It is no secret that the more organic traffic you can procure from the search engines, the more successful your online marketing ventures can be. If you are producing a website for the purpose of promoting a product, service, or affiliate venture, you will need a large amount of traffic for it to succeed. Most people realize this which is why they will put a great deal of effort into search engine optimization marketing. And, of course, most people realize that one of the keys to success with search engine marketing would be to boost the number of links pointing to the website. What many people do not realize is that without the proper links in place, the venture is not going to be as successful as it could be. The truth of the matter is that all links have some value but quality links will have more value. That is why it is necessary to center the bulk of your link building plans on amassing links that are considered “high quality”. How can this be done? Here is a brief overview:
First, you need to make sure that the website the links will be pointing to is properly optimized. No matter how expansive your link building strategies are, they will be undermined if your website is improperly optimized. Really, you will not experience much success from a sparse website that has little value or content. The website will need quality text that is rich with the keywords that are commonly keyed into the various search engines. Adding audio and video files as well as a site map would not hurt either. The search engine robots generally favor such websites which is why these added components are so helpful and necessary. If you do not have a quality website designed then your link building strategy is not going to be worth much.
That said let’s take a look at what is needed to get the most out of your link building ventures…
Above all, you will need relevant links. You do not want to haphazardly place links on sites that are not going to deliver much in terms of value. Then again, you could randomly place links as a secondary link building strategy but you do not want it to be a primary strategy. Remember, you will want the search engine robots to smile upon all the links that you put out on the web. The more relevant the links are, the more likely this will occur. For those wondering what relevant links are, these would be links placed on websites that share similar subject matter to your own website. For example, if your website deals with sports memorabilia, any link placed on a site that is related to sports would be considered a relevant link.
You also want to look towards those sites that have high Google page rank. The greater the page rank, the more “search engine juice” your website will receive. Once again, that is not to say sites with low PR are worthless but their value will be limited. Adding links to sites that low in PR may or may not have much impact. Placing links on sites that have high PR will always have a positive impact.
One way links are much better than reciprocal links. When the search engine robots see you are trading links, they will downgrade the value of the links. Sure, they may not seem fair but that is the way the system is devised. By putting more value on one way links, the search engine robots can get a better gauge determination as to how popular your site really is. Hence, they prefer one way links.
Don’t dump a whole slew of links on the internet all at once. Yes, there are some services that can put up a few hundred links on various (low quality) sites and blogs within a week. Such “link spam” may not help your cause. Adding a few links a week for week after week will definitely have a much better impact since it will make a more positive impression on the search engine robots. This, in turn, will boost your site’s rankings and increase the success potential of your marketing venture as a result.
There are various methods you can utilize to promote your business online. But you will want to keep your eyes open for strategies that will bring leads in more quickly, which will result in your having a more successful site. Pay per click services or PPC are an option that many business owners choose.
Google has PPC services that are fast and effective, and will help you to draw more traffic to your site in a shorter amount of time. The Internet is constantly advancing, and that is why the popularity increases every day.
Simultaneously, more businesses seem to be selecting this type of marketing platform in order to show off their unique services and products among the audiences of the world. The competition level is always rising, always higher. Because of this, it’s vital that you select proven and effective marketing strategies on the Internet, so that you can properly promote your business.
Google’s PPC system is one of the easiest to learn to use, and it may work more profitably for you than other PPC services. Your traffic can be targeted easily and directly. When an online searcher types in a keyword relevant to your company’s products or services, he or she may click through to your site. This system is called Google Adwords. In order to place your business in the top placements, you are bidding against people who are also trying for the best positions. If you work in a niche market, or if you can target a niche market for your products or services, you will face less competition and should secure more hits.
If you will be advertising a popular service or product, PPC services will cost more. There are many people in the bidding war for these keywords, so the price per click may be higher than they are if your business is in a smaller, more targeted niche.
One of the best things about pay per click advertising is that you are able to add, delete or adjust the keywords you use. Some traditional advertisements are not as changeable as PPC keywords are. You won’t want to leap in and do a lot of changing before you know the system, because you may be making changes that will actually lessen your chances of being seen.
