
Another very important advantage of email automatic responders is that it saves time with multiple marketing tasks. Certainly, you do not have enough time to personally make and send all correspondence. Autoresponder services allows you to send thank you letters, newsletters, product information, brochures, orders etc. to hundreds of clients almost immediately and simultaneously. Autoresponder services are also indispensable in any email marketing campaign.
Choosing the right autoresponder is very important. What makes the best automatic responder? First, you should pick an autoresponder that is reliable and can give you 24/7 service. You cannot afford to lose a customer because your autoresponder failed to answer his query or request for information. The ability to respond promptly is the first thing you must look for in any automatic responder.
Another key factor you should consider when choosing Autoresponder servcies is flexibility. Good autoresponders allow you to customize unique responses that will have maximum effect on the customer. You should avoid creating an impression that the customer is communicating with a machine instead of a real human being.
An excellent email automatic responder lets you provide the information that is specifically targeted for what the potential customers are looking for. Because any email from potential customers essentially represent the customer’s intent on getting more information about your product, which can ultimately lead to direct sales, all emails are important. Thus, a top Autoresponder servcie must fulfill all these duties to help you boost your business.
For all of our autoresponder needs we prefer Aweber. They are very reasonably priced and have proved to be reliable and easy to use.
Add comment August 5, 2008
Three Divine Secrets To Perfect Backlinks
As you have surely already read many times – getting links to your site is the solely most critical factor to determine your success for ranking well in the search engines. The big G (Google) has changed the way the rank sites from factors on the specific site to external factors giving you site credibility by wanting to link to it.
Ranking high in Google should be your number one priority if you are planning on getting your targeted traffic from the search engines. But as much as you want to rank well in Google so does everyone else and that makes it so much harder to accomplish. But if can possibly achieve it the rewards will follow.
Tips #1: Track your traffic and results. Before you start your linking campaign you should consider how you are going to track your effort. Working hard on building different types of links and not having a clue what works and what doesn’t is just plain stupid. When you know what works and what doesn’t it is much easier to focus your time and there by achieve a better result faster.
You will need to find a way to a) see what sites that sends your traffic and what sites that send you buyers (traffic that converts into sales or opt-ins). This information is SO VALUABLE that it must not be ignored.
If you go to Google and search for “free traffic analyzer” you will surely find a couple of site that can provide you with simple tools that will get the job done. On the other hand you might want to consider finding a more professional tool for the job so that you (over time) are able to track some of the more specific things that you will need in order to not only make sure you rank well but that your page will also convert the people actually visiting it.
A tool that I have had good experience using is the tool that Google provides named Google Analytics. It is free and has a lot of features. You are also able to combine it with your Adwords account if you are using PPC to drive traffic to your site.
Tips #2: Be consistent over a period of time. Things don’t happen over night. Most search engines will take months before giving your site the full credit for the links you have attained. Surely you can see some benefit for links in days or weeks but often it is temporary and your should expect your rankings to jump up an down in the SEs for a few months to come (and this is if we don’t factor in the changes that your competition will surely make on their sites in the same period of time).
So be sure to place links on sites where you can expect them to stay for months (and preferably years).
But that is not all. Even though you have build up a great number of quality links you will need to do a minimum effort in building more and more links to your site over time. This can be done in many ways that won’t take up much of your time but make sure that you don’t ever stop the effort completely. The strength you have build will erode over time so make sure that you keep adding “votes” to your site.
Tips #3: Be aware of outbound links. Most sites and pages have links pointing to other sites or other internal pages. The fewer links the page which you will have your link placed on the better. The effect the page has on your link (and therefore page) will decrease with the number of outbound links places on the site. You can say that the links share the pagerank of the page.
The best possible link you can get will be from a relevant page with a high PR and great rankings in the search engines and where the link to your site is the only one present. This is not something that you will often experience!!
