Yes, your business blog is not your official company website. What it is, is your website in a far more casual format. As such your blog should be treated exactly as you treat your website. Your business blog must be optimised in exactly the same way as your website. To promote your blog so that your prospective customers can find you is crucial. Optimising your blog becomes an integral part of your marketing campaign. Blogs are voracious feeders and their food is content. Your business blog is driven by blog posts that are content rich. It is futile to launch a blog and then sit back.
Blogging takes skill
You have to get your blog highly visible and keep it that way. Link building is a non-negotiable must for this is the way to build visible pathways. Optimisation as a whole is complicated with many angles and steps in the process. This holds true for both your website and your blog. Online marketing in all its various forms take effort and you will have to use all efforts to get your blog to show up in the search results pages. It does not matter what industry you are in, the same rules apply. The internet is the most competitive playing field the world has ever seen and you must work for your success. To have a winning blog that functions as a successful marketing tool takes planning. You will be judged on your blog and this can have serious repercussions for your business. This means you start planning your blog with its design.
Don’t blot your reputation
To slap together a template blog as offered by free blog hosts indicates to people that you are sloppy and stingy. If your blog is disorganised and lacks continuity, people will bounce out faster than you can blink. When you start off with a great blog design people will take notice. Populate your blog with content that holds the attention of readers and they will be intrigued. They will come back to see what your next offering is. Consistency is top priority as this builds trust in your growing number of readers. Remember that trust comes first, after that loyalty will follow. Your blog should not be seen as only an extension of your website. Your blog should be able to hold up its own identity.
Bloggers of the world unite
The blogosphere has become incredibly powerful and you want people to remember your blog. You can take it for granted that your blog will have competition when it comes to search engine rankings. The better your blog design and the more interesting your blog postings, the wider your audience will grow. Avid blog readers are a community on their own, so to carve a niche for your blog you have to bring the big guns out to gain appeal. To make readers want to start following your blog you have to feed them excellent visuals. You also need to appeal to their interests and their minds. Only then will your blog become a successful marketing tool for your business.
As you’re getting started submitting articles, you may feel a little overwhelmed at everything there is to learn. Learning a new skill is not easy in the beginning–when we’re first starting anything new, we tend to feel a bit awkward!
This is a completely natural feeling, one that every one of us goes through. I’d like to save you some anxiety though, and help you focus on just the key ideas you need to get started.
You don’t need to undertake every article marketing strategy all at once–you’ve got to walk before you can run. Focus on the basics first, and then as you get used to submitting articles you can advance at a pace that feels comfortable to you.
If you’ll just follow these 3 simple guidelines, you’ll create results that astound you:
1) Write educational articles on the topic of your website.
An educational article is free of any sales tactics or promotional, hyped up language. Your objective in the article body is to teach your readers, rather than get them to buy your products or visit your website.
Yes, you started submitting articles with the intention of increasing sales and traffic to your website, but the article body should not be used to accomplish that goal.
That’s what your resource box is for (more on this later).
So, when you are thinking of article topics, ask yourself– “What kinds of things can I teach my readers?”
I think the easiest types of articles to write are of the ‘how to’ variety, so it helps to focus your writing efforts around teaching your readers how to do something specific associated with your niche.
By the way, ‘how to’ articles are extremely popular with readers, so you may wish to make them the bread and butter of your article marketing campaign. ‘How to’ articles aren’t the only types of articles–they’re just the easiest to write and the most popular, so why not start by writing a ‘how to’?
Remember, all of your articles should be on the same general topic as the website you’re trying to drive traffic to.
For example, if your website is about ballroom dancing, then you would submit articles about topics having to do with ballroom dancing.
2) Carefully construct your resource box.
The resource box is the author bio that sits below your article. Each time your article is republished, your resource box is also republished. It is through the resource box that you will build backlinks to your site, but the resource box is about more than just your website link.
Take your time constructing your resource box and be sure you’ve got these elements:
- Your name
- A little bio info
- A reason for the reader to click the link to your website
- Your website URL
You usually have a limited amount of space in your resource box, so it’s a good idea to use all your effort convincing the reader to go to one particular website rather than several.
3) Submit articles consistently.
