Guide to make money online!

There are two paths that you can take when it comes to managing your pay-per-click advertising campaign online. You can learn it yourself and make Google’s stock rise higher while you figure out the learning curve, then spend a lot of time keeping it running smoothly. Or, you can hire a professional pay-per-click firm to handle it for you.

I did both.

See, I know the position you’re in right now. I’ve been there. I’ve hired and fired 2 pay-per-click management companies. I was forced to learn on my own and spend tens of thousands of dollars.

My Experiences with Outsourcing My Pay-Per-Click Needs

The first pay-per-click management company that I hired kept raising my budget and jacking up my costs-per-click. Yet, I wasn’t getting any conversions!

So I decided to fire that PPC firm and manage my own pay-per-click campaigns. I studied under the top gurus like Perry Marshall. I bought all the ebooks and coaching programs. And, I spent more than $10,000.00 figuring everything out on my own until I grew a no name business into $50k per month in sales all from pay-per-click advertising.

But, I worked day and night on my pay-per-click campaigns. I spent a ton of time, money and effort on it. I couldn’t handle it anymore so I hired another pay-per-click firm to take over the accounts again. They did a nice job and are still around today, but I saw some holes in their approach.

Now, I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did. I want to help you choose a pay-per-click management company that’s actually going to help you turn clicks into clients.

Here are 7 Questions You Need to Ask Before You Hire a Pay-Per-Click Management Company:

1. This is going to piss people off: How many accounts does an account manager handle? Just because you have a “dedicated” account manager doesn’t mean he/she isn’t dedicated to 50 other accounts. This is not uncommon in some of the larger pay-per-click firms out there. If they work 40 hours per week that’s less than 1 hour/week they are spending on your account, provided they do nothing but work on accounts every minute of the day.

2. Can I peek in and have access to my Google & Yahoo accounts? There’s a new breed of PPC management that keeps everything secret. They are basically buying a click for $1.00 then charging you an undisclosed markup on the click. That’s why their setup & management fees are low. They’re making money on marking up your clicks.

3. What constitutes an improvement? You need to put in your order with the pay-per-click firm just like you would order a steak medium rare with a side of truffle fries to a waiter. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and don’t be afraid to speak up. For example: I want to increase sales while keeping my cost-per-sale under $50.

4. Do you track phone calls? If you are doing any part of the business offline then your pay-per-click management company should offer a way to track where your calls are coming from. Tracking calls back to specific keywords helps eliminate waste and will reveal high response terms you’ll want to dominate.

5. What are your prices? Now, don’t be cheap. There is no such thing as a Mercedes Benz for Honda prices. I’ll admit some people don’t need the Mercedes, but if you are spending $2,000/month or more, chances are you at least need a certified, pre-owned BMW.

6. What is your experience? I’m all for giving the new guy a try. I was the new guy at one point. Nothing, I repeat nothing can replace experience. Experience comes from long hours of hard work. There are no magic formulas. Good solid basics and some creativity will always win in the end.

7. Will you involve me in the project? No one knows your business as well as you. Get specific on how often you’ll meet to review the results and plan next steps. A good pay-per-click firm will welcome your input. It is invaluable.

Now, it’s up to you. But, if you fail to ask the above questions, then you’re risking hiring and firing new pay-per-click management companies when things go south or spending tens of thousands of dollars learning how to do it yourself like I did. Learn from my pay-per-click outsourcing experiences.

Pay-Per-Click Expert Paul Rakovich grew a no-named business selling Tony Robbins CDs to doing $50,000.00 per month in sales with PPC advertising. Today, he manages PPC campaigns for plastic surgeons, dermatologists, clothing companies, dentists, lawyers, Internet marketers, a famous copywriter and more! Now get his FREE 5 PPC Fixes That Could Save You Thousands at http://www.clicksandclients.com & learn how to turn your clicks into paying clients.

Alright, so I've been walking you through how to set up your very own customized article marketing strategy which you can use to guide and motivate yourself throughout the year.

The first two steps were setting you up to be able to measure and track your progress.

In Step 1, you established a baseline for your website and set up a spreadsheet where you'll do monthly tracking of certain stats.

In Step 2 you figured out who your top competitors were and you entered your baseline information for them.

In Step 3, we get down to business–here is where you organize your article marketing campaign.

