Guide to make money online!

In recent years, e-mail marketing has been used by websites to promote products and services. This marketing strategy has proven to be effective and cost-efficient. Besides search engine marketing, which is the number one strategy, e-mail marketing is gaining popularity and is now being resorted to by a lot of companies. E-mail marketing is no different from direct mail marketing. In the past, companies send catalogs and other product announcements to people using snail mail or postal services. E-mail marketing does the same thing but the information is sent electronically. The difference is in terms of speed. Using the e-mail facility is not only fast, it is also cheap. Here are reasons why an e-mail marketing campaign is an important internet marketing tool that can give you a higher return on investment : Easy to use and cost efficiency Setting up an e-mail marketing campaign is as easy as sending a personal e-mail. Though you will be e-mailing to hundreds if not thousands of people, there are available inexpensive auto-responders and e-mail marketing software to make the work quicker. An e-mail marketing campaign does not require too much of an investment nor time to implement. Provide constant communication with customers Not too many people will place their trust on someone selling through the internet. A lot of buyers are even hesitant to pay online. An e-mail marketing campaign allows the seller to assure buyers of its credibility. Why is this so? Through constant e-mail updates on products and services, customers are kept informed of what is new and upcoming. Regular communication between seller and customer is present. This is important in building trust especially on the customer’s part. E-mails can reach targeted customers better It is a waste advertising to people who are not really interested in your products or services. An e-mail marketing campaign will have an opt-out option and those who do not want to receive updates can always use this option. When someone receives an e-mail from your company and does not opt-out this is an indication that the person is interested and would like to know more about your products or services. A targeted market will be established. It will now be effortless to promote products and services. Make your business noticed Studies have shown that for a customer to buy from a site, it will take several visits before a sales conversion will take place. This is not really news that companies welcome. With an e-mail marketing campaign, you will be in touch with your potential customers on a regular basis. Customers will then know the availability of a product or service from your site. Whenever a need comes up, there is a high probability that the customer will remember your site and likely buy from you.

Title tags are important to Google... If you're a webmaster, web designer / developer note the following regarding the often overlooked "TITLE TAG". The title tag is the HTML tag that renders a title on the top of the browser when folks reach your website. It should be more than just your name (website or business name).

Step1

According to this site -

http://www.googlerank.com/ranking/Ebook/first.html

Your title tag, URL (domain name), and keywords are all important when it comes time for Google to rank (where you are in the results list in a search) your site.

Step2

Title Tag by Sheila Murrey Key points to remember:

Your title tag determines what people see at the top of your browser in the title bar. It also shows up when folks save your website as a bookmark (in most browsers anyway).

In the title bar of the link I've given you in step 1, you will notice it reads: TITLE TAG - The Definitive Google Ranking strategy guide by Googlerank.

Step3

You can see how descriptive that is and how someone searching for information about title tags and their google ranking would be taken right to that site. In fact, when I searched google for that information I search on the words:

title tag how to for google

The Googlerank site comes up FIRST in the results. (Apparently consistently so because I've done this search more than once, many weeks apart.)

Step4

The googlerank website has relevant and helpful information however, as a designer, it's not my favorite when it comes to readability, color, font usage, etc. But I had to use it because it comes up first in that search. Perhaps a better site with more reasons as to why the title tag is important is this one:

http://www.seologic.com/faq/title-tags.php

Scroll down to the paragraph called - The Roles of the Title Tag in a Web Page

and continue reading on about Search Engine Optimization.

Step5

Never be afraid to update your title tags, meta tags, keywords, etc. The more relevant these are to your site and what people are searching on the more hits you'll receive!

I update my title tags, meta tags, and keywords often! Usually based on my research as to what people are searching for, any new buzzwords in my industry and so on.

Don't forget to check out your competition and view their source code to see how they titled their pages. This can give you valuable insights.

Change the only constant.

In general there are two free sources of traffic online. These sources are broadly defined as Social traffic and Search Engine traffic. 99% of all newcomers online set up a blog or website and proceed to try and obtain social traffic. They do this simply because everyone else does it.

Social traffic consists of using social networks like Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, Entrecard, Forums and hundreds of other services that allow you to sign up and promote your site on them. These services are the backbone of what is known as Web 2.0 and has evolved into a newer version centered around Facebook, MySpace and the current craze - Twitter.

The general idea is to get out there and make friends online using these networks, draw them in to your site, wow them with your content and wait for the links to come pouring in from your adoring fans. As the links increase your traffic increases as more and more people find your site and in turn tell more people through the use of more links and one day you will become famous just like Darren Rowse of Problogger or failing personal fame you may still develop a hugely popular site like Engadget or the Huffington Post.

There is a certain appeal to all this - becoming popular has many advantages aside from the most obvious monetary considerations. Many people blog because they have something to say and just want an outlet for their views. Others dream of being a writer and use the net to publish their stories. Get your work out there and get discovered. Musicians and filmmakers use the net in the same way. Whatever your reason for starting a blog or website there will come a day when you say to yourself, “what is the point if no one is reading or watching or listening to my creative output?”

It is at that point that you will begin your quest to find traffic and invariably you will turn to the social networks. You will discover quite quickly that you can get social traffic fairly easily using Stumbleupon or even easier using Entrecard. Twitter might be the easiest of all. You will join forums and work at becoming an “authority” in your niche. You will make friends. They will send links. All will be wonderful… for a while.

Six months to a year down the road two things will happen - it always happens and it happens whether you have achieved a large readership or not. You wake up one day and realize that you are working like a dog and there is little to no benefit from all that work. Driving social traffic is a constant grind. If you stop posting, twittering, digging, stumbling, dropping entrecards, leaving comments on other blogs or any of the other daily chores needed to keep your name out there the traffic dries up. Moreover your health deteriorates and your friends and family are neglected as you spend hours and hours sitting in front of your computer single mindedly developing your brand. Even if you have managed to develope a few thousand RSS subscribers - something most beginners think of as a successful blogger - you will still ask yourself “is all this work worth it?”