You may be surprised that the #1 reason why people fail at article marketing has nothing to do with anything complicated or technical.
Most people who aren’t satisfied with their results have simply not submitted enough articles.
When you launch an article submission campaign, it will be a long term endeavor and you probably won’t start seeing major results for several months (probably 4-5 months).
The reason for this is two fold–
- Search engines re-evaluate rankings based on incoming links only every few months, so even though you’re building backlinks, you won’t see the benefits until months after your articles are submitted.
Article marketing gets its power from:
- the accumulation of an arsenal of articles circulating the internet,
- those articles continuing to build links and generate views over time, and
- a continuous and sustained link building campaign.
So, it’s unlikely that submitting a handful of articles will create any great or lasting difference in your website traffic, BUT submitting a handful of articles every month for a year (or hopefully the lifetime of your website) WILL seriously impact your website rankings and traffic.
It’s a bit like rolling a huge boulder from the top of a hill–at the beginning the thing may be hard to push and you may not think you’re making much headway, but as you get over the initial hump and get the thing moving, you start accelerating faster and faster even though the effort you’re exerting is decreasing.
Every affiliate marketer is constantly looking for the one or two successful markets that give them the biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it’s a magic formula that is readily available for them if they buy just ONE MORE “guru promise”. Actually, it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication, trial and error and testing. Affiliate marketing, like any other business, has a learning curve that all successful marketers eventually “pass through”.
These are tactics that have worked before with online affiliate marketing and are continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and thrive in the world of affiliate marketing online.
What are these three tactics?
1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site (it can easily be a free site like Squidoo or HubPages – or many similar sites) focusing on each and every product and nothing more.
Always include product reviews on your website so visitors will have an initial understanding of what the product can do for those who purchase. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.
You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive an compelling and include your call to action on the information.(Call to action = what, exactly, you want the reader to do - ie: click on link and purchase, join email list etc.) Each headline should attract the readers to try and read more, even contact you. Highlight the special points and benefits. How will this product or service BENEFIT your reader? This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and they will want to find out more.
2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so it just can’t be missed. Try to create autoresponder messages that will be emailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is usually not closed until the seventh contact with a prospect.
Only two things can possibly happen with a single page alone: a closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never to return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified periods, you will remind them of the product they thought they would want later just never got around to returning to purchase. Be sure that your email content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.
Focus on important points like how your product can make life easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in your emails. As much as possible, avoid using the word “free” because there are still older spam filters that dumps those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail themselves of your products and services.
3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Choosing profitable keywords will be the first true test of your marketing abilities. There is a learning curve and don’t be discouraged if, at first, you get clicks, but no sales. Just keep refining your page and/or emails and soon you will be getting the buyers instead of the “lookers”!
Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week on your products benefits, of at least 300-600 words in length. The more exposure you can generate for your product the more readers and the more sales you will get.
Always remember that only about 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that means you can potentially make 10 sales based on the average statistic.
The affiliate marketing tactics given above are not really very difficult to do. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part.
Try to use these tips for several different affiliate marketing programs. “Play” with different tactic and see which ones work best for you. You can easily maintain a good source of income and survive in a business that not everyone can do. (Mainly because they give up to soon!)
Besides, think of the huge paychecks you will be receiving and the closer you are getting to financial freedom.
These tactics, and more are what you can learn by taking advantage of the perfect affiliate marketing guide. Tactics you can implement using 100% free methods.
I would like to know how you come up with ideas for posts, and also how you store, and organize those ideas.
Most of the times ideas will come to me naturally. Sometimes I am surfing the web, other times I am taking a shower, and the idea will just pop in my head.
There are times when I not particularly inspired, though, and on those occasions I need to use some exercises to get the creative juices flowing. Here are the exercises that I use:
1. Looking on other niches. Sometimes I will browse around websites that cover completely different niches, and I will take a look at the content that they are publishing and evaluate whether or not I could translate those ideas or concepts to my own niche.
2. Reading print stuff. The print industry is much older than the web, and those guys have a lot of experience. You just need to buy a newspaper or a magazine on a topic related to your niche and I am sure you will get plenty of ideas for new posts.