I've noticed that the #1 reason why some people give up or don't see success or simply say "I don't have time to do this" is that they haven't planned their marketing activities out very well.

When you own a business, whether it is an internet business or a traditional business that has a website, you need to take your marketing activities seriously. No matter what type of business you have, if you are able to position your site at the top Google, you will receive more targeted traffic to your website, and traffic translates into more business for you!

Many people use Article Marketing as their primary marketing tool, and in order to see the results you're looking for, you need to take an organized approach. If you do not, you will likely quit in a month or two be back at square one.

So, let's do some pre-thinking on this, and I will tell you exactly what I did as I was launching my most recent article marketing campaign.

1) Set a goal as to how many articles you'll submit each month–something between 1 and 8 articles.

I know some top article marketers who submit just one article a month and see excellent results, but you'll see better results faster if you lean towards the upper end of that range, especially if you're just getting started. You might give yourself some time to get used to writing articles on a regular basis and start off slow–perhaps Month One submit 3 articles, Month Two submit 4, and then gradually work up until you're submitting 7 or 8 a month.

2) Determine which days you'll write and what time–put it on your calendar.

For myself this is imperative to success–if I tell myself that I need to write 5 articles before the end of the month and I don't set any specific times/dates for doing so, before I know it the end of the month will be on top of me, and I'll be up against the wall. Not many people like the feeling of being in a tight deadline, and I like to do my articles at a leisurely pace so that I have time left to edit them and be sure they're of the quality that I like.

I write on my calendar exactly which days are writing days, and I do my writing first thing in the work day. Some people say morning is best as that's when our minds tend to be clearest, but some of us don't start working until the afternoon or evening–whenever is the start of your workday, try to do your writing then. It feels good to have that accomplishment behind you, and I like writing when my mind is fresh rather than at the end of the day when it's mush.

You'll want to make this calendar as visible as possible to remind yourself–I even have a special dry erase board calendar specifically devoted to my writing schedule. It sits on the wall beside my desk, and every day when I sit down to work, there it is staring me in the face. After I write the article I mark that day off on the board. It's very motivating to see the writing days being checked off.

3) Start brainstorming article ideas–remember, these are article topics that are on the topic of your website. You don't have to make your brain hurt by trying to think of article topics that have your keywords in them–let's keep this simple. Just start thinking of topics that your target readers would find valuable and that are also on the same topic as your website.

This is a brainstorming list, so there's no commitment here. Just start writing down as many ideas as you can think of, and get your creative juices flowing. When I'm jotting down ideas, I usually end up jotting down titles. You'll find that when you start writing down ideas, the ideas will start to flow. Write down as many as you can and keep them in list form. This is a list that you can use all month long and depending on how many ideas you brainstormed, perhaps for several months.

By creating a list of article topics, you're making it so much easier on yourself come your writing days–you won't have to sit down and try to think up a topic and then write. All you have to do is sit down, look at your article list, pick a topic that appeals to you, and then write. Believe me, working like this is a million times easier than taking it day by day, article by article.

And that's it for this step–pretty easy, eh?

Easy, but indispensable–I caution you, do not skip this step.The stuff you're doing in this step will keep your whole article marketing campaign on track, even when you don't feel like writing and even when you don't think you have time. A little prep now can set you on the right path for the rest of the year.

The nature of internet marketing is that it is a convenient medium which allows the sale or purchase of a product. It is growing faster than any other media. What it refers to is the markeing of a product or services by means of the Internet.

It is a way to distribute information to a global audience, faster and cheaper and it is interactive which means that it provides and receives instaneous responses, something unique in marketing.

There are many different business models for internet marketing and what they all have in common is that they all benefit from SEO, or Search Engine optimsation which can greatly enhance and influence their success or failure. SEO can also be referred to as an online marketing campaign.

There are many advantages to internet marketing, one is the cost. Internet Marketing is relatively inexpensive when you compare it to the costs of reaching a large audience the old fashioned way. This is a definate advantage for smaller companies who work on limited budgets.

Another advantage is that it possible to reach a wide audience quickly and bring in results just as quickly. Internet marketing also supports mediums where measureable statistics can be gained, easily and inexpensively. In fact all aspects of Internet marketing can be tracked and tested, the advantage of this is that a marketer can determine which of their offerings is more appealing and change accordingly.