Since you are effectively bidding on keywords, you will be able to set the limit to what you will pay. The benefit to this is that you will only pay when someone clicks on your ad and onto your site. If no one clicks your ad, the fee is not there.
As large as the business world may seem sometimes, the Internet brings everyone virtually the same chance at success in PPC marketing, although larger companies will always be able to outbid you on keywords. Your ads can reach anywhere and touch anyone. If you have a business site, then you can sell to online browsers. In addition, AdSense by Google will pay you when people click on ads on your site. This can help ease up the ad budget a bit.
All of your work and money spent in research and PPC marketing will be for nothing if you don’t have a professional-looking website. You’ll also want to do your research on keywords before you begin paying for advertising through any PPC programs. This will help you determine the best way to target your traffic, and how difficult that will be, depending on the popularity of your keywords.
Buyer keywords will give you returns as people click through your links to your website. Select keywords with less competition, if you can, with your products and services, so that you’re not paying an inordinate amount of money for keywords that aren’t producing. Utilize the proper software and systems to make PPC marketing work for you and your business.
Membership sites are an incredible way to make a lot of money online, and are a very popular product not only for online marketers, but also for their customers. People love joining a membership site, getting new information and products on a regular basis, and being part of a special, members-only community.
You can use this popularity of membership sites to your own advantage by setting up and maintaining a membership site. You may want to consider your membership site your main business, or you may choose to supplement your existing online business with a membership site.
Your first step in starting a membership site is to choose your topic area. The best strategy is to pick the narrowest niche possible, while still having a wide enough audience to thrive. There are currently membership sites on such narrow topics as cross-stitch patterns and starting a cleaning business, so don’t worry about being “too specialized.”
Research the membership sites already out there, and find a topic that is related to what people are offering, but different enough that you can attract people to your unique topic. Focus, above all, on providing information on a topic that people are thirsty for information about, and that does not already have a great membership site. Avoid going head to head with gurus; it almost never ends well.
Next, you’ll want to decide how you’re going to manage your membership site. There are several membership scripts on the market, ranging in price from free to hundreds of dollars. While a free script will probably not fill your needs in the long run, there are scripts you can try free and upgrade to a professional, paid product or subscription as your site grows.
When you select a membership script, make sure it works with the payment processor you’re planning to use, that it effectively blocks non-members from joining, and that it can scale to handle a large number of members as your business grows.
Once you’ve chosen a topic and selected a membership script, it is time to start preparing content for your membership site. You should be prepared to spend several weeks or even months preparing a “base” of content for your membership site, and also have several months’ worth of content ready to add to your site, before you open it up to members.
Preparing content for a membership site always takes more time than you expect, so it is important to get your information ready well in advance and be ready with more content than you think you’re going to need.
When you open your membership site to new members, you will need to promote it heavily. Advertising, including pay-per-click ads, ezine advertising, and joint ventures with list owners in your field, will help bring members to your site. If you have a good product and a strong sales letter, and you bring in quality traffic, you can expect your membership site to build into a strong money-maker over the first nine to twelve months.
While a membership site is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it is a solid money-making venture that you will enjoy running and that will build your reputation in your field.
Forum marketing is one of the best ways to market your online business. Even with the proliferation of Web 2.0 sites, including social networking, forums are still one of the best marketing techniques.
To use forums effectively in marketing your business, you should understand the basic rules of how to promote your business in forums. There are certain things that you should do and not do, to insure that you promote your business correctly, persuade people to check out your business, and stay in the good graces of the forum members.
Forum “Do’s”
The most important thing you can do in forum marketing is to choose the right forums. Use Google or another search engine to find forums that are closely related to your business field. For instance, if you sell reports on making money as a photographer, you should choose photography-related forums, rather than, say, entomology forums.
Once you’ve found forums that fit your business, read the FAQs and any rules that are posted in the forum, to make sure that you know what is expected, allowed and accepted. Once you understand the rules of the forum, you’re much more likely to promote your business well.
