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August 30, 2007
Getting Your Blog on the First Page of Google
It is so easy to make money with a blog. Whether the purpose of your blog is to get traffic to your sales page or to sell affiliate products or to get Adsense clicks, getting your blog onto the first page of Google can be done quickly and easily.
Using the following quick tips you could get listed on the first page of Google for some keywords within a month or two, depending on how competitive your niche is. A video game site that followed these tips got on the first page of Google, in the fifth spot, for a popular search term when the site was less than one month old.
Here are the five quick tips for getting to the first page of Google:
1. Put some original content on your blog. Post at least once a day but not more than every two to three hours. It doesn't look good if you are posting every few minutes. Continue adding new content regularly. Some of the content can be duplicate content (from an article directory or private label rights articles) but the more original content the better.
2. When you have at least five posts with original content then submit your blog to Google's sitemap. It's not hard, and it only takes a few minutes. As long as you have a blog that looks authentic and is not filled with scraped content, this is a good start to getting noticed by Google.
3. Write some original articles and submit them to article directories such as EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, ArticleAlley.com, and SearchWarp.com. Do not submit more than one a day since it is better to not inundate the article directories or they might think you are spamming them. It is very important to have a good resource box with links back to your site.
4. Submit your RSS feed to at least fifty sites. This can be done in less than a couple of minutes using RSS Submit (RSSFeedsSubmit.com), a great piece of software that automatically submits your feed to more than fifty sites. The price is very reasonable (less than $50) but if you don't want to spend any money and would rather do it by hand, Robin Good sells a list of 55 RSS submission sites for a very small fee.
5. Get your URL link listed in as many places as possible. Submit your site to directories like DMOZ. Answer questions at answers.yahoo.com and include your URL with your signature. Leave comments on blogs that are in a related niche to yours, again including your URL in the signature. Do a search with the phrase "keyword add url" and add your URL at sites that allow you to do it for free. "Keyword" would be replaced by one of your keywords for your niche. Submit your blog to Technorati. Submit your original posts to social bookmarking sites like Digg, Netscape, Redit, Plugim, and so on. Be sure to tell friends to vote for your submissions at the social bookmarking sites.
These five quick tips will give your blog a powerful boost and get your blog on the first page of Google in a very short time. Within days you should be getting traffic from Google as you rise in the search engines. And you did it with spending little or no money.
Posted by billenross at 05:43 PM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2007
Mister Rogers Wins Big
In an age of inauthentic marketing and sales messages, it's refreshing to see a sales message that is real and truly authentic.
Think hype sells? Watch this...
Posted by billenross at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2007
Words To Live By
With All Your Heart...
say out loud:
I want to live a happy life, listen to what you just said, take notice of things, surround yourself with people you love, listen to the wind, imagine, let everything change all the time, let go of the why, welcome miracles, thank God constantly, breathe, tell the truth about how you feel, make choices, want what you want, let the animals reach you, have children teach you, take good care of your body, love passionately, share your dreams, spread your gifts, check it out, forgive the past, dive in, eat it up, take chances, be real
(c) Julie Evans
Posted by billenross at 07:17 AM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2007
Squeeze Pages
Squeeze pages should be an integral part of your on line business! It's a technique that works to build your 'opt-in' list. A squeeze page is really a 'trading' page - you are trading something of value to your visitor and they in turn give you information about themselves.
No matter how great your site is people get distracted and your visitor can be gone before you know it. Not only that, if they become distracted they may not remember what site they were on or why they had navigated there in the first place.
I have book marked many a site then forgot about it for one reason or another.
Now had the visited site used, or been, a squeeze page not only would they capture the visitors information but their follow up email(s) would remind the visitor of the site and the purpose of their visit.
This is why using a squeeze page and getting permission to follow up with your visitors can be so powerful. Caution: you want to make sure the visitor understand how you plan to use the information they give you.
What goes into creating a good squeeze page? Not a great deal is really needed.
Layout:
Keep the layout simple and to the point. Capture only the minimum amount of information needed for the follow up - name; email address is all you really need. Asking for state, country or phone should only be done if it is important to the follow up.