Internet marketing allows the tracking of competitors on a realtime basis which would otherwise rely on word or mouth, or by means of quarterly publications. However, the overall effectiveness of any internet marketing does depend on the business goals being used.

Limitations and security
There are some limitations to internet marketing though. One is actually the technology it uses which requires a customer or marketer understands how to use it. Another is low speed internet connections which does result in delays in the delivery of the information being advertised. Some buyers feel that they still want to touch and feel the product before they buy, but this can be addressed by offers of return policies and pick up services. Some marketing executives are finding it difficult to convince senior management of the advantages of Search Engine Optimization and internet marketing.

Security issues regarding information are also important and many customers are still hesitant when it comes to buying over the internet because they may not trust their private information being kept confidential, or worse, having it stolen by unscrupulous scammers.

With the advent of encruption, it is possible, if not mandatory, for a company to guarantee privacy and security to their customers. And if a customer decides to ‘opt out’ of their subscription services, their details are no longer held on the company’s database.

Another security concern is that a consumer will actually receive the goods they have purchased, these fears can only be relieved by brand building and gaining a good reputation in the market place. As well as this online payment merchants provide back end buyer protection sytems which protect the clients credit card details in cyberspace.

Page Rank is all about authority, the more authority a website receives, the higher the page rank goes, that is the general theory.

Don’t be deceived, high listings in the SERP’s are not about how big your page rank is, as the saying goes it is not the size but what you do with it that counts.

I can give examples of site that are PR 1 but rank #1 for some very generic terms within Google, however the theory and process of SEO is such you build them both together, like a well tuned operation it is not all about what is done in the shop front but usually the stock room that runs the engine.

These are my five top tips for building page rank:

1. Integrate a blog into your website, using wordpress you can integrate a simple blog into your website, wordpress also has a ping list, as soon as you post blogs the web is effectively notified of your blog, be controversial, create interest and just like the viral effect people will post your blogs creating natural links back to your site.
2. Press Releases, use someone like pressreleasepoint for a small fee distribute to about 60 PR engines, it is cheap to do, if you have not written releases before read up about writing styles, this is not a “process” and the purpose is to create real interest about what you have to say, if you hit the right note, it will get published and again create natural links back to your site, as well as build your brand.
3. Social media distribution, when you have good content, don’t sit on it, get it out and about, submit into social network sites, if your article takes off, the rewards will be there for you to see, and if not, there is no harm as if you are consistent and your content is good, you will build your own following which will create links and improve your longer tail of search.
4. Use methods such as commentating on other peoples blogs, and where they allow you to, pingback a link to your website, also use Yahoo! Answers, you can give people feedback and again create some natural back linking.
5. All the above are not quick methods, they are methods used to build the authority of your topic “website” and build your web based authority off page back to your website which is what will have an effect on a search engines perception of your site.

Thanks to technology, SEO tactics used to position a website evolve but fundamentals stay the same.

There are three aspects of Search Engine Optimization which are considered major and are important for optimisation. In a nutshell they are Keywords, Links and Graphics and if you make use of these three aspects correctly you be rewarded with high rankings.

Keyword Aspect
Firstly you must ensure that your keywords are relevant to your content. They should be in phrases that are used most commonly in a search. This may entail some research, but you will end up with keywords that searcher actually use.

Make sure that all your titles on all your pages start with your keywords and your content is filled with them. Fill your content with any other related information too. Optimise your Meta tags with your keywords and make sure that they are included in your filenames.

Linking Aspect
It should be evident how important external links are for SEO, so make sure they are listed in the Open Directory Project, or DMOZ. DMOZ provides most of the popular search engines with their results.

As well as listing your site the DMOZ, list it in human edited online directories too and make sure that your site has a sitemap which support text links. It is wise to avoid linking with just anyone, rather link with sites that have the same or better ranking than you do and make sure that your links are complimentary to your product or service.

Graphic aspects
Creating SEO can be hard and not a little confusing. A lot of web designers will tell you that you need a lot of eye catching features on your site, fancy fonts, animated sections and lots of beautiful graphics. SEO experts will tell that this it is not necessary to go overboard, and in fact may even work against you.

When you insert graphics in your web pages, use Cascading Style Sheets which separates the content, or keywords, from the code. The result will be that search engine robots are able to ignore formatting code and will find your keywords immediately instead of being slowed down by bad or unnecessary code.