Why? Because at some point everyone wants to be compensated for all that work. You may say now that you are just doing it because you like to “write” or you just need an outlet to release your opinions and I believe you. The problem is that you will not be satisfied just writing or opinionating if no one is reading your output. You will get sucked into the social traffic cycle and find out that it is work. And when you work that hard you will eventually want a monetary reward for it - in one form or another. Having 10,000 readers coming and reading just wont cut it if a book deal doesn’t materialize. Or you can’t make money from advertisers. Or JV (joint venture) offers don’t show up. No matter what your reason for blogging at some point you are going to want a reward for it and the more work you put into it the more return on time invested will be expected.

And that is the problem - you wont get a return from social traffic. They don’t spend money - they don’t click ads and the advertisers are no longer supplying inventory to social sites as that fact has become known. Today.com claims 10 million page views a month. That is fairly significant traffic. So why don’t we see the big advertisers on this site? Where are the finance/credit/bank advertisements? The auto company ads? The big brand names? What we see are ads for dating sites. And Adsense.

The advertisers are not coming to this domain in spite of the traffic. Today.com has had to find a means to monetize this site using affiliate marketing platforms which they are currently rolling out. Adsense does not perform well as the sub-domains are not targeted for premium CPC (cost per click) and are smart priced. They get pennies per click from adsense and the CTR is dismal at best. Today.com is a successful domain based on traffic but like many others online they have found out that all traffic is not equal. The majority of this domains traffic comes from social networks and social traffic does not convert well - meaning they can’t make much profit from it.

If you are reading this then chances are you have a site yourself and you spend a fair amount of time reading blogs and surfing the net. You are social traffic. When was the last time you bought something on a friends site? Or clicked on an Ad? You don’t do it often if at all and neither do all the other social bloggers and social network users. You are here to read. You are online looking for information and not looking to buy something.

Search engine traffic is quite different. Most people use the search engines - Google by far - when they need to find something. You don’t go to Today.com when you want tickets to a Broadway musical or are looking for a hotel in New York. You use Google. You have a purpose in mind and that usually entails buying something or at the least you need specific information about a specific thing. Search traffic is targeted and whether you are trying to make money online or just want readers, search traffic is the traffic you want because it consists of people looking specifically for what you are offering.

If you have a humor blog for no other reason than just to entertain then why not target people looking for humor blogs? The easiest way to do that is to rank number 1 in Google for the term “humor blog”. On average 2400 people a month will find your site. If you rank for more related keywords like “humorous photos”, “Humor writer”, “humor”, “funny pics”, “funny stories” etc then you will eventually have thousands of daily visitors to your site. And this is the best part - you can post when you want or not at all and the same traffic will show up every day. Moreover you will never have to spend 1 minute commenting on other blogs or stumbling or dropping entrecards or doing any of the other chores involved in social marketing. And the icing on the cake - your search traffic will click your ads. They will read your humorous post and because they found you while searching for humor they are likely going to click on those ads that point them to other humorous sites. They don’t care if they make you money or not - they are not bloggers. They are civilians looking for something and will click anything that leads them to their goal.

The process for obtaining search traffic is actually very simple but it does take work and most of all patience. It can also be done in conjunction with social traffic. The problem is 99% of bloggers only chase social traffic and completely shut the door on search traffic right from the get go. This doesn’t have to be and I will show you how to optimize for the search engines using some basic SEO techniques that will pay off hugely by the time you wane on social traffic. You can use social networks for immediate traffic while building your site for long term search traffic. If you don’t achieve search traffic then you will eventually burn out and all the social traffic in the world will not change that fact.

SEO Basics that must be used in order to drive search traffic to your blog are as follows;

You must use your keyword in your URL.

You must use your keyword in your Blog Title.

You must use your keywords in your Post Titles.

You must use your keywords and related terms in your post content.

You will get the best search results by only posting one post per page unless all your posts are related to the same keywords.

If using Adsense then always stick to one post per page.

If using photos then your keywords should be used in the alt tags.

You must use html for the bulk of your pages content. (plain old text)

These simple little steps are all you need to do to optimize your site for the search engines. You will get indexed for your keywords and ranked well. How high you get ranked depends on the competition. If there is little competition you could achieve top ranking doing little else. (Many of you experience some Google traffic for long tail keywords. This is because you used a term in your content that has little competition and Google found your site when someone searched for that term - unfortunately these terms don’t often provide much traffic) If there is a lot of competition then you will need backlinks pointing to your site using your keyword in the anchored text of the link pointing to you. That is all that is required to dominate any keyword online. Simple yes. In practice the hard part will be obtaining all the anchored backlinks needed to dominate a competitive keyword but following my on-site advice will make this task much easier - especially if you use social networks.

Now let me demonstrate what I am talking about.

I mentioned “humor” a few paragraphs ago as a lead in for my example site. But first a pre-amble to fill you in.

It seems I ruffled a few feathers in a post on my main site a few weeks ago. I mentioned that the bloggers on Today.com were beginners and the reason was to point out that most of the bloggers on here are following a failed strategy. They are almost without exception chasing social traffic and will eventually quit blogging for all the reasons I mentioned above. They will work their butts off making a few dollars a day and burn out. Most will not even do the social chasing and will quit long before they make a few dollars a day. This isn’t any different here or with beginners who start a self hosted blog or use free domains like Blogger that can be fully monetized. The fact is most of the people blogging today will not be blogging in six months. They give it a go, fail to attract readers, fail to attract money or both and quit. I have seen this cycle for years and anyone that has lasted as long as a year knows this is true. We see it time and again. Very few people actually do the work - the majority of my readers have been reading my blogs for a year or two and still haven’t built a site. It is what it is.

I highlighted one blogger in particular in my post - not to bash her - but because she is one of the few on Today that has the work ethic to succeed. She has a “humorous Photo ” blog and drives the most traffic to her site of all the Today bloggers. She does it using social traffic and works her tail off to do it. She is the type of person who could succeed online with a little SEO knowledge. It is unfortunate that her reaction was quite negative.

Note: The screenshot of Melissa’s post on the forum has been removed as it was inappropriate of me to show it - the forum is private and hence the comments made are as well. - Griz

Tact is not my strong suit and those who know me have seen this kind of reaction before. The thing is you also know I am going to show Melissa how she can improve her traffic stats whether she wants to listen or not. Her site is the perfect example of what not to do in regards to search traffic and by illustrating the mistakes it will become clear to both her and others how some simple tweaks could make a huge difference in her long term success. If it’s any consolation to Melissa she should know I only “pick on” bloggers who have the talent to succeed - there is no point in highlighting those that don’t.