A way to achieve a situation close to this is when you write great articles and have them posted on high quality websites. Here you will often see some internal links but for the most part the link to your site (in the reference section of the article you wrote) will be the only outbound link.
Writing great content articles and having them exposed on the right sites can do wonders for your ranking. So if you’re not Shakespeare you might want to consider finding a ghost writer to do the job for you. Sure you can end up paying $30-$50 for a good article (800-1000 words) but if it will end up sending you more customers because of the improved ranking it might be a
great investment.
Add comment August 3, 2008
Top 6 Ways to Drive Free Traffic To Your Website
It’s seems the mighty grail of the Internet is capturing traffic that is relevant to our site. Without traffic, we are carrying no real expectations of earning money or customers. When putting your website strategy together, you will need to remember that it isn’t just about the site, but what happens next. The traffic, and the conversion of traffic to visitors. If you construct a website to sell products, services, or promote affiliates, with the hopes of generating an income, traffic is of the utmost importance.
Each of these warrant their own article, which I will also do, but to help guide you in general, the following are the top five FREE ways to drive traffic to your website:
1. Signature Files
They say, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”, but by using your email signatures, that simply isn’t true. Signatures are those little messages that appear at the bottom of your email. Typical examples are your name, email address, company and position, but in the world of Internet Marketing, this is free advertising.
For Signatures the things you want to consider are:
1. Always add a signature because they work great and are absolutely free.
2. Depending on who you are sending an email message to, have multiple signatures you choose from.
3. Make sure you are including a signature for each and every email, whether it is personal or business.
4. Make the signatures work for you. Be aggressive, and if you have a landing page, drive every email to that so you can capture them in your autoresponder sales cycle.
5. Only have one link for them to choose from and make them want to go to it.
2. Links
In Google PageRanks, Google looks at the popularity and keyword ranking of a website in order to determine where it appears in the searches. This could be as great as page 1, or anywhere after that. Most links occur in the following manner:
1. Word of Mouth, referrals from friends, promote in the bottom of your email
2. Free Link Exchange Program – This is where you go through the internet in search of appropriate sites compatible to your industry, and offer to list their website, if they list yours. Time consuming, but free. 3. Affiliate Links – If you have the type of product that can be sold by others, where they make a percent of the sale, make sure they set up a website link back to your site. They will also have a page on your site with a unique identifier so that the sale can be traced back to them. This is a great way to not only increase your links, but get your product out there faster.
4. Purchased Links
5. Testimonial Links
6. Articles
7. Press Releases
The ultimate key with links is you want a site that has content similar to yours, they are credible in what they do, and they are in the same keyword area you are. That way it will benefit extensively.
3. SEO -Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Keyword Optimization
SEO is a fancy way of saying make sure your web pages, titles, meta tags, and descriptions, and your page content contain the key words you want to appear in for your particular market. When considering your internet marketing strategy, make sure you optimize your pages for keywords.
Many people rush off to Google and Yahoo and do pay per click campaigns (we’ll get into these at a future date), but forget to use the old-fashioned free route of making sure each webpage really uses these tools.
I have visited so many sites, and randomly checked to see if they use them, and they don’t. This is a missed, free opportunity at ‘true rankings’ improvement.
Now it can take a while for search engines to start to notice you, and this is where PayPer Click programs come into play, when you want a fast rank while the search engines start to take notice of you. But if you haven’t optimized your page, that time will never come.
Getting your site listed for the keywords you want on the major search engines is a key to receiving the traffic increase.
When putting together the content for your page, remember that content is a major difference to appearing on page 1 or page 15 on the searches. Have your keywords appear as much as you can.
Then make sure your title has a keyword phrase you would enter if looking for your site, and that your meta description is a nice sentence about what your site is (and contains your keywords), and the meta keywords (contains your keywords.) With all 4 of these elements considered, you will have taken a big step in creating a relationship with the search engines.