It is very important to accompany your graphics or photographs with descriptive keyword rich alternative attributes. This is helpful for humans viewing your site and will aid in attracting repeat traffic. A simple thing such as putting a caption below a photograph will please the search engine robot, but beware of using fonts which are considered too ‘graphic’, use standard fonts instead.

When a search engine robot finds weird stuff such as flash animation or fonts, it cannot translate it into text and will instead see all the text on your page as a blank space. You actually don’t need flash animation if your content and product is good and by overloading their use can actually tell your customers that you are don’t have a lot of experience in designing and selling on the internet.

Not many people are still unaware that search engine optimisation is essential for your website and the success of your business. Websites that do not need optimisation are indeed a rarity on the Internet today. Search engines are responsible for guiding the majority of your traffic to your website and keywords are an indispensible part of SEO. Unfortunately there are still far too large a percentage of website owners who go at it over enthusiastically and this can be very bad for your website and your business overall.

Keywords and keyword phrases are indeed one of the top SEO Tools that give you high ranking on the search result pages of the search engines. The problem comes in when you go overboard, for there will be consequences. Ask yourself this question: exactly what percentage of keywords do you really need to optimise your website and do you know the do and don’t rules that apply for keywords.
Novice mistakes due to ignorance

Most people have read some articles about the correct places for those important keywords such as in your anchors, the title and your ALT tags to name a few. You cannot simply add Keywords in those areas to boost your optimisation; it has to actually be relevant to the specific image or the location you are linking to. Stuffing keywords willy-nilly all over the place is a total waste of time. There are general rules about the average number of keywords and phrases that will optimize a page.

The norm per page is 3 phrases or keywords and the percentage of keywords that you use in text for the total content on your website should be between three and five percent. To make things easier for the novice there are some excellent tools that help with this. These free online tools can pinpoint the percentage for you of every word that you use on your website and such tools will also show you exactly which of the words on your website is responsible for making your website show up in a search.
Do not mess up in your keyword tags

There is a list of words that the search engines ignore. These are: the, this, because, and, there and that. These are called stop words, so do not waste putting them in. Do not repeat words, for example red lipstick, pink lipstick, toffee lipstick. The search engine will pick up that you are offering lipstick and automatically match the word lipstick with the colours, repeating words needlessly is a good way to get yourself penalized.

The secret of successfully using your chosen keywords and keyword phrases is not difficult to understand. Use them sparingly; use them in the correct and most strategic places for your keyword placement to be a successful part of your search engine optimisation effort for your website. Search engines are not human, but if you insist on annoying them with flooding your web pages with keywords and put them in totally inappropriate places, you are going to annoy the search engines seriously. That is bad news for your website.

Small business owners may not have the resources to invest heavily in their web presence and finding solutions to problems can be like finding a needle in a haystack. You know something’s wrong but don’t have the faintest idea how to fix it. Is it a technical issue? Are your ads not performing well? Don’t know what kind of traffic you’re getting? Website problems can fall into a myriad of categories. So if you think your website sucks, a) it probably does, and b) you should read on.

1. You Aren’t Getting Traffic
You’re excited about the big, expensive job the design team just finished on your site. It looks like a million bucks! Well it’s a shame it isn’t making you a darn cent. Just because it exists doesn’t mean people know about it. Announce it to the world by submitting it to reputable directories and sharing your useful content with others on social bookmarking sites (you do have useful content, don’t you? If not, I’ll cover this later). You can even do some link exchanges — provided the sites you exchange with are reputable — just to get your site crawled early on. Further optimize it for search engines by following good SEO practices, building quality content and generating inbound links from other sites. Once you do that, you’ll need to monitor progress with web analytics software. Google Analytics is free and it has a slick interface. And we know you like pretty things seeing as how you broke the bank on your web site design.

If you’re looking for high ROI, invest your own time in learning search engine marketing. Better yet hire a qualified SEO firm if you have the budget for it. Don’t settle for quick-fix promotional ideas. Build long-term exposure and a solid reputation by attaining high rankings, keeping email/newsletter lists, targeted ad placement and social media participation.

