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Most Recent Articles For: marketing

Written by Terry Stanfield on April 26th, 2008
by Terry Stanfield

Paid search is a fantastic way to drive web traffic to our site from the major search engines. It can also suck our marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The bottom line is someone is going to profit by implementing paid search. The question is, is it going to be us or the search engines? The goal of the search engines is more clicks. The more people click on our ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible within our budget are willing to do that all day long. The real goal should be “fewer clicks, lower cost with more conversions”. Let’s take a few minutes to look at some strategies that should make a difference in our campaigns.

1. Do not use Content Network in Google when you first set up a campaign default setting is set “on”. There are two things that you need to consider before turning on the content match. The first is: “The website that is hosting our ad gets paid every time someone clicks on the ad”. Most click fraud happens is when an owner of a site clicks on these ads. The second is: “Individuals who click on these ads are most often, at the research end of the buying cycle. Limit those who click on your ads to those who are on the buying side of the cycle.

2. Search Terms. The more general the term, less qualified the lead and the more the cost. What I try to think about what terms are going to get my ideal customer to my site.

3. Keyword “types” There are three types of keywords “Broad”, “Phrase” and “Exact”. The rule of thumb that I use is: for single word phrases, use exact match and for search phrases that are two to three words, used “phrase matching”. I am also experimenting with using “exact” matching for these terms as well. The more specific the search term is to what you are offering and who your ideal client is, the more qualified to lead will be. Better a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Just a couple thoughts on writing creatives (ad copy). Use the following in your “headline” box: {keyword: “your main keyword}. This will put your keyword phrase into the headline. You want to attract only your ideal client (someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer) so be specific. Add at least one of your “unique selling propositions”. This can be very challenging because of the space limitations. Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do something different. For example, if everyone is offering free shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.

5. Landing pages require a great deal of thought. Landing page have one purpus, answer the questions that are on the mind of the searcher, the reason for the search. He entered his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution or is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. You must show him that you possess the answers to his needs. Don’t just send them to your home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action. You must be very specific and clear about the next steps. Have your “phone number” or “contact us button” on every page.

6. Tracking. Finally, track everything. Paid search is not an exact science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to get the results that you are looking for. You must monitor your campaigns at least weekly in order to catch market changes. Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.

There is good money in paid search, if done correctly. If you are new to this or do not have several hours a week, it might be a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what they are doing to help you rather than lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out yourself.

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Written by Kim and Charles Petty on April 26th, 2008
by Kim and Charles Petty

You can build your list simply by writing articles, whether you have thought of it or not.

Quite simply, you write and submit your articles on your topic of expertise or business nature to popular article directories where eZine publishers and readers are looking for the information you provide.

Leveraging your viral marketing efforts on article writing can be rewarding, if done right. In the real sense, you are actually proving your worth and demonstrating your expertise about your business through the articles you write.

So, how can this method in effect build your mailing list? The answer: the resource box you attach to your articles. In your resource box (also known as bio box), you include a brief detail about yourself and your business site together with its URL.

It is strongly suggested that your resource box URL links to your mailing list’s landing page where you can get your visitor’s name and email address, which will in turn help you build your mailing list at no cost.

If your articles are found worth sharing, eZine publishers will republish your articles together with your resource box for their readers and subscribers. The wonderful result: viral marketing without effort on your part!

You can start by writing and submitting your articles to trusted article submitter sites such as http://www.articlemarketer.com/ and begin your article marketing journey today.

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Written by Kim and Charles Petty on April 26th, 2008
by Kim and Charles Petty

With the awareness of the importance of list building, comes a recent Internet Marketing trend which was started just a couple of years ago for the mutual benefits of all Internet Marketers and mailing list owners.

This method is more recognized as a “starting a Give Away venture”.

In a real sense, a Give Away event is much like a big time version of ad swaps. In a nutshell, a group of mailing list owners partner together and pool in their individual gifts in one limited-time event.