This post is long enough so I will demonstrate on-site SEO next post and illustrate exactly why you should follow my advice regarding keywords using both Melissa’s site and mine. The results will not leave you in doubt about how effective it is at building links and traffic.

Backlinks are one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website and get index fast by search engines, especially by Yahoo or Google. So here are some of the few tips that you can use to have some backlinks to your site and drive traffic to it.

1. Web Directories, the easiest way to have a backlinks to your site. Paid directories will provide you with good backlinks for your site for just few dollars. Or you can enlist your site to a free web directory services with no cost at all, like DMOZ.org, or freedirectorysubmission.com/

2. Link Exchange, exchanging links to other websites or blog is another way, and perhaps one of the best way to acquire backlinks, you can do this by mailing the webmaster, and try to exchange links with each other, this is much better if the blog or sites content is also related to your site.

3. Forums, forum provides a great amount of traffic to your site, by signing up and adding your site as a signature. With thousands of users signing and participating in forums, there is a big chance that your site will be spotted and surf. Or you can add your link to your post, just make it sure that the link that you're adding to your comment is related to the discussed topic.

Note: Be cautious in putting or adding it in your comment because some forum sites is very strict in adding links to the posted topic, your site might be considered as a spam, and banned from their forums, or other users might mistaken it as a blog spam.

4. RSS feed, try to submit your RSS feed to search engines like Google and Yahoo and Or you can try to add an RSS subscription link or textbox to your site, for your visitors to subscribe and have an update to your newly posted articles, feed site directories like Feedburner and Feedblitz, provides you a tool and options for you to manage your feeds.

5. Article Submission, I think this is the best way to earn a lots of backlinks and drive traffic to your site, not just backlinks but quality backlinks,

Submitting a good quality article will boost a major amount of traffic to your site. One of the best sites to submit your article is EzineArticles, proven to be an effective way of driving traffic to your site, bloggers and webmasters always recommend this site for article submission. Other sites are goarticles.com and or squidoo.com.

I have been building websites with WordPress for about for a few years now, I started with v1.0 and have made my way up to the latest v2.7. I started with this blog, then branched out to blogs for clients, and eventually I started creating some sites in WP and using it more as a CMS than blog. I found that over time, WP has some great benefits for SEO if you set it up right. StamfordCTGuide is a local guide for the town I used to live in, it has over 300 pages (posts) of content. By setting up WP with the right plugins and using some other tricks of the trade, I was able to secure some pretty high search engine rankings (#3 for Stamford, CT in Google). I have also created great rankings for this blog as well as blogs for clients. The thing I have learned about SEO is that its like Black Magic, there is no one way to achieve it and everyone has their own ways. As I have figured out certain things along the way, I felt that it would be important to share them, I’m not guaranteeing that this will work for everyone.

Here are my recommendations:

Plugins/Settings

• SEO Title Tag - This is a great plugin, some people prefer the All-In-One Seo Page, but I’ve had great success with this one in particular. Title tags are probably one of the most important pieces for SEO, that people can often overlook. I always make sure that I include the name of the site along with the title of the post/article/page. An Example: Use Twitter to Find Jobs - Jake Rutter - User Interface Designer, CSS/XHTML Developer SEO Title Tag allows you to setup defaults to pull in the post title and also append the blog name to each title tag. And the beauty is that, you can go a step further and overwrite each title tag from the SEO Title Tag Manage tab.
• FeedBurner Plugin - FeedBurner is a fantastic service, if you don’t already have an account, you will need to set one up. FeedBurner is a service that takes your RSS feed and syndicates, tracks, standardizes your feed so that it can be easily picked up by many other sites/services. The company was purchased by Google in 2005, and since that acquisition it seems that it has helped with my Google rankings, although that could just be a coincidence. The best part of WordPress is that everything is RSS-able, you can RSS everything, by category, by date, etc. I have seen instances where I post something, an article to StamfordCTGuide and within about 2 hrs its in Google and getting decent traffic. By using the feedburner plugin, it gives you a direct route to Google.
• 
  
• Google Sitemaps - This particular Google Sitemaps plugin is a great tool for generating an XML Sitemap of your site, which you then feed to Google via their Webmaster Tools. The sitemap will inform google of which pages are necessary to be crawled throughout your site. If you would like to learn more about Google Sitemaps, Google it!
• Permalinks - I setup permalinks within my wordpress install as “/category/postname.html” . I have been setting up installs of wordpress in this fashion for about 3 years and have always had great luck with SEO. Some people choose to add in a date, but I prefer to use category and postname, it seems to work best. You can find Permalinks by going to Settings > Permalinks in WordPress.
• Title Tags - Title tags are what you see on the bar above the URL when you are on any given page. That is also what you are usually searching for, when you do a search in Google. It will rely on the title tags and the content of the page. So the title tags are pretty important. If you wanted to be found when users type in: stamford ct restaurants. Then you would create title tags that reflect what you would like to be found for. The best thing about title tags, is that it can be achieved through trial and error. Once you are in Google, you can tweak those and about every 2 weeks (sometimes quicker), Google will pickup the new version of your site and your rankings should change if you have made changes to the title tags.

Let me preface this list that if you actually make a conscious effort to do this everyday, as if it is some type of religion, then I will come to your house and punch you.

I am not L. Ron Hubbard. This is not my Dianetics.

But these are 12 great things to do everyday if you are actively making your own, or someone else’s money online.

1. Check your damn analytics - If you owned a brick and mortar you would be making daily notations of how many people purchased items at your store, what items were purchased, and even informal assessments of foot traffic. The same is true of your online business. Utilizing analytical programs actively can be a great way to monitor the online reputation and issues with the search marketing campaign for your website through recognition of traffic patterns.

2. Update your Facebook presence - Each day add some frieds, change your status, or do something else to keep your facebook page fresh. I keep getting questions about how utilizing Facebook is useful. Well Marty at aimclear said it better than me so I will let him explain. But in the end everything you do online must by looked at like a pyramid, with seeding being the foundation and your goal being the the pinnacle.