2. You Have Worthless Content
What defines worthless content? Without knowing what topic your web site covers it’s tough to say, but if you have nothing that sets you apart from your top competitors then I’d say you aren’t in good shape. If you don’t know what kind of content people are looking for on the Internet today, take a peek at what’s popular on social bookmarking sites. Observe some of the story titles on the front page of Digg.com:

* “Guinness Stout Beef Stew Recipe for St. Patrick’s Day”
* “In Move to Digital TV, Confusion Is in the Air”
* “Kim Jong-Il Interprets Sunrise As Act Of War”
* “Automatic bacon dispenser?”
* “The 5 Best Obama Photomosaics on Flickr”

Words I would use to describe these topics, in order, are: seasonal, informative, satirical, comical, and trendy. This information is popular because it’s appealing in its uniqueness and is relevant to today’s market. To set yourself apart from your competition, you need to get creative. If you’re the kind of person who had trouble painting by numbers, then hire someone creative. Professional copy writers can be well worth the investment. Create free tools your customers will want to use; write funny or interesting commentary in a blog about your industry; put a new spin on a traditional product or service or offer seasonal discounts. Create a comprehensive F.A.Q. on your site that covers topics your competitors don’t.

Take the time to beef up your content. Be innovative - don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Use the top competitor in your field as a measuring stick.

3. You Have No Call-to-Action
Poor promotional language can have a sabotaging effect if visitors aren’t drawn to your conversion pages. A conversion page is any page that acts as the final step in a visitor submitting a form, making direct contact or purchasing a product online. Obscuring those pages or confusing the visitor on where to go next can make them leave your site. Internet users have a short attention span - give them a clear direction when navigating your web site.

Use your web analytics software again to find out what pages visitors are landing on first. If your home page gets the most traffic, make sure there are clear links to your sub-topics. If inner pages are your most popular landing pages, find out if the traffic is targeted. Once you know the type of visitor and the specific page they land on, then you can start marketing your content more accurately.

The bottom line is to always make clear why, and how, visitors can buy your product. Don’t get too cute with multiple steps, options or convoluted language.

4. You’re Getting Traffic But No Sales
Are you sure the traffic is relevant? If you’re running a pay-per-click campaign, ensure your ads are geo-targeted properly and your ad text or landing pages appeal to your customers. For organic search engine placement, have you done keyword research and analysis before optimizing your content? Look at your web stats and see where your visitors are coming from. What keywords were they searching for when they landed on your site? Are the referring sites relevant to your industry or topic? How much time does the visitor spend on each page? Sales won’t come if your visitors aren’t interested in what you’re selling. This is why preliminary keyword analysis is so important to search engine marketing.

If you’re running ads it’s always good practice to experiment with different ad campaigns. If you put all your eggs in one basket you run the risk of losing out on potential revenue. Elements of your ads that you can change are:

* ad text
* landing page
* specific network your ads are shown across
* topics on which you focus the campaign
* geo-locations targeted

Remember, it doesn’t pay to skimp on initial product/market research and analysis.

5. You’re Getting Relevant Traffic But No Sales
This problem could signal a technical error or navigation problem with your site. Make sure you thoroughly test all functionalities on various web browsers and systems. Submit test forms. Do a link check to spot possible broken links. Is your web hosting service reliable?

If you’ve ruled out technical issues as the cause then turn your attention to the content and customer base. Has your market taken a downturn? Can the lack of sales be attributed to the poor economy? Have you fallen behind your competition in product quality, selection or pricing? Does your web site’s navigation system confuse users? Your web site is the first line of contact between the business and potential customer, but it’s not the only step you need to worry about. Telephone operators or online payment systems can present their own issues.

This is moving away from web site problems but if any part of the sales process takes place away from the site, investigate those areas of your business as well.

If you’re pulling out your hair over a problem with your site and these tips still haven’t helped, feel free to post a comment and I’ll personally have a peek at your site.

Social media marketing is the very effective tool for marketing your products. There is no other alternative marketing strategy for social media marketing. Hence social media marketing is indispensable for any online business. Social media marketing needs a different approach when compared to the other online marketing strategies. For a social media marketing campaign to be successful, it is very much important to understand the tactics that work better. This article is all about the effective social media marketing tips.

1. Creating unique profiles in Social Networks
Social networking sites like myspace and facebook have great importance in business promotion. This part of social media marketing can get lots of traffic to your website along with building credibility among people worldwide. The social networks are now crowded with the online marketers and hence it is important to highlight your profile in the crowd. Though there are lots of customization options available in the social networking sites itself, it is always good to get some professional help for advanced customization. These social media marketing professionals will be able to provide you will very unique profiles which will get noticed by the social media crowd immediately.