Each participating partner contributes a gift to the event. The gift can be a free product, membership pass or a product he is already selling (if he is kind enough to offer into the event).

The participating partner prepares a Lead Capture Page where he gives the gift in exchange for the subscriber’s email address. In other words, in order for a visitor to download the digital gift, he must opt in and subscribe to your mailing list.

When the gifts are pooled together into one event (site), every partner will then endorse the Give Away event to their own mailing lists.

The result: lots of visitors to one event as a collective effort of several participating partners!

With so many visitors downloading gifts from one focused event, it is a true win-win situation. This is because the visitors get to download several free gifts for their own use and every partner gets to build their own mailing list!

You can easily get notified about a Give Away event in the making by communicating with other Internet Marketers often or participating in Internet Marketing discussion and Joint Venture boards.

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Written by Kim and Charles Petty on April 26th, 2008
by Kim and Charles Petty

Improve your marketing and sales with some auto responder Improvements. Try some of these:

1. Publish free reports to send via your auto responder. The reports should be related to your business or web site & contain info, ads and links to your sites. People love getting freebies.

2. Collect vital customer satisfaction information by publishing a survey to send via auto responder to those who sign up on your site in exchange for a free eBook, software or trial period at your membership site. This type of information will help you understand their needs, likes & dislikes better.

3. Instead of answering each customer question that is e-mailed to you, publish “Frequently Ask Questions” and make them available via auto responder to those who sign up. To save time and support headaches.

4. Instead of publishing all of your customer testimonials or endorsements on your website, publish only a few there. And set up an auto responder form that invites visitors to receive a complete list via your. Give them a power-packed list; it’s more effective to include all of them.

Mix and match. Change your auto responder strategy to change your auto responder results!

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Written by Trisha Frauenhofer on April 25th, 2008
by Trisha Frauenhofer

Niche marketing is the new strategy for affiliate marketing online business success. With niche marketing, you focus on a particular area for your marketing strategy and become a specialist in it. For example, organic cleaning products can comprise a particular niche for you.

To make money online you should focus on one specific area that provides large volumes of business or else a small volume of business but large profit margins.

With affiliate marketing online business growth, you’ll need to focus on increasing profits without significantly increasing your own effort or cost. For this, niche marketing may be the key. One of niche marketing’s biggest advantages is that you can become a key player in a relatively small field, or in what is a pretty specialized field, such as with organic cleaning products.

Because you are focusing on one area of business you drastically cut down on your competition. If you are selling non disposable diapers you have zeroed in on environment friendly consumers, looking for quality product for their infant. Huggies and Pampers have just been taken out of your competition pool.

If you choose to expand your particular business beyond organic cleaning products, however, you might cause yourself significant harm that would not occur if you simply focused on your niche. For example, if you chose to expand into commercial cleaning products as well as organic cleaning products, you’ll not only invite a lot of competition from those who already sell commercial cleaning products, but you will dilute your own customer base; this is because previously, customers who saw you as someone who cared about the environment and more loyal for that reason suddenly realize that you are not, with your expansion into commercial cleaning products as well. Therefore, for the most part, it’s best to stick your niche once you have found out what it is and stay within it.

To make more money with an affiliate marketing online business, stay within your niche to help garner loyalty from your customers; this in turn will mean greater success and profitability for you.

If you specialize exclusively in the iguana care market, remember that you can also write articles exclusively on the benefits of your particular products. Once you’ve published these articles, those who read them and care for iguanas themselves will see you as an expert. This, in turn, gets you rewarded with more business because you know your stuff, and can be much more beneficial than simple advertisement.

If you participate in niche marketing, your income may also increase accordingly because of your specialized focus. Give it a try and see how much your business expands as a result.

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Written by Jason Pearson on April 25th, 2008
by Jason Pearson

Excellent writing in sales letters draws readers in and makes them want to know more about the topic you’re discussing. To do this you must show that you are trustworthy, knowledgeable and good at what you do. The next most important component is a call to action. If you want them to spend money on your products or services, tell them so by inviting them to buy or click right now.