3. Monitor your online reputation - Whether you use the world’s stupidest online reputation tool, or the worlds greatest, make sure you are monitoring your online reputation everyday.

4. Read at least one Internet Marketing blog post - I don’t use a feed reader. I usually let Twitter tell me what I should be reading. Take time once a day to at least devour one blog post.

Some great blogs to start out on include:

Search Engine Journal

David Harry’s Huomah

Rae Hoffman’s SugarRae

Michael Gray’s Wolf Howl

Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

SEO Book

SEOmoz

Aimclear Blog

We Build Pages Blog

5. Try to utilize a new tool each day - I get this tidbit from Jordan Kasteler. He loves SEO and social media tools, and rightfully so. They can sometimes do the heavy lifting for you. The only way you are going to find the tools that best fit you are by trial and error.

6. Hit StumbleUpon once a day and just Stumble - You can get all kinds of inspiration from seeing the content other people viewed as being valuable. There are other benefits from stumbling that could take an entire article.

7. Utilize Twitter - Man I shouldn’t even have to explain this one. Twitter has emerged as a key social media platform, and if you aren’t utilizing it everyday then you are missing huge opportunities, in business and social terms.

8. Take an hour and do something that isn’t Internet related - Go play with your kids, spend time with your significant other, read a book, play video games, whatever. Because when all is said and done life isn’t about work, its about our relationships with others. The more balanced your life is the better you will be at marketing.

9. Check your competitors out - Don’t live in a defensive bubble. Check out what your competition is doing, and figure out how to one-up-them. This means looking at their site, link portfolio, and even online mentions. Get their blueprint, and build upon it.

10. Thank print media for being stubborn - Everyday when you wake up, you should thank everyone in print media for refusing to rethink their business model and sending you all of their former advertisers.

11. Check out IM Broadcast for the latest in Internet Marketing video - Ok, that’s a shameless plug, but if you know me, you know I’m a whore.

12. Thank God, Allah or whomever that you get paid to play on the Internet. Think about how stupid and yet wonderful that sounds.

From Snydey Sense Site!

So you’ve built your website and ready to start greeting customers. But first you need to make sure your site can be found.

In follow up to last week’s post on Pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO), here are 10 free tools for boosting your search engine ranking, and welcoming more visitors to your virtual shop:

1. Google Adwords Keyword Tool – the first step in any SEO campaign is identifying your keywords. This handy tool will let you know which keywords to target, as well as offer suggestions on popular phrases you might not have thought of.

2. Wordpress – now you know which keywords to target you’ll need to boost the number of times they appear in your content. More than just blogging software, Wordpress offers an entire content management system for adding keyword packed articles. With 100s of customisable themes to choose from and a vibrant community of plugin developers, Wordpress can transform your website from a static brochure to a resource of industry news and info. Publishing great content will also work wonders for your search engine ranking.

3. XML Sitemap Generator – whenever you add new content to your site you’ll want to make sure Google knows about it. Sitemaps help the search engine’s spiders crawl around your site and understand what it’s about. This generator will create a search engine compliant sitemap that you can upload to your home directory every time your site is updated.

4. Google Webmaster Tools – after you’ve uploaded your sitemap you can use this handy utility to analyse its data. Google Webmaster Tools shows you how the search engine views your website, and, crucially, it will let you know if there are any problems to fix, such as broken links.

5. SEO Book’s Rank Checker – created by Aaron Wall, one of the SEO scene’s most respected bloggers, this Firefox plugin enables you to check where your site is ranking in keyword searches. You can save the details of every campaign and run reports from your browser in seconds.

6. Hubspot’s Website Grader – this award winning tool can run an SEO health check on your site before awarding it a grade and offering advice on how it could be improved. You can discover how effectively your site is described, its readability level and how often it has been bookmarked on social bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg and Delicious). Should you wish to show off, the Website Grader provides you with code to paste into your site so you can display a badge featuring your search marketing quality score.

7. SEO Quake – this plugin for web browsers adds a toolbar displaying info on the SEO effectiveness of websites, as well as underscore entries on the search results page. You can check the number of your website pages that have been indexed by the different search engines at a glance, as well as spy on the success of your competitors’ campaigns.

8. Backlink Watch – along with regularly adding great content, you’ll want to build up the number of inbound links from relevant sites. If you’re posting useful content then you should start to attract links naturally. But it also helps to post comments in forums and on blogs to let people know you’re there. This handy tool will let you know who’s linking to your content, and track the success of your link building campaign.

9. StatCounter – once your visitors start arriving you’ll want to be able to know what they’re looking at and how long they’re engaging with your site. This free tool offers a wealth of valuable info, such as what links visitors are clicking on, how they’re finding you and in which country they’re based. Warning: checking your stats in the hope of seeing a flood of new visitors can be addictive.

10. Google Analytics – no list of SEO tools would be complete without mentioning Google’s free analytical software. It tells you everything you need to know about your visitors and the ‘stickiness’ of your website. The insight you gain into how visitors are interacting with your site can help you understand the journey they’re taking and what pages need improving to push more visitors to the contact page or checkout till.

Search marketing is a complicated beast. But at least with these tools you’ll have a fighting chance of understanding how it’s done.

As mentioned last week, getting onto page one can take weeks, months or even years for competitive terms. But the sooner you implement an SEO strategy the sooner you’ll be able to greet customers finding you through the search engines and buying your pixelated products.

I was at the World Internet Summit (WIS) a couple of Sundays ago when it was held on the Gold Coast, an hours drive away from Brisbane (my home), on the coast of Australia.

Brett McFall, co-host of the WIS, was up on stage doing the last formal presentation of the event. During his presentation he had a diagram of what he does to make money online in its simplest form.

All subjects have a macro and micro view, that is a view from the very top, the “big picture”, and the micro view, which looks at all the tiny elements that go together to make up the big picture.

You can drill down most subjects to a near-infinite number of micro views, taking each element and breaking it down to its components and then doing it again to those elements. This can repeat until you hit base elements, at least according to science (metaphysics can take you a little further, but let’s not go there now).

Internet marketing is no different and Brett’s diagram of what the macro view of what he does inspired this blog post. I’m going to break down how Internet marketing works in it’s simplest form, so you know how people make money online.