4. Message and Social Boards – Make posts on relevant message boards and Social sites.
Make sure the posts are informative and not direct advertisements. In other words, post on message boards related to your site and offer the other viewers real advice and information to solve a problem. Make sure you are including a signature on each post that holds a link to your website.
5. Articles
The rule of thumb is create 10 articles for your industry, and get them out there fast. Then you can sit back and wait for the reaction.One of the best ways to promote you, your company, and your products or services is to give information away, with no strings attached. There are hundreds of free article submission sites and ezine lists on the internet, with tons of sites hungry for free content.
As long as your article provides readers with useful information and are not for the purpose of selling, sites will accept them for publication. In turn, they will then make those articles available for reading–and for publication–for anyone else browsing their article sites. Free exposure for you. Articles have real power when it comes to traffic generation. You can use products such as ArticleSubmitter Pro, or go to each site you want and upload for free.
Then, another little tip is you add your article to your blog. This creates activity at your blog, and another link opportunity, back to your website which should be a landing page.
6. Press Releases – A press release is information supplied to reporters or media that is an official statement or account of an event that is specially prepared and issued to make known to the public.
It is generally done when you have a newsworthy event such as a new product, website, grand opening, upcoming event, new product feature – but whatever is going on, the key is to write about it, and let everyone know through a press release.
The success of press releases comes back again to links. These are a great way to get links back to your site. You don’t get the meaty ‘author or resource box’ that you do in an article, but it can ultimately appear on some really great sites.
Any aspect of your business that is interesting or unique should be added to the internet. The internet is one of the largest and easiest ways to get news out there, fast. There is a press release format, although each website has their own instructions that you should follow to increase your chances of being accepted, and being successful. When planning your press release, consider the headline, subheadline or summary paragraph, and then the actual body of the article.
There are tons of free services out there, but a few you can get going with right away are:
www.free-press-release.com
www.prleap.com
www.i-newswire.com
All of the above are free methods of generating traffic to your website. By implementing them, you will have the opportunity to enjoy a surge in traffic, without any cost. Now you just need to convert them with your site.
Add comment August 3, 2008
The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Internet Marketers
The Internet is an accessible, global marketplace through which billions of dollars change hands each year. On just one site, Ebay, over $30 billion gets exchanged every 365 days. That’s some nice pocket change. Yet with all the success being experienced, and all the potential for success that permeates the web, too many people are still losing out. Through no conscious fault of their own, these poor souls usually find themselves sharing one or more ineffective business habits and practices. Get to know seven of these habits so that you don’t miss out on your fair share of this multi-billion-dollar pie that is transpiring over the Internet.
1) The Habit of Jumping. The need to jump around like a jumping bean affects many people. These people make a habit of going jumping from one thing to the next, then to the next and so on.without ever thoroughly exploring any one path in depth. You can fight this habit by sticking to one business idea for at least six months and seeing it through to completion.
2) The God Habit. This ambitious habit stems from the ill-conceived notion that an Internet Marketer can be everything to everyone. Every successful business serves a Target Market, a very specific type of customer. Your Target Market can’t be “humans that breathe.” That’s a little too broad. Avoid this habit by correctly identifying, in very specific terms, the most likely group of people who will purchase from you. Find your niche.
3) The Habit of Blinding Love. This is another habit that sounds great, but usually yields no results. This is the one where people think they should just do what they love and let the money come. Unfortunately, you can’t just pet dogs and wait for the money to pour into your door. That may be an exaggerated analogy, but the principle is accurate. You have to link the activity you love to the world of business. In this example, start a dog-walking company. If you like building model cars, build them and sell them. Or build them, have them photographed and then sell those. You must link what you love with what people will pay for.
4) The Habit of False Idols. This is the one where, you, the unsuspecting Internet Marketer happens upon an attention-grabbing speaker who tells of a rich, lush oasis, whereupon he proceeds to lead you into the desert, describing the mirage up ahead and taking your money all the while. Then when you finally run out of money, this loud, flashy speaker turns to dust and blows away in the wind as the mirage that was just up ahead fades from view. You’re now broke and alone in the desert. The Lesson: Don’t listen to someone because they’re great at getting your attention. Make sure they can prove paradise exists because they’ve been there.