If you begin with the best title possible, you are off to a great start. Catching their attention and drawing them in to read more is key. Include information about what problems your products can solve in their life. Close with a clear statement about how soon they should purchase the product and by what means.

If you leave out directions on how soon they should act and how they can buy your product, they may simply toss or delete your letter and quickly move on. This can be easily overlooked, but it is a potentially devastating mistake. You could waste many resources distributing sales information that is ineffective.

It is also important to reach beyond just describing what you do and how great it is. There are more subtle means to tell readers what you do. When you are featuring a specific product or service detail how it will impact the readers’ lives in a positive way.

To make sure there are no reservations on the part of the consumer, anticipate any questions and concerns they may raise. Provide answers to these queries right in the sales letter. This will build their confidence in your company even more.

Don’t continue to reuse the same language over and over unless you’re sure it’s effective. Look at you server statistics or marketing studies to examine which ads have been the most effective. Replace unproductive slogans and copy with more innovative wording.

More crucial than all the tips above is your faith in what you do. Clarify for yourself exactly now you provide solutions for people to ease their burdens or make them happier. Once you can communicate this to others, your sales efforts will be almost unnecessary. Use the fact that people can always recognize both exaggerations and simple truths within advertising to your benefit.

These are a just a few basic rules to follow when creating effective marketing campaigns. These can be adapted to suit sales copy for any type of business. When used properly, they have been proven successful time and time again.

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Written by Andy Michaels on April 24th, 2008
by Andy Michaels

Right now, the most explosive way to make money on Internet sales is with article marketing. There must be a few thousand article directories online right now trying to cash in on this boom market. There also must be over a zillion articles in all of the directories combined, but this is not stopping this Internet method of making money.

Article writing is the most popular way of providing information to people and at the same time pitch a product. Simply stated, if you want exposure of any kind on the Internet, then writing articles and submitting them to solid article directories will put you in the driver’s seat.

Many people jump on board when it comes to Internet marketing, including large online businesses, affiliate marketers or network marketers. These people are utilizing articles to get people to come to their websites. In fact, this isn’t a difficult process if you understand it. If you have a product or service, or if you want to market one, simply write articles about it. Your articles need to be informative, and that information must be relevant to your market. For example, if you market dog food, write some articles about how substandard and nutritionally poor national brand dog foods are, and why this is a problem. When you write your articles, give specific and compelling information, then provide a solution via the food you sell; in this way, consumers will be much more likely to go to your website and buy your product, thus providing a healthy diet for their pets.

Once your articles are written, there are many article directories that you can join and submit them for indexing. From here, Google, Yahoo and other search engines will index the article directory site. When this happens, your articles are now a part of this site and get indexed into the search engines. When someone is looking for information about healthy dog food, they will see your article, “A Healthy Dog, Is A Happy Pet!” The search engine visitor now clicks on your link to read your article. Within every article, you have provided your link at the bottom of it for your natural healthy dog food. The reader clicks on your link, goes to your pet supply website and not only buys some dog food, but also purchases some dog toys you are selling. Whew.. This is one way that businesses are using article marketing to make money on Internet sales.

One of the main objectives for anyone that is writing articles for submission to the article directories is to have their articles show up with high rankings in the major search engines. If your articles are only showing up on the second page of Google, then hardly anyone will see your valuable information. If you are going to be a great article writer, then you need to learn SEO, search engine optimization. This is not as hard to learn as it might sound.

There is an Internet full of free information about how to use keywords correctly and what the search engines base their objectives for ranking are. You could be the next Stephen King of article writers, but no one will find you if you do not learn the basics of SEO. Once you have learned what Google is looking for, you are pretty much on your way. SEO is not rocket science like so many others believe it to be. Keywords, relevancy and some talent at writing. This is SEO’s general idea.

