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Posts Tagged ‘advertising’
Report Puts Facebook, Google Ad Values on Display
posted by Linc Wonham @ 9:30 AM
Monday, May 21, 2012
SEO software provider WordStream has released new research comparing the value of Facebook advertising to Google’s Display Network – the portion of Google’s advertising business that allows advertisers to place display ads on Google sites such as YouTube, Gmail and Blogger and over 2 million other websites rather than alongside search results.
The results are compiled in an infographic that evaluates the two models on criteria such as advertising reach, ad performance, revenues and growth, ad formats and targeting options, and highlights of the study appear below:
• Facebook and Google both have huge potential reach, with Facebook boasting 845 million monthly active users and Google owning the world’s largest online display advertising network.
• The average click-through rate (CTR) of an ad on the Google Display Network is 0.4 percent – almost 10 times as high as the typical Facebook ad. Average CTR on Facebook is under 0.05 percent, about half the industry average for online banner ads. At the same time, costs per thousand impressions on Facebook are climbing.
• The Google Display Network offers twice as many ad formats as Facebook, including in-video ads, mobile-game ads, support for industry-standard image ads and more.
• Facebook does not yet support mobile advertising and has more limited targeting options than Google.
The comparison clearly suggests that Google currently offers advertisers more value in terms of both options and results for advertisers, and that Facebook has a lot of catching up to do to provide advertisers with the best possible advertising solutions.
“So far, Facebook’s advertising platform hasn’t kept pace with the explosive growth of its social network, and it remains to be seen if CEO Mark Zuckerberg even wants to focus on advertising as a source of revenue,” says Larry Kim, founder and CTO of WordStream. “In his 2,500+ word letter to shareholders this month, he mentioned advertising just once.”
WordStream provides search marketing software and PPC services aimed at helping marketers get better results from their PPC and SEO efforts.
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Three New Additions to the Adobe Marketing Suite
posted by Michael Garrity @ 3:00 PM
Sunday, May 20, 2012
At this week's Adobe Digital
Marketing Summit in London, hot on the heels of the release of Creative Suite 6 and the
Creative Cloud, the software company announced three new products.
Each release is aimed at helping marketers “Build compelling personalized experiences that address complex digital marketing problems,” says Kevin Cochrane, Adobe's vice president of enterprise marketing.
Content management on the Web is fundamentally changing and it was with that in mind, Cochrane explained, that Adobe crafted a set of new products to help digital marketers focus on creating not only compelling content but also compelling user experiences. He identified three primary issues that digital marketers face in the current environment.
The first is, obviously, driving revenue growth, especially with consumers who seem to become increasingly indifferent toward online advertising. On today’s Web, users are interested in targeted, personalized experiences, or they’re not interested at all.
The second consideration Adobe made was with regards to marketing budgets, specifically ensuring that every dollar spent on a digital marketing campaign is spent wisely. Thus, Adobe's solution is designed to help marketers optimize their spending by measuring and analyzing the impact of their efforts to determine the most efficient places in which they spend.
Finally, Adobe wanted to find ways to monetize a marketer’s audience by making each user they reach a valuable asset in driving conversions.
The resulting products were Adobe CQ 5.5 Social Communities, CQ eCommerce and CQ Cloud Manager.
Cloud Manager
A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) app for
businesses to quickly launch marketing initiatives in the cloud, providing
access to an integrated set of Web Experience Management (WEM) services for the
creation, management, measurement and optimization of user-personalized
experiences on websites, mobile devices and social media.
After starting a marketing campaign, Cloud Manager lets users remotely control a complete digital marketing solution from the cloud, leverage capabilities available through a rich partner ecosystem and monitor Adobe CQ and cloud infrastructure using real-time metering capabilities, among other handy features.
E-Commerce
An integrated solution that also leverages Adobe’s WEM platform. eCommerce manages and
optimizes the buying process for websites, mobile devices and social media by delivering a branded, personalized experience
incorporating the hybris multichannel commerce software.
Extending the reach of personalized digital marketing campaigns across these channels allows marketers to present a targeted experience to consumers from the point-of-engagement to the point-of-sale, regardless of the device they’re using. In addition, e-commerce sites and apps can be delivered on-premises or from the cloud, and using eCommerce in tandem with Cloud Manager lets marketers speed the creation of branded, personalized e-commerce sites that continuously scale to meet demands across all channels.
Social
Communities
Marketers can better leverage social engagement across
owned digital properties to build loyalty and drive conversions. Information
from leading social networks (gathered, again, over multiple channels) helps
organizations make a social connection with users by allowing them to log into
their Facebook or Twitter accounts, and then use their profile information to
personalize the consumer’s experience.
This product can also be used with other sources, like a CRM or website profile, to create a more comprehensive view of each unique customer.
Plus, new social plugins make it possible for customers to share content with their friends, making every new customer a potential brand advocate, and immediately increasing each consumer’s value. Using this solution with eCommerce lets businesses embed social elements into the product selection and purchasing processes of their owned properties.
This new suite of digital marketing products has been built to appeal to each unique consumer’s interests from the beginning, and then maintain that personalized experience throughout the purchasing process to increase the chances of conversion, maximize the value of the money spent and, with any luck, create a lifelong customer and brand advocate.