Ready?

Here it is…

I drew this diagram myself, so you better be impressed.

Step 1: Squeeze Page
Step 2: Email Follow-up
Step 3: Sales Page

This essentially is the macro view of a typical conversion process that makes people millions of dollars from the Internet every single day. I woke up today to a $497 sale of my Blog Mastermind course, which was generated by this exact process.

Obviously there is a lot more to actually making this work, so it’s necessary to add to the picture somewhat, and there are also many derivatives of the process. In its simplest form, this is all you need to understand and if you can grasp this, you have the keys to making a ton of money online.

Let’s Break It Down A Little Bit

If Internet marketing is new to you, that diagram might confuse you more than it helps, so here’s a little clarification.

Step 1, the Squeeze Page, is designed to capture information in exchange for an incentive, or an ethical bribe as it is sometimes called. You give me your name and email address and possibly some other contact details, and the right to follow-up with you via email, and I’ll give you something in exchange, usually information like a free report or email course.

You can read a more detailed breakdown of the Squeeze Page in my definition post - What Is A Namesqueeze Page?

Step 2, the Email Follow-up, refers to the emails you send to the people who signed up at step one. The usual process involves providing more information and a brief pitch about the product you have on offer. Follow-up emails are about establishing rapport and trust by delivering more value, conditions necessary before a purchase is made. This is often called the “pre-sell” stage. The emails also direct people to the sales page, where the final step of the process occurs.

Step 3, the Sales Page, is the last step in the conversion mechanism, presenting the final “pitch” for the product on offer, delivering information about its features, benefits and including many other psychological triggers designed to convince the prospect to buy. Sales pages also contain the transaction element, the part of the process where money is collected.

What You Need Before This Works

This basic three-step framework for success online is great, but we’re missing something crucial, what comes before it - Traffic.

Without some means to get people to visit the Squeeze Page nothing happens, the process can’t even begin. It’s all well and good to understand and to even create this process, but unfortunately most people don’t have an effective way to drive people into the machine that pumps out the money.

Traffic can be a complex subject and in this article I’m into simple, “macro” solutions, so let’s not go too in-depth here (there are many articles about traffic in my archives if you need more help).

There are basically three methods to build traffic -

1. You can buy it

Pay Per Click marketing is the most popular, most effective and the quickest example of this method. Banner advertising, text link advertising, sponsored reviews, co-registration leads and any time where you pay money to advertise, fall under this category.

2. You can build it

Any form of content production that attracts people from search engines, direct links between sites and word of mouth, is using this method. As bloggers, we rely on this technique, it is the foundation of my current business success.

3. You can borrow it

Affiliate marketing is the primary example of this method. This is a popular traffic method because it is very quick, the traffic can be very targeted and the cost is usually nothing - you pay commissions only when you make money.

What About Stores Like Amazon, They Don’t Use This Process?

You don’t see stores like Amazon.com or any “traditional” online retailer, using Squeeze Pages or long Sales Pages do you?

There’s a common argument, especially from those who hate the long form sales page and swear they will never buy from them on principle, that they are not effective because if they were, more “normal” stores would use them to sell online.

There’s some truth to that claim, but of course everything falls within a context so it’s never safe to be too rigid in your assumptions. Smart marketers use what works best and don’t exclude anything just because someone else says it doesn’t work.

Online super-stores like Amazon, specialty stores like Zappos, or even smaller stores that sell a handful category specific individual products, tend to follow the traditional “e-commerce” model. The long form sales page isn’t applied, instead a shopping cart exists with product descriptions, customer feedback ratings and reviews, similar product listings, and so forth.

Today’s “product page” inside an e-commerce site draws on the same principles that the long format sales page relies upon, especially social proof in the form of feedback from people who have purchased that product before. I doubt though, that you will ever see a long, text-laden page used to sell your average pair of Nike shoes, it just wouldn’t make sense or fit the expectations of the consumer.

What you do see now at most well-constructed e-commerce stores are email opt-in forms and follow-up email processes, like newsletters and product recommendations. Although the structure might vary, e-commerce stores benefit from establishing a process that captures user information, builds rapport through frequent email contact points and relies on sales-page like triggers when it comes to making a sale.

Although the formats on the surface might not look the same, the principle for any online conversion process relies upon the same fundamental truths. The three-step process so beautifully expressed in my diagram above still applies, even if some of the elements are moved around and don’t look quite the same on the surface.

What your conversion process looks like depends heavily on what you are selling and how many other things you are selling along with it. For a store like Zappos it would be ridiculous to apply a long form sales page for every single shoe they have for sale.

If you are selling commoditized products, in other words you have a large product range of very similar products that aren’t differentiated heavily based on unique attributes that require a lot of words to distinguish, then a shopping cart is generally the best practice approach today.

Bear in mind e-commerce stores rely on traffic just as much as any web business, however often their traffic sources are much more focused on Long Tail breadth, rather than short tail specificity. In other words, their success is not dependent on sales of only one superior product, which could be the only product sold, instead they can sell fewer amounts of hundreds or even thousands of different products and do very well.

The strategy behind an e-commerce super-store like Amazon is about volume and choice, not specialization and superiority of a specialty product. Those last two elements can play a part of the selling process for any individual item, but Amazon, the store itself, represents thousands - even millions of items - and is not dependent on selling any single item for success. Thus the conversion model is different.

Also relevant is the type of product being sold. Some items are more tactile and require visual representation in order to sell. Information products are about intellectual content, and thus generally sell better if more copy (words) are used to describe it.

You must take into context what you are selling, what else you are selling around it, how customers expect to be sold a product like that, and of course, what performs best based on your own tests, when setting up your conversion process. When you haven’t got a clue, don’t reinvent the wheel, see what processes people in your industry currently use to sell products similar to what you are planning to sell, and replicate what works.

Going Beyond The Sale

This article has essentially only touched on the Front End of the Sales Funnel. There’s a lot more money to be made taking it further into the Back End.

That being said, the Back End actually relies on the same conversion process as the Front End, the only difference is the type of product being sold and the perception of that product in the view of the customer. Emails are still used to build rapport and establish buying conditions, and a Sales Page is used to make the sale of higher priced, more specialty products.