People are often reluctant to give up a phone number - especially on the first contact. They fear being put on lists or being called at all hours of the day or night. It is important the visitor understand his/her information will be kept confidential.
Remember that you can, and should, acquire more information as you develop the relationship between you and your customer.
Make a template with your HTML editor, which you can use over again just by making minor changes to the information, depending on your present offer.
There are also a number of places on the Internet where you can find ready-made templates - both for free and at no cost.
Graphics:
Graphics can project the image you want to have. Do you want to display only the product? Do you want to display the product and your logo for branding purposes? Though squeeze pages aren't really used for branding - that should be an objective of your main site(s).
The offer:
You need a quality offer to entice the visitor to hand over her/his information. Preferably, this will be something of a free nature and should be something that solves a problem for the visitor. Free reports are great items for squeeze pages. And these items need not be your product but can be products for which you are an affiliate.
Remember that by using a squeeze page of your own, you acquire the customer information rather than the affiliate site capturing them first.
And that is the goal of your squeeze page - to help you build your customer list!
Posted by billenross at 07:46 PM | Comments (0)
Secrets To Success
From TED:
Posted by billenross at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2007
List Building
If you are into Internet marketing most people say you don't even have a business if you don't have a list. By building a list you have a sustainable business model not dependent on outside sources for traffic or income.
Building a list is collecting email addresses of people who want to be contacted by you. The benefit of building a large list is you have contact with hundreds to thousands of people whenever you have a message to get out.
If you don't collect names from people who are visiting your website you are missing out on repeat traffic. Odds are most people who visit your website only do so once. By collecting email addresses you are recycling the traffic you worked so hard to get in the first place.
Also, by building a list you might even be able to afford to pay for traffic since each visitor becomes more valuable. Each visitor can be contacted repeatedly with your message to buy your products or services.
The easiest way to build a list is to put newsletter sign up forms on your most visited pages. It is important to put it near the top of the page so people can see it. Giving away a free e-book is another great incentive for people to sign up to your list.
Pop up forms are also a good device many Internet marketers use to collect names. The good thing about this is you don't have to change any of your pages to include a pop up form because this goes over your page.
These days with the amount of spam people receive it is best to have a double opt-in list. What double opt-in means is that people who enter their contact information into your sign-up form is that they must then also confirm they want to be a part of your list by confirming this with a reply email as well. This way if someone goes around entering someone else’s email address they can easily opt out of receiving any more messages from you.
By building a quality double-opt in list you will have a more responsive list to your offers. A lot of people find that building a double-opt in list harder to build, but in the end it saves everyone a lot of hassle. You are not sending spam to people who don't want your emails, and people who are receiving your emails will be more likely to respond to them.
Posted by billenross at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2007
Listing Your Website In a Web Directory
When looking to start or grow an existing Internet business or even offline business there is one fact you cannot get away from. That simple fact is without traffic your business is going nowhere. This simple truth is universal to all Internet businesses and is tantamount to building a Wal-Mart on the moon it could be the biggest and best-stocked store ever but if no one can get there it is dead before it starts.
One of the best ways of promoting an online business and enhancing an offline business is with the use of web business directories. There are a few key benefits to this for your online and offline business and in this article we will look at some of those key benefits. Among these is the main lifeblood of business and that is traffic, directories can help generate this in a few key ways.
The first benefit to both on and offline businesses are web business directories. These are among some of the highest trafficked websites on the Internet with some of the highest Alexa rankings there are. The largest of these directories and probably the best known would be Yahoo.com another large directory would be DMOZ (The Open Directory Project).
Alexa is a division of Amazon.com and it runs a web traffic rating service that ranks a website's traffic with the ideal ranking being number one. Some of the websites with high (actually the lower the number the better) traffic rankings are Yahoo #1, Ebay, MySpace, YouTube and Google.
The reason this number is important to potential web business directories you are looking at is traffic, these sites get lots of it. This is good for you as many people look to directories to find what they are looking for over search engines for the key difference between them. Based on human editors almost no web directory databases use robots as where search engines employ robots called bots, which use mathematical algorithms to index websites.