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There are some naysayers when it comes to social advertising on Facebook, but advertisers investment in the channel seems to be paying off, at least according to research from ad management platform Marin Software.
According to Marin, Facebook social ad budgets in the U.S. increase from 5 percent to 23 percent in the last 12 months (Editors note: Facebook introduced social ad units such as Sponsored Stories in February 2011). Marin's research suggests that by the end of 2012, social ads will account for nearly 50 percent of Facebook ad budgets.
"With Facebook's introduction of Sponsored Stories last year, two questions arose -- will advertisers adopt the new ads and will the new ads produce revenue results?" said Matt Lawson, vice president of marketing and partnerships at Marin Software. "Marin Software's research confirms that answer is an emphatic 'Yes,' as budgets continue to increase and will soon represent 50 percent of Facebook ad investments."
What is appealing about Facebook's social ads is that they work - and I say that from experience. Consumer engagement with Facebook ads, as measured by click through rates, has increased 50 percent over thee last 12 months.
"In the last year advertisers have directed more budgets to social ads and Facebook users have responded by clicking more often," said Lawson. "This trend is not only positive for Facebook from a revenue standpoint, but also provides important validation of the opportunity advertisers have to drive revenues from word of mouth marketing efforts."
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Examining Affluent Males’ Web Preferences & Behaviors
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 8:53 AM
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Knowing your audience is one of the fundamentals of success in digital marketing – or any marketing, for that matter. And while their reputation may be battered and bruised in the wake of the 1 percent ruckus, marketers consistently and continually want access to one group in particular – affluent males.
A recent study by search marketing agency iProspect reveals some interesting information about this key demographic. According to the research, there are 19 million affluent men on the Web – defined as over the age of 18 with a household income of at least $100,000 – and they are researching, shopping and spending more than ever.
Highlights from iProspect’s “The Affluent Male: What His Online Behavior Can Teach Luxury Brand Marketers” study include:
- 40 percent are shopping online at least twice a week, and those shopping multiple times are spending over $30K annually.
- The vast majority of affluent males (91 percent) access a PC at least once daily while 77 percent have a smartphone and 50 percent have a tablet.
“The old adage that men hate to shop is being upended by the digital experience. Not only are affluent men shopping online more, but this demographic is doing extensive research, shopping and then purchasing online, which provides advertisers with multiple touch points to reach him. Understanding the habits of the high-end consumer allows iProspect to help our clients develop well-integrated digital campaigns that connect with this audience and deliver results," says Robert Murray, global chief executive officer, iProspect.
It is this group’s advertising preferences that are likely of the most interest, however. In terms of visibility, 71 percent of affluent males have seen ads on a PC while just one in three have seen them on mobile phones or tablets. On the whole, however, affluent males are more engaged with search than the general public. In fact, 96 percent used search to learn more about products, so it should come as no surprise that search ads, especially for mobile devices, remain top-of-mind for marketers looking to increase engagement with this audience.
“By all indications, this segment has untapped purchasing power which can and will trickle down to non-luxury brands,” says Murray. “The best digital marketing strategies integrate practices across all channels. For brand managers, knowing how to effectively communicate to affluent men will be a key factor to success in an increasingly digital world.”
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Tracking the Behavioral Targeted Ad Debate
posted by Michael Garrity @ 3:00 PM
Saturday, April 21, 2012
The major advantage of online advertising is the ability to target ads to
consumers based on each individual’s interests, geographic location and other personal characteristics, which ultimately makes
these ads more effective for marketers and consumers alike.
However, the fact that advertisers are able to track people based on their interests and online behavior is understandably off-putting to many Web users. As a result, consumers and consumer advocacy groups have come out to demand transparency with regards to advertiser practices.
Since this push, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has gotten involved, most notably by introducing the Final Privacy Framework Report to outline guidelines as to how companies can and cannot use consumer data gathered on the Internet.
Two primary aspects of the industry’s self-regulatory commissions, the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), have both seen a significant swell of participation over the last few years. At present, the NAI boasts over 80 different companies as partners.
To opt out or not to opt out ...
The real important figures, which are outlined in a new
infographic by Loeb & Loeb, have to do with how many consumers are actually
opting out. In the last four years, nearly 10 million users have visited NAI’s
opt-out site. That may not seem like much, but 2011 saw 5.9 million of those
visitors, nearly twice as many as 2008 to 2010 combined. In that time, 1.75 million (or about 17 percent) of these visitors have
opted out of cookie tracking.
In the end, this seems like it is going to be a real issue for online advertisers. One Pew survey points out that as many as 73 percent of consumers are “not OK” with search engines keeping tabs on their searches to personalize results, which is in effect the same process that marketers use to serve targeted ads. This begs the question: If the majority of Web users begin to reject behavioral tracking, how can (or should) marketers attempt to continue serving relevant ads that are as effective as their current offerings?
View the full infographic below:
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The popular microblogging site Tumblr will start selling advertising space next month.
The blogging site’s CEO David Karp made the announcement at the Ad Age Digital Conference in New York. The announcement was somewhat surprising because back in 2010 Karp had very publicly said that the company was “Pretty opposed to advertising.”
Although there are still uncertainties about how these ads will work, they will reportedly be featured on Tumblr’s radar service and advertisers will be able to start purchasing ad space starting on May 2nd.