When you post to the forum, make sure that you are answering questions or giving information that is relevant to the forum you’re posting on. Answering questions is much better, in terms of credibility, than just throwing out information. Another advantage of this is that as you answer questions, you learn more about what your potential customers need and want.
Take the time to become known in a few forums, build your credibility and build relationships. Building relationships and becoming a well-known member of the forum is perhaps the most important thing you can do in promoting your business on forums.
Forum “Don’ts”
As mentioned, one of the most important things to not do is pick forums that are not related to your business. Choosing inappropriate forums will not only reduce the effectiveness of your marketing, but it will also waste your time.
Do not start out posting in a new forum without taking the time to familiarize yourself with the forum’s rules and with the community. This will not help build your business, and could get you banned from that forum permanently, if you break the forum’s rules.
When you post, don’t blatantly promote your business. Instead, offer advice and include your business web site in a signature at the end of your post. You might also offer a free report or ebook in response to questions about certain topics. But do not post a sales pitch; most forum members and administrators are very strict about not allowing sales pitches.
When you use forums intelligently and practically, you can, and will, reach people who are looking for solutions to their problems. If you offer solutions to the problems they’re having, and you take the time to become known and respected in the forums, you can easily build your business effectively through forum marketing.
When discussing website promotion, one of the tips always given is to submit to directories and search engines. The reader always thinks that it makes perfect sense and that he pretty much knows how to go about it, but the fact is he does not really understand the logic behind it, how it works, and how one actually goes about it.
What is the difference between a search engine and a directory anyway? A search engine uses a program for searching documents, mostly HTML, based on given keywords. It generates a list from its database put together by two programs, a spider, which fetches corresponding documents, and an indexer, which reads documents and creates the database based on their word and idea content. A directory, on the other hand, is a listing of submitted and approved websites. Basically, the main difference between search engines and directories is that the latter rely on submissions while the former have programs that scan the net for websites to include in their database. Keep in mind that search engines and directories are two different things, so it is best to come up with separate plans for utilizing the two methods for website promotion.
With search engines, it is all about keywords and HTML layout. You can look into discussions about keyword density, prominence, and placement to better equip yourself for targeting high search engine rankings. Remember that search engines can pick up your pages without you ever submitting them, so design your site accordingly.
As for directories, there are several steps you may have to undertake to prepare your website before submission in order for it to have a better chance of being approved. First and foremost, make sure that your website has been up and running for some time before you submit it. If you had recently made changes, again, wait a short while. You must know that some of the qualities of a good site, according to directory standards, are clean and attractive design, useful content, and fast loading pages.
Once you feel confident about your website, you can start the submission process. You usually have to start with picking out the category or categories which your site falls under. Think this through as this could have a great impact on your site’s exposure. Before submitting your URL, thoroughly read instructions, terms, and suggestions from the administration. Since directories depend on the information you give them, be as accurate as possible when asked for a description.
The top directories out there are Yahoo and DMOZ (also known as Open Directory Project or ODP). With ODP, it is not really as tough to get accepted, but there are so many submissions and they are usually short on staff which is comprised of volunteers. This is actually something you can capitalize on by volunteering to be an editor yourself and accepting your own submission. You have to realize that the Open Directory will not bring an amazing amount of traffic to your site, but it has its ways of influencing rankings, especially with Google. Remember, Google is like the godfather of all things SEO. It is always best to do things that are favorable to it.
Directories usually have a lead time after submission, so do not expect your site’s exposure to be magnified immediately. It may be necessary to submit specific web pages that can fall under different categories or to resubmit the actual website especially if you do a lot of tweaking or if you feel that the course of the site did a turn and it can now fall under a different category. However, do not be so aggressive about your submissions that you are practically spamming the directories. This may lead to detrimental consequences with regards to your active listings.
Do you know anyone who doesn’t know what YouTube is all about? Your dog would probably know what it is if he knew how to use the computer! Everybody is talking about it from kids to adults. Even the world of advertising is taking notice of the vast possibilities that it offers. It is the power of advertisement at its very best.