When you are ready to begin writing and submitting these articles, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, your articles should be somewhere between 500 and 1,200 words. Secondly, keep them relevant ? it may seem we’re overemphasizing this point, but trust us: relevancy is important. Readers are looking for specific information, so keep it on topic.

It’s easy to make money on the internet using article marketing. Just know your market and your product. A lot of would be article marketers fail here. You have to know a lot, as much as possible about your product and the market. If you can manage this, you will be the go-to guy or gal whose articles are in high demand.

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Written by Jason Pearson on April 24th, 2008
by Jason Pearson

Freelancers face many challenges working on their own to make a successful business for themselves. Having some insider knowledge a solid support system in place will help you navigate the first few months. Start out with defining exactly what services you would like to sell and to whom.

Begin with a concrete outline of what services you will provide and at what rate. Decide whether you will charge by the hour or by the project, for example. You may soon realize that each project warrants its own pricing as each customer expects a different product than the last.

Have some extra money set aside for the first few months until you begin profiting as a freelancer. It will certainly be difficult to start from zero, but clients will gradually begin to recognize who you are on the web. As your customer base expands you can become more discerning with how you choose to spend your time.

How to advertise your services is another issue. While there are free community websites such as craigslist, be aware that people hiring from these venues are also looking to save money and will therefore most likely not pay as well either. You are safer sticking with paid advertising or at least spreading out your efforts between both free and paid sites.

It is essential that you start a website to give people a place to visit when they are considering purchasing your services. The ideas for what to include on a website are endless. Needles to say, it should be polished and informative.

Show your prospects that you operate efficiently and that they can trust you. There have been studies showing that certain colors produce feelings of calm and trust in consumers while others excite them and create a more frenzied environment. Just think of the difference between the color scheme of a fast food restaurant and a doctor’s office.

After you have considered your image via the graphics and colors you choose, be sure to include the specific services you provide. Include a simple list of what you have done in the past and your academic credentials, if appropriate. You may even want to consider outsourcing your web design if you can’t pull it off alone.

After you have a solid marketing strategy in place and have decided how you will price your work, seek to connect with other freelancers on a regular basis. Staying in touch with what is said about certain companies online may help you avoid falling into common traps where you don’t get paid. In the end, although it is challenging, take comfort in the fact that you are making something for yourself and on your own terms.

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Written by on April 23rd, 2008

Traffic generation for your website is all about getting visitors to
your website, or a specific webpage. Many internet marketers admit that it’s
the most important ingredient in successful Internet Marketing.

As you may realize traffic generation is paramount to Internet Marketing,
you cannot sell your product if no one knows about it. Let’s face it,
you can have the foremost product and salespage on the planet, but if
you can’t get traffic to your site you’re not going to sell a thing.
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Everything else you do is, for the most part is  solely
optimizing, to maximize the profit you make from the visitors you get to
your site.

How do you get traffic to your site?

There are a multitude ways to increase traffic to your site, and sharp
marketers are discovering more all the time. Basically they can be
broken down into traffic you pay for and traffic you get for free. Here
are some examples of each type:

Traffic you pay for:

  • PPC: Pay Per Click advertising.
  • Paying other sites to link to yours.
  • Advertise in ezines and online newsletters.
  • Submitting to paid search directories.

Free traffic:

  • Organic Search Engine traffic, the better you are at SEO (Search
    Engine Optimization) the more natural (not paid) search engine traffic
    you will get.
  • Social Bookmarking: you can increase your traffic if you and/or
    others, bookmark your site on social bookmarking sites like
    del.icio.us, OnlyWire, Furl, and StumbleUpon.
  • Social Networking sites: promote your site through social
    networking sites like Squidoo, Fanpop, FaceBook and MySpace. It also
    includes social networking microblog sites like Twitter and Jaiku.
  • Posting relevant and quality comments on blogs.
  • Posting in online forums and putting your web site URL in your forum signature.
  • Email: putting your website address in your email signatures.
  • Convince other sites to link to yours for free.
  • Bum Marketing: writing articles which other webmasters can
    use on their website for free provided they include a link back to
    your website.
  • Submitting to free search directories.
  • Creating viral reports which include embedded links back to your site.