With social media proven to be a valuable advertising option for marketers, opening up Tumblr as an advertising platform may just be what the company needs to take it to the next level.
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Validating Digital Ad Delivery with Comscore’s vCE
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 6:30 PM
Monday, January 23, 2012
Comscore recently announced the release of Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE), a product designed to validate digital ad delivery. The measurement solution provides a view into campaign delivery and a “verified” assessment of ad-exposed audiences.
Unlike other solutions, vCE provides an account of impressions delivered across a variety of dimensions – for example, are ads delivered in-view, in the right geography, in a brand safe environment and absent of fraudulent delivery. A U.S.-based vCE Charter Study involving 12 brands found that while ads are being delivered they are not always “in-view” or worse “on target” resulting in never having a chance to make an impact on the user.
“The display advertising market today is characterized by an overabundance of inventory, often residing on parts of a web page that are never viewed by the user. This dilutes the impact of campaigns for advertisers and represents a drag on prices to publishers,” said Dr. Magid Abraham, President and CEO of comScore.
“Conversely, some ads below the fold are quite visible and deserve more credit. comScore’s introduction of vCE signals an evolution in digital advertising that will bring greater transparency and accountability to the market. Ultimately, this type of third-party validation will help identify and appropriately price the proportion of online ad inventory that delivers value, improve buying and selling decisions, and instill more confidence and trust in the industry.”
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Advertising spending online expected to surpass print this year
posted by Technology @ 3:04 PM
Friday, January 20, 2012
U.S. online advertising spending is expected to grow 23.3% to $39.5 billion this year, pushing it ahead of total advertising spending in print newspapers and magazines, according to an eMarketer report.
Meanwhile, print advertising spending is expected to fall to $33.8 billion in 2012 from $36 billion last year, the market research company said.
"Advertisers' comfort level with integrated marketing is greater than ever, and this is helping more advertisers — and more large brands — put a greater share of dollars online," said David Hallerman, eMarketer's principal analyst.
The 2012 estimates come after a robust year for U.S. advertising in 2011. eMarketer said online ad spending grew 23% to $32.03 billion last year while total ad spending rose 3.4% to $158.9 billion.
The market research company said firms are funneling more advertising money online because of the growing amount of time that consumers spend with digital platforms and advertisers' view of the Internet as a more measurable medium, especially as the soft economy "forces businesses to be more accountable with their ad dollars."
Overall, total media ad spending in the U.S. is expected to grow an estimated 6.7% to $169.48 billion this year, boosted by the elections and summer Olympics in London, eMarketer said.
RELATED:
Twitter begins selling political advertising
Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo team up in online ad deal
Advertisers start using facial recognition to tailor pitches
– Andrea Chang
Image: Print versus online advertising spending. Credit: eMarketer
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VW’s Super Bowl teaser video ‘The Bark Side’ goes viral
posted by Technology @ 1:10 PM
Friday, January 20, 2012
This post has been updated. See the note below for details.
A Volkswagen teaser that features dogs dressed as "Star Wars" characters barking out the "Imperial March" theme song associated with the evil Darth Vader has gone viral, generating more than 3 million views on YouTube since Wednesday night.
VW created the teaser, called "The Bark Side," in advance of a commercial it plans to air during the third quarter of the Super Bowl, scheduled for Feb. 5.
The teaser aired during Wednesday's episode of "The Middle" on ABC. It was also posted to YouTube that evening.
Volkswagen gained both critical acclaim and sales publicity during last year's Super Bowl, when it aired "The Force."
That commercial also used the "Imperial March" music from "Star Wars" and showed a child in a Darth Vader costume attempting unsuccessfully to use the movies' legendary "force" on a variety of household appliances and other objects. To his surprise, he's able to use the force to start a Passat -– with a little unobserved help from his father.
[Updated at 12:31 p.m., Jan. 19: Mike Sheldon, chief executive of Deutsch LA, the Marina del Rey firm that does the creative work for Volkswagen, told The Times' Meg James that "The Bark" was the firm's way of trying to stay "one step ahead" of the competition. He added that the teaser was trending "faster than 'The Force did, and this isn't even a Super Bowl ad."]
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Toyota shows off smallest, cheapest Prius
GM once again world's biggest automobile seller
– Jerry Hirsch
twitter.com/LATimesJerry
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Mobile Clicks and Mobile Ad Spend in the UK
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 3:15 PM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Ad management platform Marin Software released findings from its Quarterly UK Online Advertising Report. If you’re looking to get the most value out of your ad spend, it is towards mobile and tablet devices you should look.
Mobile and tablet users accounted for 12 percent of all UK paid search clicks in December 2011 according to Marin, Which represents a 49 percent increase in click share as a percentage of the total since October 2011. Over the same period, search share on these devices increased 29 percent to 7.5 percent of total search advertising spend. When volume of searches outpaces spent, clicks on campaigns are typically less expensive – and that’s a good sign.
"In December 2011, we saw search marketers allocate a larger portion of budgets to mobile devices than ever before," said Matt Lawson, Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at Marin Software. "However, the budgets for mobile search advertising still lag user adoption of devices. Given this gap, we expect mobile search to see continued investment as advertising dollars chase consumer behaviour in 2012. Marin Software enables clients to be more efficient in their mobile marketing initiatives, offering advertisers a powerful, intuitive platform for managing desktop and mobile campaigns within a single interface."