About YouTube
In the middle of February 2005 former employees of PayPal, Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, created YouTube. In July 2006, YouTube disclosed that over 100 million videos are being watched every single day, and that’s an estimated total of 2.5 billion videos watched in that same month. Also, it was further claimed that in May 2006 50,000 videos were uploaded in a day, and it had reached an astonishing 65,000 uploads in July 2006. YouTube stated that virtually 79 millions users have watched more than 3 billion videos in January 2008.
The Wall Street Journal, in August 2006, wrote an article about YouTube. It revealed that YouTube has hosted 6.1 million videos, and that it has 500,000 registered users. By April 9th, 2008, a search return in YouTube has resulted in approximately 83 million videos and about 3 million user channels.
Google Inc. announces in October 2006 that they will purchase YouTube for a staggering amount of US$1.65 billion in stocks. The purchase eventually pushed through on November 13, 2006. According to the regulatory filing of Google Inc., YouTube is presently non-profitable, stating further that the income that it generates is immaterial.
What is YouTube?
YouTube in its simplest context is a website that shares videos. Users can upload, view and share these videos. It utilizes Adobe Flash to show a wide range of user created video contents, which include music videos, TV clips and movies.
Unregistered users can view and watch nearly all videos on YouTube, however, only registered users can upload limitless quantity of videos. Uploading videos that contain harassment, pornography, slander, nudeness, encouragement of a criminal act, and commercial advertisement are not permitted.
Videos are classified by the use of titles and tags that are located to the right side of a video. In the second year of YouTube’s operation, additional features were provided to enable users to give their personal comments and subscribe to a video’s RSS feed.
Who Uses YouTube?
The inclination for the Internet is opposing. Eyes are still tuned in directly at the television, but now it is through the internet as an alternative! What the Internet has to offer is a more personalized experience, because people have the option to choose what and when they watch. They can even involve themselves by expressing their personal opinion on what they’re watching.
Big players in the advertising industry are taking notice and are seriously considering what YouTube has to offer. Even the entertainment world is very much into promoting their new stuff on YouTube, such as uploading of teasers for new music videos or trailers of forthcoming movies. Charity institutions are also not left behind when it comes to YouTube, because they also create their own videos for campaign awareness with various messages. Even politicians are using YouTube to strengthen their campaign. Basically, YouTube is for everybody as long as you have a computer to use.
How to Use YouTube for Your Marketing Scheme?
Incorporating YouTube for your marketing scheme will give you unlimited possibilities. However, do not rush things and just create and upload your videos, remember that getting it wrong will hurt your brand. Bear these few tips in mind before you take the plunge:
1. Video campaigns that are uploaded on YouTube can be more viral, compared to sending links of your video on your website through email. It is better to upload it on YouTube and include your URL. This way your video will have a greater chance of being seen by a huge audience resulting in more website visits from users.
2. You can create concepts with YouTube in mind. For instance, you can run a contest and have the participants create a video for the best use of the products that you have. This will definitely amplify traffic to your website especially if you have prices to give.
3. You can Do-It-Yourself or hire an advertising agency to create a video. The catch is to create a video that represents your product in the best possible way, with the idea and focus for it to become a viral success.
4. Look for an opportunity to place ads on hot videos on YouTube.
5. More and more websites are already linked to YouTube, having your website listed will definitely improve and help your optimization strategy.
It is simply not enough to build a website, have a product or service to offer, be talented, or anything that is worth mentioning. What is the use of it if nobody will ever see or hear about it? A lot has been said about how to achieve an effective marketing strategy. If you diligently search the Web for tips and guides, you will probably come up with several hundreds on your list. One of the most popular techniques is Viral Marketing.
What is Viral Marketing?
Viral Marketing is analogous to a computer or pathological virus because of its capability to replicate itself, thus making it possible to be propagated. It is a marketing strategy that utilizes pre-existing online social networks. The sole purpose is to increase awareness to a particular brand (products and/or services), person, organization, and anything or anyone who needs to be advertised. It can be done through word-of-mouth, media (TV, radio or newsprint), and through the Internet.