In the case of e-commerce stores, the Back End doesn’t usually go much “deeper” in the sense of selling higher priced items to more targeted customers, instead they tend to move “horizontally” selling more products of a similar price and status.

For example, pitching a book on growing tomatoes to someone who already purchased a book on growing onions, rather than going deeper, selling a more expensive home gardening kit to someone who purchased a book on growing onions. The latter can happen too, if the store has the inventory scope and marketing sense to do so, but most e-commerce stores do not.

Information Marketing Is The Best

In my opinion information marketing is the best online business to be in because it doesn’t come with the inventory management challenges of an e-commerce store. What I teach and what I do is more relevant to those of you looking to make use of the basic three step process I laid out at the start of this article.

If you can set yourself up with a Squeeze Page, an email follow-up sequence and a Sales Page, and then drive some traffic to that process using blogging, Per Per Click marketing or affiliate marketing (or all three!), then you have what you need to get started building your list. Of course you also need a product to sell, but that’s not the topic of this article (Membership Sites are the best products to sell in my opinion).

If you’re just starting out today, think about what market you could begin to focus on and then go to work and build your first Squeeze Page. That is one of the best ways to begin building the foundation for a successful business and is a very quick momentum building step you can make literally in one day.

From entrepreneurs-journey Network!

Lately, I have been hearing from a lot of people who are struggling with getting higher search engine rankings. Mainly this is happening to them because while they find highly searched for keywords, they are not evaluating the competition correctly. Any Internet marketing campaign starts with keyword research, but doing the proper evaluation of competing sites for those keywords is crucial for rank success.

In a nutshell if you want higher search engine rankings you need to identify the competition for respective keywords in the right way as part of an overall keyword research strategy.

It is not a crap shoot and luck has nothing to do with it. It is true that higher search engine rankings depend a lot on keyword anchor text backlinks, but higher search engine rankings are also closely related to the proper gaging of competition for those keywords.

Higher Search Engine Rankings with Keyword Research

Once you find a keyword, you must look at the competition in two steps, both of which are crucial for higher search engine ranks.

1. Google that keyword like this: allintitle:”keyword”. Many people are not doing this, they just search for keyword, this is a mistake.

Searching with the allintitle “keyword” gives you much more precise results of the true competition for the keyword, because it only includes those sites that are trying to rank for those keywords and the results show you those sites that have the keyword in their header/meta/title tag.

But when you search for just the keyword alone then you get all the sites that just mention that keyword on their site in some way and they are not using it site-wide as their main keyword. Those sites that just mention the keyword are easily overcome, as the SE’s, and especially Google will give your site much more relevance and weight as your site uses the keyword site-wide.

So those sites that just mention the keywords will not be your true competition. The allintitle:”keyword”, will show you the true competitors for those keywords that you will need to overcome for higher search engine ranks.

Example:

laptop = 202,000,000
vs.
allintitle:”laptop” = 18,300,000

Big difference there that can make or break the decision to use a certain keyword and how easy it will be to rank for it.

2. Look at websites on the 1st page results. Many avoid doing this, another mistake! See what sites are sitting on page 1 of SERPS and specifically their Page Rank. If they are mostly PR0 - PR3 then the job to get to page 1 and achieve higher search engine ranks will not be very difficult. But, if page 1 is full of PR4, PR5 + sites then it will be difficult to outrank these sites.

First, time is on their side, they are aged and have authority and logistically it will be difficult to catch up. Second, it will take tons more effort and many more backlinks to get to page 1 because you will have to outrank those those sites. I am not saying it can’t be done, but, it is very hard and any seasoned honest SEO will tell you to look elsewhere.

Also, look at their Yahoo backlinks, age of domain and number of indexed pages, all are good indicators of their strength and how difficult it would be to out rank them.

If you look at page 1 results for allintitle:”laptop”, you will see that it’s all authority sites and no way that a small niche site could ever get to page 1 for that keyword.

These steps should be taken not only for your site-wide keywords, but also for the keywords you will use on your inner and sub pages, that is if you want higher search engine rankings for all your website/blog pages.

Tools for Evaluating Page 1 Results

There are two great browser add-ons that will give you all necessary information to evaluate those sites on page 1 directly from the SERPS. These tools are also vital for any Internet marketer to have because they show all possible information about any websites on the web, including your own.

SEO Toolbar for Firefox - Aaron Wall’s (of SEOBook) SEO Toolbar for Firefox browser shows all pertinent info for whatever site you are viewing, like highlighting no-follow links and pages, page rank, number of index pages in major search engines, site age, Alexa, DMOZ listed, Yahoo backlinks, MSN links and lots, lots more. Must Have!

SEO Quake Toolbar - Similar to the Firefox SEO Toolbar, shows pertinent SEO and Internet Marketing information for any website but this one is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Both of these when enabled (one click on their icons from the browser status bar) will show all selected information in SERP results under each website listing.

They are both similar, however you really need both, because only the SEO Toolbar highlights all no-follow links in red on any website. And, only Seo Quake places the information toolbar at the top of any website page you are visiting and not just in the SERPS so you can view all those stats on a page by page basis.

Make sure once you installed these, to activate them by clicking their icons in the browser bottom status bar, when they are on they will be in color, when off, they are black and white.

Just a quick alert for those of you using Google Adsense on your blogs and websites, Google is introducing some enhancements and additions to the Adsense program and as a result is requiring all publishers to place an updated privacy policy on their sites no later that April 8, 2009.

Learn more about the deadline and the reasons for the update - This is the Adsense blog and if you are using Adsense you should definitely subscribe to get all the latest news.

The Privacy Policy Content

I also want to steer you guys to the best source of honest and correct information about using Google Adsense. There is much more involved than just copying and pasting ads and many fail at Adsense because they do not utilize correct techniques.

Making money with Adsense is complicated. Many just paste their ads and expect the money to roll in and are then surprised when it doesn’t, or they are making 1 cent a click.

In reality making money with Adsense can be a dead end unless you know what you are doing, it is complicated and involved and if you do not get the correct techniques and information it’s just a crap shoot.

The best source of information and the how-to of making money with Adsense is Grizz’s new blog Make Money with Adsense, he just launched this new site and he starts from the beginning so do yourself a big favor and go read the existing posts and subscribe.