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Aligning purchase history and direct response performance data with demographic, behavioral, and influencer action data is nearly a requirement for digital marketers today.
There's big money involved and companies are integrating their platforms to provide the most benefit to their users.
Data management platform Lotame for example just announced that it has incorporated the predictive segmentation solutions from Alliant. The integration gives advertisers the ability to create and targe audience segments (36 in total – data is anonymized) by combining Alliant's U.S. purchase history and direct response performance data. Segments are made up of households with a history of responding to promotional offers from some of the premier direct response marketers.
“Alliant Online Audiences is promotional science applied at the browser level,” said Doug Pollack, director of data sales & analytics, Lotame. “URL and meta-tag data collection often result in broad-based assumptions about Web site visitors. Because Alliant’s direct marketing performance data is based on actual past purchases, it represents a game-changer in predictive power. The targeting power of direct marketing metrics facilitates more relevant ads and offers. We believe our clients will benefit tremendously from Lotame’s new relationship with Alliant.”
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Online Retail Search Spend – Holiday 2011
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 8:30 AM
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Digital marketing software provider Kenshoo released some interesting data from its annual Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report.
The findings, which focus on the week before Christmas, were based on more than 25 billion total search advertising impressions, nearly 300 million clicks and over 7 million online sales transactions. That's quite the data set, people.
According to Kenshoo, online retail revenue drive by search advertising increased 24 percent year-over-year, with online retail search ad spend increasing at 39 percent year-over-year.
"The pace of online shopping in the U.S. continued to surge all the way through Christmas this year,” said Aaron Goldman, chief marketing officer at Kenshoo. "By and large, retailers anticipated the demand and increased paid search budgets while consumers responded in kind with their clicks and their cash.”
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Sens. Herb Kohl and Mike Lee call for Google antitrust probe
posted by Technology @ 2:46 PM
Monday, December 19, 2011
The chairman and top Republican on the Senate antitrust subcommittee have asked regulators to investigate Google Inc.'s search practices, saying they were concerned the company was biasing results to favor its own products.
The senators — panel Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — sent a letter Monday to the Federal Trade Commission, which already is conducting a broad antitrust investigation into Google's business practices, including search and advertising.
Kohl and Lee questioned Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at a contentious hearing in September. Schmidt's answers, along with testimony from two Google competitors, raised questions that should be explored by regulators, the senators said in their letter to FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz.
"We believe these allegations regarding Google's search engine practices raise important competition issues," wrote Kohl and Lee, whose committee has been conducting its own review of Google. "We are committed to ensuring that consumers benefit from robust competition in online search and that the Internet remains the source of much free-market innovation."
At the hearing, senators heard complaints from the chief executives of local review site Yelp and online product comparison site Nextag that Google abuses its search engine dominance at the expense of smaller competitors.
Asked by Lee during the hearing whether Google "cooked" its search results on three product-comparison websites to favor Google Shopping results, Schmidt responded, "Senator … I can assure you we have not cooked anything."
Schmidt strongly denied the accusations. But Kohl and Lee said Monday that there were enough questions to warrant an FTC review.
RELATED:
FTC launches investigation of Google
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– Jim Puzzanghera in Washington
Photo: Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt takes the oath at a Senate antitrust subcommittee hearing in September. Credit: Associated Press.
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Saudi prince invests $300 million in Twitter
posted by Technology @ 11:59 AM
Monday, December 19, 2011
Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has scooped up a substantial stake in Twitter.
The multibillionaire has made a $300-million investment in the popular social media site that activists used during the Arab Spring uprisings. That's roughly a 3% stake in the San Francisco company.
Twitter confirmed the investment, which was announced in a press release from Kingdom Holding Co. that touted Alwaleed's desire to invest in "promising, high-growth businesses with global impact."
A nephew of Saudi King Abdullah, Alwaleed owns 95% of Kingdom Holding, which has stakes in Apple, Citigroup and General Motors. He is one of the richest people in the world, with a net worth of nearly $20 billion, according to Forbes magazine. For more on him, check out this Charlie Rose interview from last year.
Fortune is reporting that he bought his stake in Twitter from insiders, not the company. Twitter spokesman Matt Graves declined to provide any further details. The prince's investment in Twitter has been rumored since October.
The San Francisco company's worth was pegged at $8.4 billion in a funding round led by Digital Sky Technologies in October.
Twitter says it has 100 million active users who send 250 million tweets per day.
One of an elite group of privately held social media companies sporting multibillion valuations, Twitter is taking its time before going public. Facebook, which has more than 800 million users, is planning a $10-billion initial public offering. Twitter is also seen as a major player in social media because of its popularity. The company is still working on its fledgling advertising business.
Twitter's advertising business is expected to generate about $140 million this year, up from $45 million last year, according to EMarketer. Twitter may generate $260 million in ad revenue in 2012, the research firm said. Twitter now has more than 700 employees.
“We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend,” Ahmed Reda Halawani, Kingdom Holdings executive director of private equity and international investments, said in a statement.
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Square and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in June at D9. Credit: Asa Mathat / All Things Digital
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Enjoy a virtual holiday meal hosted by Wieden + Kennedy
posted by Technology @ 5:03 PM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Instead of sending out a traditional Christmas card, advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy's Amsterdam office has invited its friends, family, clients, and now the public to a super weird virtual holiday meal with humanoid robot dolls.