Many people consider the human element of a web directory to equate to a higher quality of listing as a human can notice simple subtleties that a computer just cannot notice. This human factor is what also gives the sites a higher authority ranking expressed through the high Page Ranks most established web business directories enjoy. Why is this Page Rank factor important to you and your business? Simply put Google gives greater credibility to sites through higher Page Ranks expressed on a scale of PR0 to PR10 with ten being the highest you can achieve.
When you list your site in a directory with a high PR some of that Page Rank passes on to your site and in essence it boosts your Page Rank which helps improve your results in the SERP's (search engine results page). This brings it all full circle as the higher your score in the SERP's the more traffic your website will get. The number of incoming links you have to your site (back links) directly relates to your position in the SERP’s. Simply put the more one-way links you have the better your websites traffic will be.
What benefit is this to your offline business you may ask? Simple. As the world embraces the technology of the Internet and more and more people turn to it for solutions to problems the more your business presence on the web becomes increasingly crucial. Many people use web business directories as the modern day Yellow Pages. These directories can have advanced listings capabilities which can be anything from a few lines to extremely detailed business information such as business phone, address, product listings, photos of the business, etc.
This is an affordable way for an offline business of getting an online presence without actually having to build their own website. It can give the offline business a quick and simple way to join the modern way of doing business to a generation that is as comfortable doing business online as their parents were with a telephone.
They use the Internet as a way of gathering information to save time and make more informed decisions when they do chose to spend their hard earned money. In the end it boils down to this, web business directories are a way of connecting businesses and customers together in a more efficient way and to a larger, more informed audience.
Posted by billenross at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2007
Blogging Is The Future
If you conduct any business online or maintain a website to compliment your offline business, then blogging is quickly becoming a mandatory part of your future. And if you are not currently blogging, chances are after realizing the potential of these traffic-enhancing goldmines, you soon will be!
Blogs, derived from the words "web log" were originally thought of as simply online diaries a place for people to record their thoughts and inspirations. At first, no one took blogging very seriously and these collections of online thoughts were simply passed off by many as hobbies or creative outlets and nothing more.
But then Google came along and started to recognize the unique and original content that these trite little sites presented and the rules of the game suddenly changed. After all, unique content is what makes the Google world go round, and what better way to command the attention of Google than by creating a dynamic environment with content that is solely your own.
At this stage, a whole new SEO world emerged and in the process, brought with it traffic opportunities like never before. People began blogging on more than what they had for dinner last night. They started to blog about new products, exciting travel adventures and all things related to online commerce.
The evolution quickly continued and today, with RSS feeds, sites like pingoat.com and many other content clearinghouses, blogging is big business and not to be overlooked by hungry entrepreneurs looking to establish a web presence.
What currently makes blogging so attractive is the sheer speed with which blogs and blog posts are able to get indexed in the search engines. It is a simple matter of static versus dynamic and the search engines love the dynamic.
Let's take two different scenarios to see how traditional websites and blogs differ in their index-ability:
Scenario One:
One person creates a website to advertise gardening products and services. Each page of the site contains the traditional information about the company; it's founders, the services they offer and the products they sell. Maybe, at best, the site has articles and content that is updated with some small frequency that are relevant to the avid gardener. When visitors arrive at the site, they have the option of signing up for the company newsletter and receiving valuable tips and new offerings.
In this scenario, the Webmaster or business owner will need to tend to many SEO related tasks in order to get and maintain high search engine ranking for a tight list of selected keywords related to the gardening niche. Not only will this activity require great skill, it will also involve many hours to achieve the intended results.
Scenario Two:
The same business owner as above also creates a blog to supplement their company website. Now, instead of focusing on simply one set of tightly selected keywords, the blog itself remains a broad overview of the gardening niche, while each individual post reflects a drilled down topic within that same niche.
So when the business owner writes a blog post about the benefits of "organic vegetable gardening in backyard containers," this individual post becomes a keyword rich, targeted wonder and when indexed by the search engines has a far greater opportunity to bringing highly targeted traffic to the blog based upon that single post.