The most successful Internet marketers have learned that blogging is one of the best long term strategies for getting traffic. Now the most effective blogs are kept current with fresh content being continually added. Although blogging can be time consuming, this article will outline the best blog system that will help you to be as successful as the big players, without spending too much time in the process.

Strive to add a new post or article to your blog, three times per week. If you are able, post more frequently, but if you maintain a minimum of three posts per week, you will be way ahead of most of your competitors.

It is common for new bloggers to start off full of enthusiasm, only to lose interest later because of the effort required to keep it up to date. It is important that you stay consistent with your blogging, as the process will pay off in a big way down the line.

For the second part of this best blog system, purchase good quality private label rights articles and rewrite them in your own words. Blog articles typically only need to be around 250 words, so rewriting your PLR articles it not really a lot of effort. It is important that you make these articles unique as the search engines will not index anything that is duplicate content. Private label rights articles are very cheap to purchase.

If you are really pressed for time, you can hire a blog article writer and you will normally pay around $4 for each of these. If you purchase these articles in bulk, you can usually get a better deal. After you receive your articles, just cut and paste them into your blog, three times per week. You can find willing ghostwriters by going to popular forums like Digitalpoint or the Warriorforum and look in their classified ads section.

3. You should join Onlywire.com and all of the social bookmarking sites within. This is all free to do and after you are set up, you can bookmark each blog post with a single click. By joining Onlywire, you will saves loads of time and the bookmarking process will add lots of quality backlinks and traffic to your blog.

4. For the final part of this best blog system, you will want to add some graphics and perhaps even some Youtube videos to your blog. Many affiliate programs will have quality pre-made graphics that you can use. Additionally, you can search for images on your favorite search engine and then paste them directly into your blog post. If you want to incorporate Youtube videos, the process is similar whereby you copy the embedded code and paste it inside your post.

So you see, it doesn’t take very much effort or time to produce a good quality blog post. By following this best blog system, you can build reliable traffic to your Internet business by spending one hour, three times per week.

I wish you the best of success,
John Baril
Copyright © John Baril

Social networking is a big buzz in today’s world of Internet marketers. Social networking can be said to be virtually started (introduced) by My Space and facebook. Today, these two giant social networking websites are the ones most visited by people. Many of the Internet marketers have found charming opportunities to market their products through these social networking websites. Though all the members of these social networking websites are not targeted, many of the Internet marketers consider this as an effective means to get more free exposure to their business.

There are many social networking websites that are emerging each and every month. TalkMoola.com, Zenzuu, Friendswin, Yuwie, and Wowzza are some of them launched recently. With all these social networking websites, Internet marketers have a wide source to promote their business. However, many of the Internet marketers complain that social networking is a complete waste of time and they didn’t find gain out of it. It is because not all network marketers have caught on to the power of social networking yet or how to properly use social networking to explode their businesses. But the ability to further expose themselves and their business to other like-minded people is extremely valuable and profitable for most.

The most important fact about social networking websites is that all social networks that are created are not equal. Social networks differ in many ways. It is up to you to choose the best social network that suits your business promotional needs.

Look for Social networks with similar interests

Before signing up with any social networking website for business promotion, you should make sure that the network has people who would be interested in what you have to offer, or are like-minded to you. For example, if you are trying to promote your business of electronic goods online, then you should look for social networking websites with related communities and forums. If you try to promote your electronic product in a social network that includes members looking for a date or love, it would be a complete waste of time.

Active involvement is essential

Maximum exposure to your business through social networks can be achieved only by increasing the contacts. This can be achieved by accepting all the friend invitations within the social network and searching for like-minded people in the community and adding them as friends. The larger your list of friends the more active you will appear to be and more people will take heart to what you have to say. Active involvement in social networks is essential for effective business promotion. Regular forum participations, blog postings and messaging to friends are some kinda active involvement. While promoting a business in a social network, bulk messaging is a facility to look for. Some social networks limit the amount of people you are able to send a message to at once. On the other hand, some social networks will let you add unlimited friends and you can send them a bulletin or message to all your friends at once anytime with ease. This is what you should be looking for.

Create your own social networking website

It’s always good to create your own social networking website for promoting your business. Creating your own social networking website will be beneficial than promoting your business in other social networks. This will help you to strengthen the customer-supplier relationship and also helps you to identify your customer needs. Designing a social networking website is just a breeze today. Professional social network web designers can help you design unique social networking websites to grab more audience.

1. Sign up for email read many

To increase income when making money on the network (via network, direct communication, online), you also need to register to read more tomorrow GPTR page, but an understandable message is read for many, you lose more time. Your selection by ability that registration number to the appropriate page.
2. Make money in many surf (Get Paid To Surf)



You need the ability to follow their registration number of the page to suit your time. You should know that the page you need to surf to work every day, especially in the page limit is less money (life's short unit). Un-time information is lost on them. If you put too many days you do not earn anything, even in you will be negative, in the wall of your deposit account to upgrade!
3. Building network (Refer)

Methods to increase income when making money on the internet (make money on the Internet, network, online, online) is introduced to as many people as possible (network building). That is why that many people's ads on the internet make money online very easy. So myself, I put the money to buy a host, domain names, then I take a lot of time and effort to create this web site is to build the network.

I want an explanation for you to understand is a common issue in the network page and read email autosurf different!
4.In the pages to read e-mail (Get Paid To Read)

Your bonus depends on the amount that the network earns
5.In the Surf page (Get Paid To AutoSurf)

Defining at each site are different, for specific, you need to reference the provisions of each page, here are some things to know:

* You can only receive bonus network if you upgrade account
* Your Bonus depend on the amount members of the network filed for the company to upgrade the account, regardless of the amount of members to upgrade from money in the (compound) and are not dependent the amount of money members earn in the surf page.