Here's how it works: You reserve 30 minutes of table time at virtualholidaydinner.com and at the appointed time you and four friends or co-workers or family members, or strangers — all call into the dinner via Skype where your heads will appear on flat screens that sit on top the robot doll bodies. The company, known for its work with Nike, has employed facial tracking software so that if you turn your head at home, your virtual robot doll also turns his or her head. The room that the dolls are sitting in has been elaborately decorated to add to the holiday spirit.
This is the second year that the agency's Amsterdam office has hosted the virtual holiday meal, but this year it added three scripts to the mix — so while you are sitting at the virtual table you can figure out something to say. The lines to the script appear on participants computer screens karaoke style, so you know what to say and when.
Here's a sample from the "Business as Usual" dinner script:
CLIENT TWO: Perhaps, since we are all here, you’d like to try to sell us a digital idea that you know is not possible to make unless we quadruple the budget.
AGENCY MD: That would be incredibly irresponsible of us. Shall we begin?
CLIENT ONE: Before you start let me just say that our ambition for this project is to make a world first idea that connects all living people on the planet in a purposeful way.
AGENCY WRITER: That’s it?
We spoke with someone who had done several of these dinners already and asked if the whole experience was as awkward as it looked like it could be.
"It's totally awkward," she said. "It's funny, but it's also super awkward. First of all you are on a robot doll, so it is kind of weird, but I think once you get started with the script it's hilarious and then once it's over it's super awkward again."
That's kind of exactly how we'd imagine it would be.
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– Deborah Netburn
Image: A picture of the virtual holiday meal in action. Credit: Wieden + Kennedy
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Standard Mobile Ad Sizes from the MMA
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 10:30 PM
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has released mobile ad unit guidelines which address the buying, selling, and creation of mobile ads for smartphones, feature phones and tablets.
The MMA analyzed over 150 billion mobile ad impressions and identified a list of 60 common formats which was pared down to just six which the trade group is calling the Mobile Universal Ad Package.
"The guidelines issued today vastly simplify the mobile ad landscape, creating six standard ad unit sizes, out of the tangle of the more than 60 unit sizes currently in use in the marketplace," said MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart. "By standardizing around a limited and widely accepted set of ad sizes, mobile advertising becomes exponentially easier to add to the marketing mix for marketers everywhere."
The guidelines call for three small size ads meant for feature phones including 120×120, 168×28 and 216×36 (in pixels). Smartphones have three banner ad sizes which are larger at 300×250, 300×50 and 320×50.
Networks and publishers will have until the end of March 2012 to become compliant.
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Google might be ramping up its fight against thin affiliate sites, but at the same time it is rewarding “advanced publishers” and advertisers by launching the first version of its Affiliate Network API.
The API provides an opportunity to automate some important tasks related to the Google Affiliate Network. For example, publishers can use the API to access data that advertisers have chosen to share such as payout rank. And of course it will work in reverse as well.
Advertisers can use the API to access data on publishers such as publisher classification.
And let’s not forget the developers. The API also provides access to event-level data for transactions and actions which can be integrated into internal systems and applications.
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‘All-American Muslim’: Kayak calls show terrible, apologizes to customers
posted by Technology @ 12:45 PM
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The controversy over the reality TV show "All-American Muslim" continues, with Kayak.com apologizing to customers Wednesday for deciding not to advertise on the TLC show next year. But an executive at the travel site said the network "was not upfront with us about the nature of this show" and added that "mostly, I just thought the show sucked."
In a letter posted on its website titled "We handled this poorly," Kayak's Chief Marketing Officer Robert Birge apologizes to "anyone who was offended" by how the travel site handled its decision not to continue advertising on the show when it returns in January.
"We decided to advertise on it in the first place because we adamantly support tolerance and diversity," the letter said. "Our 150-person team includes people from all over the world, and from all walks of life.…We get what America is about."
However, Birge noted that the company understood the decision "comes across as bending to bigotry" and said employees at the company were "very unhappy with how I handled this."
In explaining the decision, he said Kayak's approach to advertising is to place ads based on who watches a program, and not its political leaning. Birge said the company deemed the show a worthy topic at first, but looked into the program more carefully after receiving angry emails over its decision to advertise.
"The first thing I discovered was that TLC was not upfront with us about the nature of this show. As I said, it's a worthy topic, but any reasonable person would know that this topic is a particular lightning rod," he said. "We believe TLC went out of their way to pick a fight on this, and they didn't let us know their intentions. That's not a business practice that generally gets repeat business from us… Sadly, TLC is now enjoying the attention from this controversy."
At the end of the letter, Birge wrote: "Lastly, I watched the first two episodes. Mostly, I just thought the show sucked. Based on our dealings with TLC and the simple assessment of the show, I decided we should put our money elsewhere. Apologies again."
"All-American Muslim," which premiered last month, follows the day-to-day lives of five Muslim American families in Dearborn, Mich., a suburb of Detroit with a large Muslim population. Cast members talk about how their faith affects their actions and choices.
Other companies, including Lowe's Cos., have also come under heavy criticism from activists, some politicians and customers after pulling its ads from a reality-TV show featuring Muslim Americans.