3. Doing something else. Sometimes it is useless to keep trying harder. Maybe you are stressed with the work, maybe you are tired. On those occasions, doing something completely different can help. If you work in your home, for example, you could go out for a bicycle ride or jogging with a friend.
4. Using paper to brainstorm. Jotting ideas down on a piece of paper is a very efficient way to organize your thoughts. It becomes easier, after all, to interlink things and to see what ramifications they could have.
That is pretty much it.
The second part is about storing the ideas, which is just as important. In fact, one common mistake that people do is to not store their ideas somewhere, relying solely on their memories. Then when they realize the idea is gone for good.
My process for storing ideas is the following: when they hit me I write them down as soon as possible. If I am outside of my office, I use any piece of paper that I can put my hands on. If I am inside my office, I will write it down on the notebook that is always on my desk or on the whiteboard. Then at the end of the day I will add that idea to my WordPress dashboard as a draft. Usually I just include the title and some central topics that I think could be covered on the future post.
As of today I have 30 or so drafts stored. Whenever I don’t have something to post on a given day I will just go through those drafts, pick one, and write it.
What about you guys? What exercises do you use to come up with ideas, and how do you store and organize them?
If you spend much time on the internet you will find that there are advertisements everywhere trying to sell you something that will teach you how to make easy internet money. If you have ever bought any of these programs you were probably soon disappointed.
Most of these programs are based on the same concept. Most of them will tell you to make money by going out and trying to sell something to somebody. In most cases you will be told to sell the same money making program that you just bought. Whether it's network marketing, internet marketing or something that claims to be neither of the two most how to make easy internet money programs for sale are based on the same concept.
Some of these programs are fine for people who are good at selling and who like to sell. But most people are not good at selling and don't want to have to sell.
If you want to make easy internet money but don't want to deal with all these gimmicks then why not forget about all that stuff and make money online the same way major banks and many corporations that we are all familiar with have been making money for many decades.
Most people don't realize that by far the largest market in the world is the foreign currency market also called the forex. Trillions of dollars are exchanged on the forex daily. Not billions but trillions, this market is massive. World currencies are being traded 24 hours a day and this causes their values to constantly fluctuate. Banks and other institutions learned a long time ago that they can make massive profit from this constant fluctuation in value.
Now with the internet anyone can sign up for a forex account online and with a small amount of money be able to control a large amount of money with leverage and make a profit from these value fluctuations. In order to do this it used to require market analysis and being able to predict where the currency prices were going. That's not the case any more.
Now there is software that will do all of this for you. This software called expert advisors or robots are programmed by currency experts and once you set it up on your forex account it will buy and sell currencies for you at the right times based on time tested formulas and make money for you on autopilot. You don't even have to know how the currency markets work because the program does it all for you.
If you want to know how to make easy internet money try a forex expert advisor. The one I use doesn't cost much and is making me a very nice income all on autopilot while I do the things I want to do. Just make sure you get one with real live proof of making long term profit. Most forex brokers will give you a demo account with play money to practice on. You can try the expert advisor on a demo first just to make sure it works and will make money for you.
When most entrepreneurs approach an SEO consultant, the first question they ask is how they can attract more SEO Traffic to come and visit their websites. Many people and especially the smaller or new business owners do not realise a very important fact. It is not the amount of web traffic that is important; it is the quality of the web traffic that is crucial.
At first glance it looks logical that the more website visitors you get, the better it is for your business. But what good are all those visitors to you if they do not become paying customers? Statistically, having thousands of web visitors does look impressive. What you should look at is the actual percentage that converted into clients. Only then do you see the real picture. It is not the amount of traffic you attract; it is the right kind of traffic you should attract.
Less is best
Where many entrepreneurs go wrong is that they target the high-traffic search phrases. You should not be dong that, you should be targeting the search phrases that will bring you the lowest competition. You cannot waste time with generic phrases; you need to use key phrases that searchers use when they are looking specifically for what you have to offer. One-size-fits-all is a myth.
It does not work for clothes and it surely does not work for your business website. Unless you are the only person on the planet offering your specific product it will simply not work. Business is simply too cut-throat to try to appeal to a huge spectrum of SEO traffic. You can only focus on those people who specifically want your products and services. Those people who want to buy what you have, not the countless thousands surfing aimlessly.