5) The Tomorrow Habit. When you know you need to do something, but you just don’t feel like doing it now – you can do it tomorrow. For example, when you’re watching the big game and your business needs attention, you don’t worry about the business because ‘you can do it tomorrow.’ Or maybe when you’re tired and ready for a nap even though you know your client list needs to be contacted, again you don’t worry – ‘you can do it tomorrow.’ Basically, it comes to: You can go for success now or do it tomorrow. Of course, if you always “do it tomorrow”, you can never complete it today. Know how to combat this habit? Just do it.
6) The Sheepish Habit. In a world full of plain, brown shoes, why are you deciding to open a plain, brown shoe store? Sure you might get lucky and have someone’s shoes fall apart while they’re right in front of the store, but why not try opening a shirt store? A pants store? Look around you. Each year there are more and more and more new products or improvements to old ones. That means there is plenty of room for yours. Go against the grain and get noticed. Fall into line and you just might fall into oblivion.
7) Alzheimer’s Habit. Don’t forget this last habit of forgetting. “Forgetting what?” You might ask. The answer is: Forgetting your customers after they say ‘yes’ to you and forgetting potential customers when they say ‘no’ to you. It’s never OK to forget them – always follow-up. They want to hear from you, especially if you have useful information for them or a discount to offer them. It’s not over once they buy from you. It’s just the beginning. It’s not over when they refuse to buy from you. It’s just the beginning. So capture their emails, plan for the follow-up and don’t forget!
That’s it. You know what not to do and you know how to take corrective moves in case you foul up. Make a quick check of your daily routines and make sure that you’re not inadvertently following one of The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Internet Marketers.
Are you guilty of any of The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Internet Marketers? Learn how to replace your ineffective habits with highly effective habits of successful internet marketers at: http://HighlyIneffectiveHabits.com . highly recommended by: http://MovingAheadCommunications.com
Add comment August 3, 2008
Starting A Business Online: The 6 Essentials Every Internet Business Owner Must Possess
Starting a business online is easy. Just buy a package or sign up for a prepacked system and you can be an internet billionaire next month with nothing to do but run to the bank and cash your checks.
I do not know why people who are normally full of common-sense and who are wary of hyped-up sales pitches fall for these online hucksters. The old adage states: “If it looks too good to be true it probably is” holds even more true for internet get-rich-quick schemes than anything else.
The truth is that there is a lot of money to be made on the internet and that will continue to hold true for many years to come. The opportunity to become an internet millionaire or billionaire has not passed you by. BUT no one got rich overnight on the internet and no one got rich without doing some work.
There are many different methods and formulas for making money on the internet and there are even more ways to lose money on the internet, but before you spend a lot of your money take time to study and learn so you can better judge those opportunities that come your way.
All you need to really start your own business online are these six qualities:
Time is the most important ingredient for your success. If you are looking to get rich quick or for overnight success then starting a business from scratch is not the way to go. Once you know what you are doing then you can often leverage your existing customer base or traffic into a quick income whenever you choose but it takes time to build something of worth. It will take months before your new web site or blog is even listed in most search engines and likely it will take you longer to build up a list of interested potential customers. Money and knowledge can cut down the wait time but remember it will take time to build up your knowledge.
Money is the second most important ingredient for your internet business success. While you do not need a big budget and I offer a free tutorial about how to start an internet business on a shoestring (see end of article), you will need some money to get started effectively.
Patience is another key ingredient for business success. As I mentioned before, it takes time to learn what you need to know (and after seven years in this business there is still a lot I have to learn) and then it takes time to put those strategies into effect. Even more than that, it takes time for your new strategies to begin to work for you. While most of us come to expect immediate results on the internet it does take time for search engines and visitors alike to notice when you make a change to a web site or blog. Many internet entrepreneurs lose patience just when they are on the cusp of success. Most people who fail at an internet business simply did not possess enough time and patience. Most people who succeed at online business did so by sticking it out.