The North Carolina-based home improvement giant decided to stop advertising on the show after complaints by the Florida Family Assn., a conservative Christian group that lobbies companies to promote "traditional, biblical values."
The association praised the move but the decision sparked an immediate backlash. State Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) called the move "bigoted, shameful, and un-American." A petition on SignOn.org that calls on companies to keep advertising on the show has gathered thousands of signatures. Activist and actress Mia Farrow joined the battle in a Twitter post and urged a boycott of Lowe's.
RELATED:
Lowe's faces backlash after pulling ads from 'All-American Muslim'
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– Andrea Chang
Photo: Suehaila Amen is featured in "All-American Muslim." Credit: Adam Rose / TLC
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2011′s Key Developments in Paid Search at Google
posted by Website Magazine @ 1:45 PM
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
We all know that the search
engine marketing industry
moves at break-neck speed.
This has always been the case and it
doesn’t show any signs of slowing.
Now that we’ve reached the end of
2011, this is a good chance to take a step back and review
the new PPC tactics, tools and strategies that have become
predominant over the past year.
Some of the items on this list were freshly introduced
to the world during 2011. Some of these items were
launched before 2011 but they have gained more importance
to PPC managers within the previous 12 months.
Mobile devices and tablets go prime-time: Sure,
ads have been running on mobile devices for a while now.
However, in 2011 things really took off in regards to
search volume via mobile devices and tablets. These devices
can no longer be ignored by advertisers. If you didn’t
get on board with mobile this year, don’t miss the train
in 2012 or you’ll get left behind.
AdWords call metrics opens the phone lines:
Advertisers can track calls generated directly by their PPC
ads on Google. You can track metrics such as cost, completed
calls, phone-through-rate, time of call and duration.
If your business generates sales or leads via the
phone, you need to explore the new bid-per-call and call
metrics options in AdWords.
Multi-channel funnel analysis gets good: For a
couple years there has been chattering about the lack of
actionable, reliable cross-channel analysis. There are some third-party software providers that have excellent multichannel
reports, but the general advertising public was
lacking these features. However, in 2011 Google Analytics
released its own cross-channel reports and they are
now mission-critical for advertisers. You should be reviewing
and analyzing yours now.
Landing page Quality Score gets serious: This
element of the AdWords Quality Score has been around
for years. Until recently, this metric has been a negative
signal; your landing page didn’t directly contribute to your
Quality Score but it could hinder your score. Now, landing
pages are assigned positive scores making sure that
their content is highly relevant to a user’s search query.
This means that if you’ve been using the same landing
page for a while, you need to get serious about relevancy
quickly (like right now).
Social PPC spells ROI: Facebook and LinkedIn have
been generating a great deal of traffic for advertisers for a
while now. However, in 2011 I think advertisers are getting
smarter and learning how to interact with users on
social networks and getting them to buy. In 2010, the
main question on social PPC was if it could generate a
positive ROI. Advertisers will have settled the ROI question,
and in 2012 will start wondering how to get more
volume from these networks.
Automated rules in AdWords make life easier:
Google rolled out a series of automated rules for AdWords that can help save advertisers time and focus their optimization
efforts. These automated rules can schedule ads,
pause low-performing ads and keywords, adjust bids automatically,
and control daily budgets. These can be a great
time-saver if implemented properly.
adCenter Quality Score revealed: One way to
grasp how your campaigns compare to other advertisers is
by analyzing your Quality Scores. In 2011, Quality Score
metrics were introduced within the adCenter interface.
Analyze these stats to see where your keywords and landing
pages may be coming up short.
Google+ and +1 Button is what’s next: One of
the latest-breaking developments in the PPC world is the
launch of the Google +1 button. Within Google users can
now “+1” search results they find helpful or interesting,
and they can also “+1” pages and websites they like as
well. These social interactions can appear directly within
the Google SERPs (for users who are logged into their
Google accounts) as well as on the Google Display Network.
Just as recently as mid-November, Google released
new reports within AdWords that allow advertisers to review
their ad performance when the +1 social signal appeared
within their ads.
These are just a few of the PPC industry updates that
occurred in 2011. As you can see, it was a very busy year
— and 2012 should be even busier. Hold on to your hats,
folks, we’re only just getting started.
About the Author: Joseph Kerschbaum has been working in the SEM industry since 2006,
sharpening his expertise in PPC advertising, search engine optimization,
conversion optimization and social media marketing. Joseph is the
co-author of PPC Marketing: An Hour a Day, and a client services director
with Clix Marketing.
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Optimizing Content Creation around CPC
posted by Website Magazine @ 11:25 AM
Monday, December 12, 2011
Eightfold Logic recently released a new advertising capability for its InboundWriter service that is designed to help Google AdSense™ publishers better monetize their content.
Content publishers using the Google AdSense network are now be able to tailor their content strategy for keywords with the highest cost-per-click (CPC) rating. By optimizing around CPC, publishers will be able to attract higher paying text ads and banners served via the AdSense. The functionality is available in the cloud-based application and within the InboundWriter WordPress plugin.
The new advertising feature enables users to make selections related to search competition, reader targeting and advertising. InboundWriter, which offers a free plan and an unlimited account for $20/mo) then provides a set of keyword recommendations, along with automated recommendations on how to structure content for maximum search visibility.