6. How to make money through network performance?

I have to make money performance you need to know the following:


1. Select page prestigious really pay
2. Should have experience in reading email or surfing the web to take a little time

When you're online, you access a page on any ads, or any forum that you experience the ad money on the Internet with the title is very attractive, such as: Make Money on the Internet really is true! . Make money on the network HOT. Make money online actually 100% of 50 - 200 USD / month. Make money effectively on the Internet. Do not miss the chance to make your money. Make money without investment. Make Money on the Internet easy, high. Make money online - work at home. Opportunities to attract money are waiting for you. How to make money easiest way here. Make money not lose capital and effort. Earn money online fast and efficient. A make money online fast. Make money online with ... Make money online 100% real. How to make money on the Internet most prestige. 1 address money and prestige safety ... The ads that title very attractive but also the full power of persuasion! Must recognize that many people in advertising, have more knowledge about marketing and they have ... convinced!

Many people read the ad in line hăm crack, registration money now! but some people are making money patience, Durable and they earn an amount worthy of the effort they put out!

Remaining only be pursued for a few days, also is 1-2 months and then depressed, remove the!
So making money online is easy or difficult?

If you want to reply to your question, you need to participate in making money on the internet (make money on the Internet, online, online, over the network) is at least several months, you can know!
But now I can answer your questions!

Ago on 2 years, when online, I accidentally read a ad network that making money online (make money online) very easy! I hăm them up, and join right now to make wind! I also demonstrated is the patience, determination high, are not you?
During the last time I had drawn the conclusion that money on the Internet easy and just tacky!

Subject:

* Read email not need to know much about computers and the internet. Receive, open the message and then click on the link in the message one can do!
* Make money surfing the web (Get Paid To Autosurf) is back as easily. Open a web browser, login to autosurf page, click on Start and then sit Surfing view site advertising the change-over in the period after the 20s also childish to do!

Difficult

* Trouble is to find a reputable site, you receive the tien. Not all sites will pay for you, there are many fraud (SCAM)!. According to my comments is to have over 90% of the page fraud. Pages prestige, actually pay only about 10% of the total pages currently exist on the internet!
* A mistake that everyone have (including me) when you start making money on the Internet by reading e-mail advertising (Get Paid To Read) pages are selected email high-value from 5 - 10 cent or more. It is a big mistake, the sites send mail large value is that the payment to members. It easy to understand all, you do a calculation is known. Suppose a site has 10 000 members and their email value 10 cents. the company to buy ads to pay not less than $ 1 000 (0.1 x 10 $ 000 members). So they collected money advertising is very low, for example: 10cent solo mail to all only $ 1.98 (mail advertising value of 10 cents sent to all members, only $ 1.98). This is not including the site must also pay host, tien domen, and then have to put a bag of money to live without it anymore. Most people have the wrong is to start making money on the network are the sites selected email high value, and the result is read email without pay.
* Pages GPTR pay actual mail is sent with very low value of about 1 cent, even less than 1 cent. Therefore, also earn money is not easy.
* To read email earn money, you need to know little English, need to pay attention to not mistakenly click link to cheat, if you click the link to cheat they will delete your account and like how much effort by you go home with life!
To really make money, it must be even, Durable, and determination to take time and effort. Must be relatively long you can collect sufficient amount of the minimum (Payout) to be paid. Since the claim until you receive the funds also have to wait some time more!

If you do not patience, just want to make money in short period of time, as soon as possible the money on the internet (make money on the Internet, network, online, online) is not the most appropriate for you ! The best that you should not join because if you only pursue some day, also is 1-2 months leaving only the time useless!

The words blog and blogging are two of the most famous buzzwords in recent years. Ever since the practice of blogging was started several years ago, its popularity has skyrocketed. What was dismissed by some as a simple online fad has become one of the most indispensable feature of the Internet nowadays.

Millions around the world call themselves bloggers and every day thousands upon thousands of new blogs are being created. Indeed, there is no stopping this phenomenon from becoming one of the staple features of Web 2.0. What many people still do not know is that they can make blogging a money-making venture. If you want to make money blogging but do not know how, then read this article in its entirety. Here, you will learn simple tips on how to make money blogging.

One of the easiest ways to make money blogging is through the Google AdSense program. Google AdSense is a free advertising system and one of the most popular on the Internet. After you sign up for Google AdSense, ads will be placed on your blog. You get paid for every visitor that click on the ads on your blogs. Signing up for Google AdSense is one of the simplest way to make money blogging. Anyone with a blog should at least sign up with Google AdSense.

Another way to make money blogging is to sell a other people's products. This practice is called affiliate marketing and it is one of the most lucrative ways to make money on the Internet. There are thousands of affiliate programs out there that you ca join. You can sign up for an affiliate network such as Clickbank or you can search for independent affiliate programs.

Do you know that you can earn through Amazon, the biggest online retail store by signing up with their affiliate program? All you need to do is mention some book on on of your blogs then a link will take your reader to the Amazon website. You earn through every sale made.

Create a blog. Sounds easy enough I'll just go do that. Blogging isn't easy, I think everybody would agree with that. If you do your research and get on other blog sites noticing what others are offering their readers, I'm sure with drive and determination you will create and have a successful blog.

A few things to remember when you create a blog. First, there are millions of people who turn to the internet whenever they need any kind of information. Some look for products, some look for services, and some look for solutions to their problems. There is a wide variety of topics out there for you to create a blog about. Chances are that if you create a blog that you are interested and familiar with, there will be some others interested also.

Second, nobody will see your blog if they don't know where it is at. I suggest finding a way to network your blog. The easiest way to do this is through social networking sites. Get as many contacts in the same field you are concentrating on. Join forums, invite others to visit your blog, in turn visit theirs, never stop looking for ways to improve your blog. Mainly write with your heart in a genuine manner. It will be much easier expressing yourself rather than trying to copy someone else's style.

If you are planning to make money blogging, always remember to keep it simple. Remember people found your site because they were interested in making money also, don't let your complex web design overshadow your message and ultimate goal of making a sale. Also keep in mind that it is a great marketing strategy to get previous customers to come back while looking for new prospects. Mention things like bookmark my site, new content added daily or weekly, give them something to come back to. To get a following of readers is your ultimate goal and is much easier to make money than relying on the one time sale.

A key way to generate repeat visitors is to have a comment section and encourage readers to leave their thoughts and questions. You can then use these thoughts or questions in your upcoming blogs. Allowing your blog visitors to leave comments on your posts will encourage open discussion and debate. This encourages repeat visits and also changes and grows the content of your posts.

From Ezine Articles!