Through time, the blog expands with many similar posts that are targeted to sub niches within the broader gardening niche and can even be categorized from inside the blog structure itself. What has now been created in Google's eyes is an extremely dynamic, naturally evolving site that is content rich and niche specific.
When properly constructed and promoted, each time the business owner posts to the blog, that individual post can get indexed in anywhere from two to twenty four hours on average. This opportunity is far greater than any options available at the static website.
Additionally, when the business owner endeavors to have a visitor signup for a newsletter, further segmenting can occur and subscriber lists can be refined and targeted. And because the blog is the front-end showcase to the original website, each blog post has the opportunity to link back to specific and relevant products at the main site.
When properly structured, blogs are the biggest SEO asset to a website that currently exists. The wise business owner will recognize these benefits and when implemented, will enjoy many opportunities that do not currently exist with traditional websites alone.
Posted by billenross at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2007
Free Ebook
You know by now that you should be building an opt-in list. It's one of the best ways to earn money on the Internet.
When you have a list, you can send members a newsletter with one or more interesting articles along with ads for products related to the topic of your list. The larger your list, the greater the positive response will be to your ads. And, the more money you will make.
Creating and managing an opt-in list involves a number of tasks, including:
- Defining an appropriate topic for your newsletter
- Implementing software or subscribing to an external opt-in list service
- Attracting potential list subscribers
- Preparing articles and ads to send to your list
In this article we'll discuss an aspect of attracting subscribers by offering a free article or ebook.
Today, nearly everyone expects an incentive in return for giving you their name and email address. It's not enough merely to receive your periodic newsletter. After all, they don't know the quality or content of your newsletter. So they expect something of value up front.
The typical product you can offer as an incentive is a free ebook or article.
To successfully get new opt-in subscribers you'll need to offer an ebook or article that provides immediate benefits. That is, your product must solve some problems or answer some nagging questions of your target audience.
You can offer an ebook or article you have resale rights to or you can create your own. Most existing ebooks with resale rights have been marketed for some time. Often these products have been marketed by people with more resources and experience than someone just creating their first list. So, the information in these ebooks is often familiar to many people.
You'll often find that if your product has unique content you can corner the market for your particular set of solutions. This offers an advantage because your target market can only get these solutions from you.
How to Develop Ideas for Your Ebook
As you gain experience with your topical area you'll probably be able to identify some of your target audience's problems or concerns. And, knowing their concerns or problems, you'll likely be able to offer a few solutions.
Once you have identified some solutions, you can expand your thoughts to a few paragraphs. To explain them clearly and give examples, each solution may be become a chapter of several hundred or even thousands of words.
You can often research your topic and look for additional solutions by using the search engines or by searching various article sites. Once you locate material that describes solutions you can express those solutions in your own words. You can add your own examples to make your expression of the solutions unique and more personal.
While copyright protection applies to the expression of ideas, it does not prevent you from expressing those same ideas in your own words. There are many books and ebooks that express the same concepts in different words. So, your expression of the solutions you choose to present will not conflict with the rights of others.
Preparing and Publishing Your Ebook
Most people use a product like Microsoft Word to prepare their ebook or article. With it you can check spelling and grammar, create chapters, headings, bulleted lists and a table of contents. You can also add photos and clip art to help explain and illustrate your ideas.
You may already have access to a commercial clip art package. Many packages are available at your local computer store. And, even though I own several clip art packages, I've found that I'm usually satisfied with Microsoft's free library of clip art.
Microsoft allows you to download and use any of over 150,000 images and sounds from their online library. To search and download art from Microsoft using Microsoft Word, select Insert -> Picture -> Clip Art. Then select the Clips Online tab. You'll then be able to search photos, clip art and sounds for just the right images to illustrate your ideas. As long as your purpose is to enhance your own product, you can freely include Microsoft's images.
Once your ebook or article is complete you'll want to create a PDF file. This is the most popular format for downloadable ebooks and articles. People using both Windows-based PCs and Macintoshes can view documents in PDF format.