"For the first time, publishers and bloggers using Google AdSense will be able to monetize their content as they type," said Jay Baer, a social media strategist and president of ConvinceandConvert.com. "This is an important new capability that raises the bar for digital and SEO content optimization."
Screenshot of the new InboundWriter functionality via the WordPress plugin:
Also read:
Inbound Writer & Real Time Content Optimization
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The early holiday numbers are in, which has led digital marketing software provider Kenshoo to unveil its 2011 Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report.
Key findings from the report include:
- Holiday revenue that is driven by search advertising increased 22 percent year over year (YoY), while average order size grew 5 percent.
- Search advertising budgets increased by 29 percent YoY throughout the season, and average cost per click increased 9 percent, but overall return on advertising spending (ROAS) was $5.22.
- Search advertising conversion rates on Thanksgiving increased 28 percent YoY and sales revenue grew 40 percent.
- Search advertising impressions decreased 9 percent YoY during the 5 days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday; however, total clicks increased 16 percent.
- Overall search advertising click-through rates for the holiday season increased 11 percent YoY.
Some tips for online advertisers during the remainder of the holiday season include the following:
- Focus on quality as keyword costs increase.
- Capitalize on timely opportunities by scheduling budgets and bids.
- Connect data sources to understand how paid search influences – and is influenced by – other media.
- Hold some holiday budget back for post-Christmas spending, which allows advertisers to take advantage of less competition and consumers' focus on returns and gift card spending.
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5 Useless Internet Marketing Tactics You Should Avoid
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, August 7, 2011
5 Useless Internet Marketing Tactics You Should Avoid
Knowing what doesn’t work can sometimes be more important that learning what does. Here are some things you should avoid when marketing your web site.
It’s easy to get confused with all of the various ways that you can be marketing your web site. Over the years I have tried just about every one and have learned some things along the way. Here’s some real time and money wasters that you can safely avoid doing.
1. SPAM Don’t waste your time on trash
You don’t like getting spam in your email do you? Neither does anyone else. Don’t send unsolicited commercial emails to try and promote your web site or product. (Out of all of the things listed here, I have never gone this route and won’t).
You risk getting your site shut down if your Internet Service Provider gets enough complaints. You can also be “blacklisted”. This means your email can be labelled as spam and be blocked by a lot of service providers.
Spam is stupid and a very poor decision for a business to make.
2. Free For All (FFA) Links
There are some sites which let anyone list a link to their own site. Sometimes you are required to put your own FFA link page up on your site. This tactic does not work. The only people reading FFA sites are other sites looking to post their own link. It is totally untargeted towards any potential customer.
Additionally, some search engines will penalise you for having FFA links on your site. They basically equate them as being garbage and not something a legitimate site would do. I can’t say I blame them.
3. Banner Ads
Once upon a time (in the late 1990’s) banner ads were very common and fairly effective. They don’t work very well at all anymore. I have read statistics that the click through rate is down to a mere percent of what they used to be.
You will have a much more effective chances of getting a visitor to your site by having a legitimate endorsement. You should also avoid having banner ads on your own site unless it is for your own products. Why on earth would you want to be sending people away from your site when you could be earning a higher profit if they stick around?
4. Classified Ads
Online newsletters commonly offer low priced classified ad spots. You can pay a few dollars and have your 4 to 5 line ad listed at the bottom of some newsletter when it gets sent out.
Generally these ads don’t work too well. I don’t read them. Do you?
5. Anything That’s Not A Solo or Top Sponsorship Ads
As a follow up to the classified ads, it is worth mentioning that not all ads are bad. You should try for a more prominent ad if you are going to go the newsletter route.
I recommend the Solo Ad or as second best, the Top Sponsorship Ad.
A solo ad is just that. Your ad is run all by itself. You have the reader’s full and undivided attention to your ad. The downside is that you will be paying top dollar so you want to track your results. If the ad was profitable, then keep running it until it is not anymore.
A top sponsorship ad is the very first ad in a newsletter. These can be pretty effective. They are a good alternative if you don’t want to take the plunge to buy a solo ad.
When it comes down to advertising in a newsletter I stick to either solo or top sponsorship. Otherwise I don’t even bother.
Knowing some of these tips can help you to avoid wasting your valuable time (and money) on ineffective marketing tactics.
Tips For Launching A Successful Email Marketing Campaign
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Tips For Launching A Successful Email Marketing Campaign
If you’ve ever considered launching an email marketing campaign, you probably very rapidly discovered that there are two main road-blocks between you and email marketing success. The first is the question of how to get your hands on an email subscriber list. And the second is once you have begun building your list, what should you send them? This article will focus on those two fundamental tasks of email marketing.
List-building is not as hard as you might imagine. All it really takes is the effort of asking people you are already coming into contact with to join your mailing list. You can do this in person if you run a restaurant, dealership, or other brick and mortar venue. At a retail store, the cash register is the best place to offer a free membership. If you are trying to convert your existing web traffic into email subscribers, you will want to create an attractive sign-up form and place it very prominently on your web site. You will also need to provide a good explanation of the value that people can expect to receive by being subscribes to your mailing list.