These are only some of the ways to get more traffic to your website.
There are numerous ways to get readers to your site, but this is
enough to get you off to a good start.


Written by Derrick on April 23rd, 2008

Internet marketers, I need a couple of minutes of your time. Please help me out.
 
I need to share some things.
 
A couple of years ago I started working on building websites to make money. After a while, I learnt that I was doing something called internet marketing
 
Like me you learnt some other stuff. You found that you need traffic to your websites and you need to change visitors from interested readers to action takers.
 
It is not easy

  • We are making blogs.
  • We are adding Adsense.
  • We are researching affiliate products.
  • We are getting all this stuff right… Yes?
    OK, so why aren’t we feeling like we’re getting richer?
     
    I looked around for solutions. As we both know there are plenty of people keen to sell a ’secret’ - yup, the same secrets that will be shared only with me and a million other folks. All sorts of traffic schemes - bars on screens, traffic exchanges, funky popups and a truckload of other toys and tricks.
     
    None of them will change your business because they don’t hit the right buttons. They fiddle with the margins but don’t address the basic issues.
     
    The truth is that, in reality, getting traffic generation right IS easy!
     
    We need backlinks and traffic. Just like always!
    If enough folks know where to find our pages and we tell the folks what we offer we will get the backlinks and traffic that lead to free traffic building.
     
    BUT I found that the crazy money suckers and time eating toys were not the way to succeed. All that I really needed was a way to build backlinks and traffic in ‘normal’ ways.
    I threw out the nonsensical toys and went back to the fundamentals and this is what I did:

  • I was commenting on blogs.
  • I used social bookmarking
  • I took part in social networking communities
  • I was posting articles on article directories
  • I was exchanging articles with other site owners
  • and guess what happened…?
    IT WORKED!
    More Backlinks and More Turnover!

    Nothing is perfect though.
    I was spending a lot of time on marketing my sites. Webmasters were again and again suspicious of my attempts to exchange content - their fingers burned too many times by shady characters.
    It took AGES to find good partners for link exchanges and the blog commenting was still a advantageous technique but too many spam artists and ‘no follow’ links reduced its effectiveness and sucked away at my time.
     
    Then, back in January some pieces came together. A new membership site opened up to just a few members. The new site was from the guys behind PortalFeeder - guys whose names I already knew: Jason Potash, Jason Katzenback and Marc Quarles. Each name was a trusted man behind a range of quality products and each was  standing behind this new concept, a service that rocked my world.
     
    What were the guys doing? What was their shtick?
    Actually the offer was not so new - and yet it was unique and brand new at the same time.
    They used the basic ingredients of success - yes, you guessed: backlinks and traffic.

    Taking the fundamental techniques of content exchanges, link exchanges, social methods (Web 2.0) and article submissions and remade them so that we could do the jobs we needed and at a speed that made the process realizable all over again.

    The Traffic Kahuna guys have several components to share with you and even though I use these tools they can tell you about them superior than I can.
    Please, click on THIS LINK and ask for more information. They won’t bury you with irrelevant emails. They will share with you some of the tools that we use in Traffic Kahuna and demonstrate how they help us.

    More importantly, when the doors to Traffic Kahuna reopen with more membership seats you will know as [soon] as it happens and be ready to make a decision - the same choice I made, to go back to the fundamentals and do it right, or to continue messing around with the newest bright ideas from some Johnny-Come-Lately.
     
    There is no commitment, except to your own curiosity and need to succeed.
     
    Oh, there is one thing to think about.
    How you reached this page…
     
    You are here because the techniques used in Traffic Kahuna work!
     
    ALL the promotion used to get you here is from Traffic Kahuna - Think about it!
     
    Visit Traffic Kahuna and request more information.
     
    I look forward to working with you in TK!
     
    Andrew Wilson.