The idea of viral marketing is to get people to voluntarily spread your marketing messages for you. Viral promotion can be created in any conceivable form; the popular ones are through articles, newsletters, videos, games, e-books, software, applications, images, and yes, even text messages. Viral marketing is somewhat based on a humans natural behavior. For instance, a person will probably tell three of his friends about a product or service that he likes, and more than ten people for those he doesn’t like. So, it goes without saying that you’d rather be among the three rather than the ten.
How to Use Viral Marketing to Your Advantage
The goal is to create a winning viral marketing program that will appeal to individuals with a soaring social networking potential. The idea is that this viral marketing campaign should be able to identify with the greater population of this network, thus giving a higher possibility that it will be passed along.
There are several methods you can employ for you to have an effective viral campaign to showcase your company, your talent, your website, your products and/or services. These methods should be free for all because, basically, you want it out there. Restricting it will not help as it’s obviously against what viral marketing is all about. Here are some popular methods:
1. Email Signature – The most common and simple of all viral marketing methods. Most email providers allow its users to create their own signature. The idea is to create a catchy tagline with your URL on it which will catch the attention of the readers. This is very effective especially if you’re sending out emails that contain useful information that has a high probability to be passed around.
2. Giving Away Freebies – It can be anything from games, videos, applications, screensavers etcetera. Even bigwigs on the World Wide Web are giving away freebies such as e-mail accounts, private messengers, and a lot more. It is very effective, as who wouldn’t want to have something for free? People tend to talk a lot about things they got for free – and what better way to be known than to be talked about?
3. Penning an Article –With the ever growing need for information, there will always be thousands of topics that you can write about. Your articles should at least be relevant to what you offer. There are a lot of article submission sites on the Web. Submit your work there and grant permission to reproduce so long as the original “resource box” is intact.
These are just a few of the hundreds of possible ways you can utilize the power of viral marketing. Your real goal here is to create witty, cool and exciting content that has a “shareable characteristic”. You have to create a feeling of “must-have” for your target audience, and to able to hold on to that interest. In the end, creativity is what sets apart the losers from the winners (harsh, but true). You have to have a level of inspiration that can help your campaign seize the opportunity that the Internet has to offer.
It is a tried and tested marketing ploy. Just go to the supermarkets and line up for all the freebies you can get. Sometimes, you get just a small taste of something. Sometimes, it is a mini-sample that you can bring home and add to your stash for emergencies. All the companies are doing it because it is a proven method of creating buzz for a product, especially new ones.
In the world of the internet, freebies work just as well. Even blogs with no actual product to sell are doing it. Giving away something generates excitement and, let us just face it, it is so much fun. Anyway, it works too. You should see the hits all those homemaking blogs make on something they call “Freebie Friday”.
If you do decide to go the freebie route of website promotion, here are some ideas on what to give as freebies:
Now that you have ideas for giveaways, how are you going to go about it? You can have contests or plain raffles. You can have specific requirements, perhaps in aid of boosting traffic. You can even do a seasonal thing. Give away pencils right before school starts or T-shirts for Christmas. Of course, there is the standard giveaway for every purchase. It is up to you. Just spread the word that your website has freebies up for grabs.
Webmasters need to keep up with the ever-changing tide in the race to have the best search engine rankings. Every website is dependent on the ranking of their site on Google. Usually, users will focus on the top 10 results. Beyond that, your website is left to fate. Here are 10 solid tips to improve your rankings:
1. Submit to Google Directly– You need to submit your website info to Google. Be sure that your website is completely ready to be crawled by Googlebot.
2. Keyword Research – This is very significant in gaining a good ranking in Google search engine. What you should do is conduct a brainstorming meeting, study your customers and the market, use keyword research tools, chart your selection of keywords, and test and analyze their performance to get the best refined selection of keywords.
3. Ease of Access – An accessible website is crucial to the successful delivery of its contents. The pages, server, HTML elements, components and coding should all be valid and running. If these are disregarded, then Google may favor other sites over yours.
4. Meta Tags, Title Tags and URLs’ – These give information and a description of your website to search engines. Keeping them pertinent, convincing, and precise are your keys to ranking well in search engines. You can also utilize these areas for your keywords.