You can "print" your document to a PDF file using any of several free conversion applications. Newer PCs often come with this conversion software preloaded. If your PC does not have this software you can get it free from several sources. Three free products that create PDF files from virtually any Windows applications are:
- PrimoPDF (http://www.primopdf.com/)
- PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/)
- doPDF (http://www.dopdf.com/)
After creating your PDF file you can then upload the PDF to your server. You'll need to upload it in BINARY format rather than ASCII format. To make sure you did everything correct you should download your PDF and test it to make sure it is viewable.
You'll also need to create a web page that promotes the benefits of your ebook or article, describes your newsletter, and includes a subscription form. In addition, you'll need a "Thank You" page that has a link to your ebook's PDF file so subscribers can download your product.
With unique content that offers an immediate benefit to potential subscribers, you're sure to have a successful list building experience.
Posted by billenross at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2007
Building Backlinks
Building backlinks to your website is highly recommended in the Internet marketing community these days. This practice is especially helpful for the purpose of drawing organic (read "free") traffic to your website. And, if you don't have traffic to your site, you don't have much if earning money is your goal.
By building backlink to your website, you benefit in a number of ways. First, your placement in the search engines can improve, since the number of backlinks pointing to a website appears to have considerable impact on search engine ranking (love). Second, you may also attract traffic, as visitors on the other sites see your link and click over to see what you're offering.
The rest of this article will focus on several backlink building methods that are great for beginners and experienced marketers alike.
Social Bookmarking
There are now literally thousands of social bookmarking sites. These sites offer an opportunity to bookmark all of the websites (including yours) that you find interesting and want to keep track of. Bookmarking your site often means you're creating a backlink too.
Website Directories
These also are in great supply. These sites are storehouses for information about all sorts of websites, sorted by topic. Many allow you to submit your website for inclusion for free and create a backlink if your website is accepted.
Link Exchanges
These are also known as reciprocal links. You allow me to put my link on your website and I allow you to include your link on my site. Reciprocal links are considered more valuable if they are placed on a website whose theme is relevant to yours.
Blog Comments
Many blog owners welcome readers' comments in reaction to their posts. The reader can generally include a website link along with their comment, creating a backlink. Just watch out for blogs that include the "no follow" tag because then the backlink won't count.
Press Releases
Submitting a press release entails writing up a short news story about your website or some of its content. It's a who, what, when, where, and how of something likely to be of interest to the media. As with many of these methods, there are free and paid options. Of course you include a link to your site in your content.
Article Marketing
Some say article marketing is the best method to draw free traffic and ultimately lots of backlinks. The webmaster writes an article on a topic relevant to their site and submits it to one or more article directories with a resource box incorporating links pointing back to the website.
Link Networks
These are typically private networks of blogs or websites on which members can post content which includes a link to their website. Often the blogs that are available in these networks have a fairly high page rank, say PR5-PR7, which is an attractive feature. The value of a backlink can increase if it is placed on a webpage with a higher page rank
Using all of these methods at the same time to create backlinks might lead to being scattered and ineffective. If you're interested in building links to your website, start with one method, complete it thoroughly and then move to another.
Of course some of the techniques, like article marketing, are never complete. There is always room for more, so intersperse this with other link building methods. With some concerted effort you will be able to create hundreds or thousands of backlinks to your website and really feel the search engine love.
Posted by billenross at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2007
Making Some Extra Money With Paid Surveys
There are many opportunities to make money online. It can be a hard decision on which method to try. Paid Surveys are one of the easiest ways to make money online and they are worth giving a try. Everyone has an opinion and what better way to earn than to share ones opinion through online surveys. One can visit innumerable websites and fill out surveys for some cool cash. All you need to do is Google the words "paid surveys"
Paid Survey is a form of market research and by giving your views you can assist in shaping and molding future products and services. To start with, paid surveys require no special knowledge or skills. You do not have to build a website or advertise anything. Paid surveys are completely free for the participant.
It is also very easy to find paid surveys. However, there are some companies who will not actually pay money, but instead pay through prizes or awards. These paid survey opportunities can still be good because you can earn a lot of good merchandise and perks through them.