Passion is an often overlooked element of success. One of the ways people work through the early learning and tough times is that they are passionate about their business. This is why so
many gurus suggest you start with a niche that already interests you. Not only do you not have as much to learn about that area but you will be able to be real when you begin promoting your business. You do not have to fake your enthusiasm and passion will carry you far.
Creativity is another must-have for the budding entrepreneur. Think outside the box and beyond what is immediately available in your niche. Creativity can help you start, build, grow and promote your business in terms of products and publicity and partners.
Finally, you quite simply need brainpower. You do not need to be the sharpest crayon in the box but you do need to be open to new ideas and willing (in fact eager) to learn. Never assume you
know everything or that you cannot learn. Once you fall into either of those traps you are doomed.
If you possess these six key qualities: time, money (just a little), patience, passion, creativity, and brainpower then you can make a success of an internet business.
Add comment August 3, 2008
Building A Solid Subscriber List – A Fundamental of Web Marketing
It’s a fact of sales life. When people trust you, they buy from you. The imperative question has always been “How do I get people to trust me online”? Building a subscriber list can be a relatively inexpensive form of marketing that has a three-fold pay-off… building trust, gaining permission to send marketing messages, and increasing sales.
A list allows you to build a relationship with your subscribers, which in turn, establishes trust and credibility. Once they get to know you, once they are familiar with what you do and how you operate, they are more likely to want to buy your products or services. Because you have the subscribers’ permission to send messages to them, your messages are more likely to be read. And, the result is a list full of people who are looking for information on the products or services you sell – and therefore are more likely to buy.
The most common type of subscriber list is an online newsletter, better known as an “ezine” – pronounced “e-zeen” and short for electronic magazine. Ezines can be published daily, weekly, once or twice a month, or quarterly. They generally consist of helpful information and resources that pertain to your business and most often are free-of-charge.
The key to an effective ezine is providing your subscribers with unique and valuable content that focuses on some aspect of your business. For example, if you run a computer software business, then your ezine could consist of software reviews, recommendations, tips, specials you might be running, and so on.
Offering a subscriber form for list sign ups on your Web site can be an excellent way to promote your list, build your subscriber base (a.k.a. prospective client list), keep in touch with your customers, and rack up some additional sales. There are countless other ways to build your subscriber list and develop your ezine. You might want to check out one e-book I found that’s very helpful. It’s “The Step-by-Step Guide To Creating & Promoting Your Ezine.” It can be found at http://www.creatingezines.com.
If publishing an ezine seems overwhelming, a simple alternative is to offer a subscriber list that publishes weekly or monthly specials and discounts on your products or services. People love to save money and many people who might not care to receive an ezine usually love the thought of receiving “advanced notice” of specials and discounts.
No matter which type of list you decide to offer, it is important that you protect both yourself and your subscribers by using a double opt-in list server. A double opt-in list server requires two steps in order to subscribe.
1. The subscriber first signs up by filling out a subscription form or by sending an email to your list server.
2. The subscriber will receive a confirmation email that they will need to reply to in order to confirm their intent to subscribe.
This ensures that only the person with that email address can subscribe, and it also protects you from spam accusations.
It is also important to include both subscribe and unsubscribe information in every issue, and include a privacy statement. People like to be assured that you will not sell or share their personal information with others.
Starting your own ezine takes a few steps, but it can normally be done quickly and easily, and at a minimum cost. Again, the e-book I mentioned earlier can guide you through all the steps of both launching and promoting your ezine.
Any marketing “guru” you meet online will tell you the importance of building a list – whether in the form of an ezine or otherwise. The fact that you kill three birds with one stone (building relationships, gaining permission to market, and increasing sales) is just the icing on the cake.
Add comment August 2, 2008