5. Information Structure – The document and link configuration of a site is beneficial to search ranking, especially when done correctly. The key to an effective structure is in its usability to its users:
• Sitemap – This is the page that links all the other pages in a website.
• Category Structure – Begin with a broad topic category, and then you can expand it to deeper pages of definite topics. This will convey a message to Google that your website is appropriate and includes thorough topics.
6. Duplicate Content – Probably the most universal problem a website can encounter, especially those who have huge, high-capacity websites powered by a database. If your website has several pages with similar contents, then you are causing those pages to lose valuable ranking in the search engine result pages (SERPs). The answer to this problem is to identify all pages with duplicate content and use a 301 Redirect.
7. Penning First-Rate Content – The true potential of a website is shown through the quality of content that it contains. If your website delivers content that a majority of users need, then that will constitute a high ranking on Google.
8. Public Relation and Press Release – If you can influence the mainstream press to feature your website, that can get you attention. There are a lot of press release websites that can be your starting ground for getting traffic and links, and what’s better is that these sites feed major news search engines such as Google News.
9. Assess Your Success – Do not rely on good faith alone that what you are doing is right. It is imperative that you check statistics, which will greatly help analyze and improve your SEO campaign.
10. An SEO Strategy that Works – You may have a killer website that everybody will envy, but if it will not show up in the top SERPs, it’s worthless. Patience is a virtue when planning your SEO. Google can be very slow – but let’s face it, SEO is a very long and tedious process. To ensure that you succeed in the end, you must seriously consider these guidelines: Uniqueness and quality of content, access to communities, links that are format friendly, budget planning, and market knowledge.
Information sells. In the days before the Internet, mail order companies made huge fortunes selling booklets and books by mail to people hungry for information on specialized topics. Today, even with the abundance of free information available online, people will still pay—and pay well—for information products created by experts. In addition to SEO and Website promotion, why not create your own information product for sale on your website?
If you are thinking of creating your own information product, or if you’re currently creating or marketing an info product, there are some things you should know that can increase your product’s quality and your resulting sales.
1. Not everyone likes audios and videos. There is a tendency now to offer audio products and videos, rather than ebooks, because “no one reads anymore.” Actually, a lot of people do read, and when it comes to information, many people prefer to flip back through a book looking for something specific, rather than having to listen to a whole audio again. Your best bet is to offer your product either as a combination of ebook and audio or video, or as a choice of ebook or video. This way you capture both audiences—the readers and the non-readers alike.
2. Your cover graphic matters. When ebooks were new, cover graphics were fairly crude, and no one really noticed. There are still several products on the market that create these rudimentary cover graphics. However, if you hire a cover designer, or invest in a high-quality cover-creation program, you will sell more copies of your product than if you have a noticeably “old”-looking cover.
3. Set your price point carefully. For a while, it was not uncommon to see a simple ebook going for $97, with some bonuses included to make it look like more of a “value.” Now, the prices of ebooks seem to be going down to $47 and below, while videos, audio series and home study courses are occupying the top pricing ranks. When you price your ebook at a lower price, you are likely to more than make up the difference in volume.
4. Think carefully about bonuses. Some marketers do not include bonuses with their info products at all. In their sales letters, they explain that the information is valuable and that they feel adding a lot of bonuses with inflated values would cheapen their product, not enhance it. Other info product owners add five, ten or even fifteen bonuses, to increase the perceived value of their product. Both approaches can be successful; the key is deciding whether your audience will be more receptive to bonuses or the no-bonus technique.
5. Promote your product through affiliates. Set up a good affiliate program and encourage people to sell your product to their website visitors and customers. When you have a large affiliate base, you will sell more products, and build your own email list much more quickly than if you go it alone. Make sure your affiliates receive a decent commission and a portion of any “back end” sales of other products. If you have a good ebook, audio or video program that people want and need, your affiliates will be glad to help you sell it.
Marketing your own information product is the best way to make money online, and if you have a good idea and the determination to create a great product, you can do quite well.