Signing up with a paid survey opportunity is also quite simple. Usually they will ask for personal information like your name, address and email address. They will also usually have an introduction or screening survey.
The introduction survey is basically where they gather information about you that they will use to match you with available surveys. Sometimes they may be looking for people who meet certain specifications to take a survey and that use your introduction survey to see if you meet their criteria.
You are usually advised of surveys that are available for you through e-mail or sometimes by visiting the website. When a survey comes available, you simply go to the website and begin taking the survey.
You should not expect to get rich through paid surveys, but it is possible to make a few hundred extra dollars each month if you are participating regularly in paid surveys. If you are looking to make the most money then you should sign up for a few different paid surveys.
Paid surveys are quite easy and they don't generally take a lot of time. You can easily start doing paid surveys in your spare time and be able to make a little extra income working from home on the Internet each month.
Posted by billenross at 08:28 AM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2007
Using Social Media to Get Free Stuff
You need a free banner? How about a free button for your Website? You can search for free stuff using Google or your favorite search engines but often times it is very brutal. You will find that most sites that show up in search engine results have a few crappy free offerings. They are selling their good stuff for a premium.
It is not fair that you want a few free buttons, backgrounds, or icons and Google dumps a crap load of useless results when you use the word free in search key phrases. There are plenty of sites with good quality free designs but they do not rank high in Google search results.
What do you do? Use Google but restrict your search results to social media sites only.
User submitted contents found in social media sites like Digg, RedDot, etc. are some of the best contents from all around the Web. These social media sites let users rank contents based on the quality.
You get the double bonus. Not only thousands of users have scouted the Web to find the best freebies but also they have ranked those submissions based on their merits. You are able to leverage the crowd wisdom for free to get the free stuff. How sweet it is.
May be the results are crappy but Google is a very powerful search engine. To get the good stuff from the social media sites, instruct Google to return results from contents published in those sites.
Let's say you are looking for some icons. In Google search box type site:Digg.com "free icons" and hit enter. Google will return all results for "free icons" from Digg, a social media site.
The above technique may not land you directly on the source because many blog authors compile links to high quality free stuff from the Web and then publish the list on these social media sites. Though you don't go to the source directly but you get the right direction.
Here is a list of popular social media and blog sites that you can use using the site: operator in Google search.
dig.com
del.icio.us
slashdot.com
RedDot.com
stumbleupon.com
blogmarks.com
technorati.com
bloglines.com
mybloglog.com
giveawayproject.com
Social media and crowd wisdom are new Web 2.0 paradigm. The collective intelligence of thousands of people from all around the Globe are channeled through these new Web tools called social media. These sites offer new opportunities for information search and retrieval. Learn how to use them and leverage them for your benefits.
Posted by billenross at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2007
List Building Secrets for Internet Marketers
Read and implement these seven very effective ways to build your opt-in list for all your Internet marketing.
1. Offer a free newsletter: This is very common and very effective. It is used by virtually everyone who builds an opt-in list of potential buyers of an Internet marketer's product. The reason everyone uses it is because it is effective. Have your free newsletter prominently seen on your web page.
2. Make your free newsletter easy to get: You must have a "you'd be a fool not to get this newsletter" sentence telling people why and how your newsletter will help them. Make subscribing to it quick and easy.
3. Quality content in your web site: The better the content, the better your ranking in the search engines and therefore the more visitors will come to your website. There is a good chance that many of the visitors of your web page will sign up for your free newsletter.
4. Join forums: Search for and join any forum that is related to your business. Most of these forums allow you to add a signature line directly under your post where you can put a link that goes to your newsletter subscription information.
6. Write an eBook: This will establish you as an expert similar to writing articles. An additional bonus to this technique is many Internet marketers are often looking for freebies they can give to visitors of their website. Your eBook can be one of those freebies. Inside you will have various links back to your site and your free newsletter. Your eBook does not need to win any prizes for literary content nor does it need to be long; just write solid, useful information.
7. Use Co-registration. I saved the best for last. The top marketing experts on the Internet use this secret today. This will build your list rapidly in a short amount of time. What is co-registration you ask? It refers to the practice of referring subscriptions or leads for memberships with another registration process. There are several ways of doing this.