Tight focus
Analyse exactly who the people are that buy your products and build a profile. That profile is what you use when you optimise your website. It is their needs you must cater for; their interests you must appeal to and whose questions your web content must answer. Make sure that your website does not annoy your prospective customers into leaving. People are impatient; they do not want to waste time trying to navigate a website that is obstacle strewn.
Make it easy
Compact, easy and fast navigation is critical and the checking out process must be simplistic. Leave the flashing wheels and cutie-pie trailing cursors for hobbyists, you are running a business. The way to get your desired Website Traffic to convert to paying customers is to give them a clear call to action.
Do not hide your intentions; be very clear on showing them that you want them to add products to their cart, sign up for weekly newsletters or opt in for special promotional emails. You want them to do this and being very clear and specific in your intentions is not being obnoxious. Put your call to action buttons where people see them clearly as the next step to take.
When it comes to promoting business online, Google AdWords is the most effective tool to consider. It is also a very effective way of inexpensive successful Internet marketing. There are numerous ways via which Google AdWords assist in saving money in online advertising that include:
Use the keywords in the ad text
Show the seeker that your advertisement is relevant. Search engine like Google will showcase all the searched keywords or key phrases in bold within your advertisement if they are present. This will assist your ad to be noticeable in the crowd.
Keep the advertisement group key phrase or keyword list short
In place of having a solo ad group with large keywords list, make many advertisement groups each with short list.
Initially bid high
Google’s advertisement system determines positioning through CTR-click through rate and bid. To get high CTR, you initially require generating few clicks. Initially bid high initially so your advertisement will be noticed early within the search results. On getting high click through rate, lower down your bids.
Keep away from bidding wars
Do not waste your money in bidding wars for many high-volume keywords. As an alternative, enlarge your keyword list including specific keywords with lower search volume. Together, these keywords soon will reach the search volume of the expensive keywords. Your normal CPC-cost per click will dramatically fall via applying this tactic. Use the keyword search tool for expanding the keyword phrases list.
Use relevant landing page
For majority of the searches, never point the advertisement at your homepage. Select a landing webpage at your website, which includes keywords or key phrases from the search and in few cases, it is worth making a customized page that is not within the usual navigation of your website.
Separate content campaigns and search
Many individuals lose cash using AdWords while their website is swamped with successes from the content ads. Majority of the individuals do not realize that highlighting ads on the content network of Google is turned on through default. Either switch off content network or make separate campaigns for the content ads and search.
Set your daily budget more than Google advice
If you place your everyday budget too low then your advertisement will be showcased intermittently. You certainly do not want this. You want your advertisement to be displayed when someone looks for your key phrases or keywords. Control over your ad spend via other means like employing negative key phrases, keywords, targeting through region, using the exact matches pr adjusting the keyword bids.
Undoubtedly, Google is the most used search engine over the Internet, and everyday over 300 million people use Google for different purposes. Because of its vast popularity and huge usability, it does not serve as a mere search engine but has also become a huge advertising platform for the businesses. In fact, any person who is looking for a product or service of any kind uses Google advertising tools to find out the best offers in the market. With the technology of using Google adwords, any Internet professional or website owner can get all the required facilities to manage and handle the overall website and thus increase its revenues to a large extent. With proper Internet marketing training, you will be able to know how to make the best use of the online marketing tools. With practical sessions, you will go much beyond a bookish knowledge and a verbatim heard over the net.
The entire procedure of Google advertising is quite simple and you are given the authority of making your own advertisement and building on the key phrases and adwords as per your own capacities, requirements and preferences. You can also get your ads customized so that you can decide where they should be placed. With pay per click advertising, you will need to pay only for the clicks on your ads and not for placing the advertisements which may or may not be clicked by your potential customers. It is a fact that if a visitor clicks on your online advertisement, he or she is really interested in the product or service you are providing and thus has more probabilities of turning into a customer from a mere visitor.