2. Don’t try to sell anything in the Social Networks
Many social media marketers just advertise their products through their social media profiles. This is a wrong move. Social networks are for connecting to people and not for advertising the products, Hence your main motive in the social networks should be to connect to as many people as possible. The traffic to your website and the credibility to your services/ products will eventually increase as your networks grow.

3. Don’t leave any social media profiles unattended
Active participation is a basic necessity of any social media marketing campaign. Just creating some profiles in a handful of social media sites doesn’t do any good. You should post some content to the social media profiles frequently and make them look lively. Always remember the fact that Google crawls the profiles that are frequently updated. Moreover, the visitors of your profile will love to see many updates. You should also involve in activities like participating in polls, posting in forums, making comments and connecting with the people of similar interest.

Social Media marketing is a time consuming process and for the moment of truth it is really worth the time you spend. If you don’t have enough time for social media marketing in your tight schedule, there are professional social media marketers who are ready to help you. To the added advantage, these professional social media marketers can analyze your website and create the best marketing strategy. By paying them a nominal fee, you can just sit back and relax, watching your network grow along with the web traffic and business.

Strategic Internet marketing makes earning online profits a breeze. With the multitude of strategic marketing tools readily available on the Internet, there is no way you can miss out on all the profits… and fun. We’re talking about blogs, forums, viral websites and more!

However, this doesn’t mean that you can just recklessly immerse yourself in every Internet marketing application you come across. Not everything works for every person.

Planning
It’s highly important that you create a plan before diving into anything. Even if you don’t have any money at stake, your time, effort, and credibility are all important factors to consider.

Planning is one of the most important first steps in strategic Internet marketing. It’s a basic concept applicable to every situation. Planning decreases your business financial risks drastically. If you’re just a beginner, then there’s more reason for you to be cautious. Make wise investments.

Research also comes with planning. After all, how can you plan if you don’t know what the available options are? Find out what others are saying about certain Internet marketing strategies. Learn from their experiences. Find out the source of each failed or successful marketing method and go from there.

Scaling Up
One great example of strategic Internet marketing is scaling up your business. Knowing how to scale the business up and how to proceed with it is important, because it helps you earn profits with consistency.

You don’t have to rely on beginner’s luck all the time. Know which pattern works best and go with the one that gives you the best results.

If you have a blog and would like to scale it up to another level, you have more than a few alternatives to choose from. A blog that receives over 500 visitors a day (which many marketers online experience on a daily basis) is already ripe for a scale up or expansion.

At this point, many bloggers feel that the time to add a forum has come. A forum gives your “500 visitors a day” more opportunities to interact with you and their fellow readers as well.

The lesson here is recognizing when your blog has received sufficient traffic to consider the option of investing in another opportunity. A message board, also known as a forum today, is an excellent option to scale your blog to the next level.

Even if the blog does not attract that many sales, and even if the blog was done for the purpose of bringing sponsors in and other monetization purposes, a forum has been proven to do well statistically as evidenced by traffic averages.

The magnificent opportunity with scaling the blog is that as far as internet marketing strategic points go, it’s yet another way to provide continuous revenue to your network in time.

However, increased traffic also means increased responsibilities. A forum is not something that can regulate itself. You still have to devise ways to keep track of what is going on in the discussions. It’s your responsibility to know what is going on in your backyard.

Not only does this help you attract more members, it also offers you invaluable insights into what else you can do to improve the blog. There is an adage “Do not bite the hand that feeds you.” The people in your forum sustain the interest in your blog. Don’t blow them off too quickly.

Keywords
Another effective Internet marketing strategy is the right use of keywords to get good search engine rankings. Choosing the right keywords can significantly increase the number of visitors to your blog or website.

There is a distinct difference between the number of searches for the word “dog” than for the word “dogs.” Of course, you don’t have to be that specific; unless of course, you’re a hardcore keyword person. This example just goes to show how using the right keyword can lead to greater or lesser traffic.

Other Strategic Internet Marketing Campaigns
There are many ways to start your strategic marketing campaign with your online business. Having a blog and forum is not the only way you can advance your business to greater heights.