When a visitor signs up for a free subscription or other service, give them the chance on the "thank-you" page to opt-in to another offer. Another way is give the visitors to a website the opportunity to sign up for another opt-in list. These do not need to be your "thank-you" pages or websites. You need to partner up with another web marketer.
The goal here is to find other website owners who you can joint venture with to offer your newsletter along with theirs. Do a search via your favorite search engine and directories for similar offers and contact the people to set up your joint venture.
Here are two additional secrets to this co-registration process. First, make sure you offer more value than the other party involved in your joint venture. Second, offer your leads you get from this process more value than you usually offer by giving them a huge giveaway only available to them.
Posted by billenross at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2007
Social Marketing Must Be A Part Of Your Business
If you are trying to sell things on the Internet and you do not have a blog you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. Would you go to play golf without a putter?
Your competition is blogging and they are beating your pants off every day with ease. A part of blogging is submitting your articles to social directories.
Here are 3 reasons social marketing must be a part of your Internet business.
1. Social marketing is a popular way to get information. Directories like Digg and Netscape are quickly becoming the choice of people all over the world as a way to keep up to date on what is going on.
If you are not blogging and submitting to relevant social directories you are missing out on this easy form of traffic.
2. Social marketing is easy to do. Here's what you need. You should get a WordPress blog and set it up so that you can quickly bookmark the top directories. Then you should post in your blog everyday. If you can talk and type you can blog.
3. Social marketing is an interactive way to develop relationships with your readers. This has become know as Web 2.0 and it is important to the future of your business.
4. Search engines love social marketing. You are making their life easy when you blog around keyword rich topics that a person researching can find. When you master the techniques of social marketing you will find you can get on page one of Google and other search engines very quickly.
The reason for this is search engines are spidering Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, and many more non-stop looking for fresh relevant content to put online. This may as well be you as opposed to your competition.
If all of this seems confusing it really shouldn't be. Read "The Authority Black Book" by Jack Humphrey. It is a free ebook you can get online. In it you will learn everything you ever wanted to know on social marketing and how to use it to increase your business.
Don't wait until tomorrow to get started. Do it today and your Internet business will thank you.
Posted by billenross at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2007
Going Viral To Promote Your Business
As an online business owner one of the many tasks you are required to undertake is that of business promoter.
With several thousand new web sites being started every day the typical site owner has to be aware of the many different avenues that are available to promote their site.
Some are more traditional than others such as search engine optimization and submitting your site to directories related to your particular niche.
Others take a little more imagination to implement.
One such tactic is creating a viral report or ebook.
This has nothing to do with passing a virus to the computers of unwary surfers.
Going viral simply means that the report or ebook is given for free with the encouragement to the reader to pass it along to others who may be interested in the subject matter, which is covered in the text.
This can usually be accomplished by offering an incentive to the reader through a gift, bonus item or monetary reward.
In most cases the viral concept works in conjunction with an affiliate program where an affiliate link is embedded into the report itself or through an email from an autoresponder.
When used with an autoresponder it is usually with what is called a “tell a friend” script.
Another method used is with what is referred to as branding software.
In this scenario the report or ebook is written with one or more clickable links that lead to either a sales page or a squeeze page.
Squeeze pages are simply pre sales pages that are set up with an autoresponder form on them so that visitors will leave their name and email address.
This is an incredibly useful tool that puts interested prospects into a sales funnel and allows the site owner to contact them with follow up messages at set intervals.
However some links will simply lead prospects directly to the sales page that then adds a cookie to their computer for tracking purposes.
When a sale is made the affiliate who sent the prospect then gets credited with the sale and gets the commission.
Rebranding software is a great tool because it can be used with PDF documents that are widely used on both PC and MAC platforms and are hailed for their security. This means that you are reaching a bigger audience than if you were to use software designed for an EXE application.
By writing good informative reports and short ebooks with brandable links and encouraging or rewarding readers to pass them along, you too can build a large viral marketing system that can bring prospects for months and possibly years to come.
Posted by billenross at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)