Under marketing education, you will learn about refining the whole process of targeting the adwords and how they should be related with the optimized content of your website. You will also come to know about the steps that should be taken for increasing your ROI and decreasing the rate of CPC of your website. If you are a business owner who believes in purchasing expensive advertisements over the Internet and ends up with a failed advertising campaign for most of the times, these Internet marketing training sessions will tell you how to advertise in the most effective manner with least budget possible. This will not only save you a lot of money on unnecessary advertisements but will also increase your revenues and sales manifolds.
If you own a website chances are that you are hoping for your website to grow and to produce a profit. In order for this to happen you will need to not just get website traffic but also work to retain the traffic that you receive. You don't want people to visit your website just one time, but you want people to return time and time again.
If your objective is to get website traffic you will want to begin by creating a marketing campaign to invite people to check your website out. Many people will create special contests for the launch of their website that will be used to entice new visitors to check the website out.
1. Consider Affiliating With Other Websites
You may also want to consider affiliating with other websites in order to get traffic from websites that are themed in the style that your own website is themed like. In doing so, the websites that you affiliate with will advertise your website in return for you doing the same for them. This is one of the easiest methods of getting new website traffic.
2. Consider Referral Programs
Other designers will create referral programs where they will offer their website members an incentive for inviting new people to their website. These types of programs generally prove to be very successful and introduce more traffic to your website.
There are hundreds of surefire ways that you can look into in order to increase your traffic. Don't hesitate to try out new tactics and to expand your marketing campaign in ways that have the potential to increase your website traffic in any way.
For years, article marketing has been an effective tool for affiliates to generate visits and sales from interested consumers.
Here is a brief overview of how article marketing works and how it can benefit your efforts as an affiliate.
First, you should identify a product niche that you’re knowledgeable about, and then write an article related to that topic. At the end of the article, you can add a ‘resource box.’ Typically, this is a couple of sentences about you and what you have to offer, followed by a link to your website, where you can then direct people to useful products in that niche.
The trick here is to use those sentences to entice people to click on your link. An easy way to accomplish this is to offer a free report or other freebie related to your niche market.
Next, you’ll submit that article (for free) to various article directories on the web.
The two main directories to start with are:
www.ezinearticles.com and www.goarticles.com
To find more, just do a Google search for ‘article directory’ or ‘article directories.’
Please note that one of the conditions of publishing your article in these directories is that you allow other people to republish your articles as long as they don’t change the content and leave your name and the resource box at the end of the article intact.
Don’t worry; this is a good thing, as it will lead to more traffic for you! There are two main ways this practice will get you additional traffic.
1) Getting Published
Website owners in the niche market you are writing about will come to these directories looking for suitable articles they can use as content on their websites or ezines.
If they pick your article to publish on their site, their visitors will see your website link in the resource box at the end of your article, which could generate extra traffic for you with no additional effort or expense on your part.
2) Search Engine Rankings
Article directories can rank highly in the search engine results, so your article may get a good search engine listing by being on some of these sites. This is especially the case if other websites link to your article.
To try to get a good search engine ranking, you should target specific keyword phrases you want to rank for and make sure to include them in your article. The less competitive the keyword, the better the chance your article will rank well in the search engines.
A note of caution-don’t overdo your keyword targeting by stuffing loads of keywords into the article. If you do this, many people won’t want to read your article or click on your link, and the search engines may punish you for writing “spammy” content. This completely defeats the purpose of article marketing, which is to provide useful information that gets people to take the action you want them to take.
Instead of repeating your keyword dozens of times, just get your main keyword in there a few times, and start the article title with your keyword if you can. Your best bet is to strike a balance between having your keyword in your article enough to get noticed by search engines and keeping it readable, informative, and enjoyable for actual humans. After all, it doesn’t matter how many visitors see your article if it doesn’t convince anyone to click on your link!
In addition to getting your articles ranked in the search engines, you can also increase your own website’s search engine rankings by linking to it from your articles. With each article you submit, the more links you’ll have to your site, and the better your rankings will be.
That’s article marketing in a nutshell. Give it a try, and be aware that it may take some time and effort before you start seeing results. The best article marketers put a lot of time and effort into improving their work, just like any author, but since it’s a free and simple way to generate traffic and sales, it’s well worth the time you invest!