There are many more exciting ways that could help you market your business to your advantage. The current recession poses no hindrance here. Even if many people are ranting about slow sales and stagnant businesses, strategic Internet marketing still has a considerable effect on people.

If you are an Internet marketer who sells how-to information, you can earn money faster if you present concrete proof of your product’s effect.

Presenting success rates and testimonials won’t hurt either. If you feel at a loss for what to do, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Why should people buy from you? Why should they give your product a second glance, especially with recession knocking on their door?

Overall, strategic Internet marketing has a lot to do with common sense. Always have a plan ready in your head. Don’t forget to make plans B and C just in case you need to regroup. Don’t be afraid to move forward.

A blog might have a huge impact on your visitors, but a blog with a forum opens up more opportunities for growth and sales! Use every element to your advantage. The keywords you use obviously have an impact on the number of people who stumble across your blog or website. Choose your keywords wisely. Do not turn away advice from strangers. Consider them and think through each more than twice.

Sticky blog? I am sure you pretty much know what a sticky blog is, but just in case you are not entirely sure, let’s take a moment to describe one. Let us say that you enjoy a sudden surge of visitors due to one reason or another. Certainly, you would be ecstatic the entire day. But what about the day after? And the next? Would those people still be visiting your blog?

That is the idea of a sticky blog – you get to entice people to keep coming back for more. Getting exposure is only the start. What you want are repeat visitors.

So how do you make your blog sticky? Here are some practical tips which you can employ NOW.

Create your visual design with “sticky” in mind.
And how do you do this? Put yourself in the shoes of a visitor. What will make you keep coming back? For sure, one element would be easy navigation. Make sure that your archives are easy to access. Use relatively large fonts. Stay away from a combination of colors that hurt the eyes. You follow?

Highlight recent posts and most popular posts.
What you want is for your readers to be able to find your posts easily. While your archives can help a lot, especially for the recent posts, it would be much easier for readers to find a section devoted entirely to these. As for the most popular posts, why not make them even more popular by creating links to them as well? More so, you want new visitors to sample the best of what you have to offer, and your most popular posts give them exactly that.

You may have gotten into the habit of thinking of your article marketing as just one article here and another article there, but it really helps to approach your article submissions with a big picture view.

Submit just a few articles, and you probably won't see drastic results, but submit a handful of articles every month for 12 months and you will see what marketing momentum can do for your site!

Consistency is key with submitting articles as with any online marketing tool, and creating and implementing an article marketing strategy can inspire that consistency.

I use an article marketing strategy myself that is comprised of a series of simple steps.

Last time I told you about Step 1: Establish your baseline.

Today we're moving on to Step 2, which is: Establish the baseline of your competitors.

Why in the world would you want to look closely at how your main competitors are doing?

1) Well, for one thing, trying to get to the top of the search engines is not something you do in a vacuum–your success depends on how other sites are doing in relation to you.

If you're at number 50 in the rankings for your keyword in Google, and the site that is ranked #1 is also working hard to market their site and building links each month and gaining PR, then you will have a clear idea as to what you're up against.

2) Competition will spur you on. Think of article marketing and SEO as a race–you do best when you have competition. If you're just running by yourself and someone is timing you, you probably won't make your best time.

But, if you're embedded in a flock of speedsters running their hearts out, you will most likely run harder too.

Keeping track of your main competitor's status helps remind you that you're in competition with other sites, and how well they perform with SEO influences how well you perform.

3) Keeping track of your competitors can give you insights and be consoling when the road gets bumpy.

Ask anyone who is consciously and consistently staying on top of their website's progress–it's not always uphill every single month. Sometimes your site may take a dive in an area for completely unexplainable reasons. When this happens, the tendency can be to overreact and think, "What did I do to deserve this?" and then not knowing if the sudden change had anything to do with you at all, you start making changes out of desperation.

But when you keep track of your competitor's progress every month, it's like you're running with a pack.

What affects you may very likely be affecting them as well, and that can ease your mind that whatever the reason for the unexplainable change in your site's backlinks, ranking or whatever, that it was across the board and not just affecting you, and that with some patience things will go back to normal.

4) Why not learn from your competitors? If a site is sitting at #1 in Google, they are there for a very good reason. You may find that your competitors are doing some things that are benefiting them greatly that you may be able to incorporate into your own marketing plan.

Those are the reasons why I track my main competitors and why I advise others to do so as well.

Let's go over the steps on how to do this:

How do you know who your main competitor's are?

It's simple enough to tell–type each of your keywords into Google, and see what site comes up at #1. The site at #1 is your main competitor.

When I started my article marketing strategy last year, I focused in on 3 keywords, so for each of those keywords I have a main competitor.

What info should you track for your competition?

Mostly the same info that you are tracking for yourself as we discussed in Step 1: How To Create An Article Marketing Strategy

*The search engine ranking for the keyword. (And of course for at least the first month, that search engine ranking will be #1, since that is how you determined that they were your main competitor.)

*Number of backlinks. Here's a tutorial on how to do a back link check.

*The Google PageRank–you can find the PageRank (PR) by installing the Google Toolbar and looking at the PageRank indicator. Remember, the web page that you will be keeping track of is the web page that is at #1 for your keyword term. Sometimes this is not the top level domain of the site (http://www.theirwebsite.com), but rather an inner page (http://www.theirwebsite.com/page2). When you're doing your checks each month, just be sure that you're consistently checking the same web page for your competitor. It helps to write down on your spreadsheet the exact web page that you're checking so that you can remember each month.

And that's it–on the same day that you do your stats check for your own site, also do the stats check for your main competitors.Some months you'll notice that they did increase their backlinks, some months you'll see that they lost backlinks, and other months you'll see that they just stayed the same.

This info will give the stats for your own site a whole new dimension. It will be encouraging to you to see your site making advancements in backlinks or PR or search engine ranking, and you can sort of see yourself on a horse galloping up from behind getting closer and closer to overtaking the person out in front–at least that's how I like to think of it!

If you're aiming for being #1 for a keyword and you're way back in the rankings, you can still see how you're making progress each month. Really galloping up the search engine rankings is not something that happens overnight, and sometimes it can be one step forward two steps back, but over time you will see a trend of steady improvement.

If you are running a commercial website, you realize the importance of a high amount of traffic and visitors is to the website. Network marketers realize that traffic can be converted into critical leads needed for success.

This is why it is important to take the right steps in order to expand the amount of traffic you are receiving. There have been a number of ways to promote this concept over the years. Some methods have lost their effectiveness and this drives the need for compelling new strategy. One such new strategy is utilizing giveaway events in order to increase traffic and leads.

As the name implies, giveaway events involve providing something for free in order to attract a large number of visitors and potential leads. This strategy has been employed in the real world for centuries as a way of boosting sales. It should not come as a surprise that the concept has moved into the online realm.

There are multitudes of ways one can devise an online giveaway event. Here is a brief overview of one way it can be done. Of course, you can tweak and modify as much as you like based upon your particular needs.

Setting Up a Giveaway Event

- It is important to pick what you want to give away. Obviously, it would be beneficial to give a gift away that relates to what your primary business is related to. For example, if you are involved with the health and fitness field, it would be best to give away something related to health and fitness. For example, coupons that offer discounts on health drinks would be a solid giveaway.

- Set up a date for the giveaway event. Since the giveaway will be intended to draw a large number of people together for an interactive event, a specified time and place is important. The place will be a website community and we will delve into that component soon.

- A website must be set up to promote the event. The website will have a public and private area. The public area will announce the specific giveaway you will be offering. It will also announce the time and place. More importantly, it will have a section where members have to register. This is so they will receive a password to enter the private area during the event. Of course, the information you acquire in the sign up process will eventually be used to compile your lead list.

- Of course, you will need to promote the event. Traditional strategies such as optimizing the giveaway site for the search engines and promotional blogging are helpful. However, setting up a social networking site (or several social networking sites) can pull in a lot of people in a short amount of time.

- It would also significantly help your give away event if you allowed the advertising to go viral. In other words, you should suggest anyone interested in your giveaway event to tell their friends contacts about it.

- The actual giveaway event should take place in a private section of the website. Live chat rooms and message boards should be integrated into the private section. Games and contests could be r un in order to add to the fun environment of the giveaway event. Of course, during the event, you could introduce and promote you MLM business while solidifying a relationship with those potential network members that have taken part in your giveaway.

In Summation

Giveaway events have the potential to build lists and expand traffic to a commercial site promoting MLM or other online ventures. It is not difficult to set up a giveaway event. Simply planning out all the steps in advance can increase the odds it will run smoothly and effectively.