We all know that high quality content is not cheap. And when you’re dealing in email marketing, that is likely to be the primary expense related to your campaign. So you want to make that investment worthwhile by getting as many potential buyers as possible signed up for your mailing list. Take advantage of your existing web traffic by making your subscription form a central feature of your web site. It should almost always appear above the fold, and almost always on every page of your site. Keep in mind, email list subscribers convert much better than one-time web site visitors, so you should not be afraid to lose a sale or two in the short term in order to collect a large number of subscriptions that will become valued clients over the long term.
When you think about designing content for your email list, there is a very important question you should ask yourself: What will people in my target market be happy to receive? What value can I provide to them? Because the first task of an email list is to ingratiate you to your subscribers. If the list is ultimately going to convert into sales, then your subscribers must trust you and see you as someone who provides things that they value. Once you have developed the unique proposition for your mailing list, then you can begin developing content to fulfill that promise.
These two basic steps are all it really takes to build an effective list that you can continue to improve upon indefinitely. The list and the techniques that you use to market to the list will evolve over time along with your overall business strategy. But the long and the short of it is simply this: create a mailing list that offers a real value to your market, and then ask people to sign up for it. Everything else simply improves on this basic, winning formula.
7 Campaign Killing Affiliate Marketing Mistakes
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, August 1, 2011
7 Campaign Killing Affiliate Marketing Mistakes
Affiliate marketing is becoming more and more popular, especially with the current state of the economy. High unemployment rates have many people turning to the internet as a means of making ends meet.
It sounds great at first. You’re told all you have to do is start a free blog and write a few articles, and you can achieve wild riches. Many people buy into this myth, and are let down after weeks go by and they haven’t made a single dollar.
Believe it or not, more than ninety percent of internet entrepreneurs fold up shop within the first month. Once reality sets in, it’s easy to get discouraged. Affiliate marketing, like any other business, requires hard work and effort for success to become a reality.
In this article, we’re going to discuss seven of the worst mistakes that an affiliate marketer can make. If you can avoid these career killing pitfalls, you’ll have a good chance at becoming a successful affiliate marketer.
1. Using Free Services
The problem with many affiliate marketers is they don’t want to make an investment into their business. This is due in part to all of the tutorials available that instruct marketers to use free services. While there is nothing wrong with free services, the lack of imminent control over one’s content can be a problem. If the company providing the free service decided to delete your account, or went out of business, you could lose content that may have been making you some money.
2. Promoting The Wrong Product
Market research is especially important in affiliate marketing. Many affiliates promote products that have a very low demand, hence making it near impossible to succeed. Researching your chosen niche is crucial.
3. Promoting Too Many Products
It’s easy to lose focus. There are so many great products to promote that many affiliate marketers try to promote five or ten products at once. It’s not good to spread yourself so thin. Rather than promoting ten products and giving ten percent effort to each, it’s better to put one-hundred percent effort into promoting a single product.
4. Not Starting An Email List
Many affiliate marketers refuse to believe in the importance of email marketing. This is partly due to the wealth of information available about article marketing. Many are led to believe that article marketing is a miracle money maker. While it’s true that money can be made this way, it’s much better to establish a contact and build trust with a potential buyer through email.
5. Spamming
Spam is a gray area when it comes to affiliate marketing. Basically, spamming is blatantly promoting your products or services to those who didn’t ask for information. The worst kind of spam is email spam. Many affiliate marketers engage in this without even knowing. Spamming is a surefire way to ruin your reputation as a marketer.
6. Not Writing Unique Content
Affiliate marketing requires a lot of writing. It usually comes in the form of sales copy, classified ads, and articles. Since outsourcing the work is costly, many affiliate marketers turn to what’s known as private label rights, or “PLR” articles. These are articles that have been written specifically for the use of others. The problem is that they have been sold to many people. This means that they are no longer unique. Most marketers rewrite the content before publishing, but the general idea of the article remains the same. Content is king on the internet, and those that write fresh, exciting content will always have a leg up on the competition.
7. Not Using The Products They Promote
A great way to promote affiliate marketing products is by writing reviews. However, many affiliate marketers review products that they don’t own. If written properly, this can be effective. For the most part, though, readers can tell if the reviewer has actually tried the product. It’s not a good idea to recommend a product to anyone that you don’t like and use. If you don’t purchase the product, you can’t honestly know if you like it. If the product isn’t quality, and you continue to recommend it, you’ll quickly lose customers and tarnish your reputation.
Affiliate marketing is hard work. However, you shouldn’t get discouraged. The best advice I could give you is to avoid making the above mistakes, and NEVER, EVER give up! Persistence and knowledge are the two most important tools you could possess if you want to be a successful affiliate marketer.
10 Ways to Energize Your Email Marketing
emailmktgEmail marketing has grown tremendously over the years and it can benefit your business substantially. As with any type of marketing, email marketing takes a great deal of time and effort to insure it is working effectively.
There are many types of email marketing such as sending out periodical newsletters/ezines, sending out promotional emails and product updates, tutorials, etc.
Regardless of which type of email marketing you utilize, one important thing you must do is continually evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. Do not let your email marketing go stale. You need to keep it alive, fresh and energized.
* Below are 10 ways you can help energize your email marketing campaign:
- Fresh and Helpful Content
Always be sure to include good, solid content. Check the content to make sure it is reliable. You want to make sure you are providing true, helpful information for your mailing list. Offer good resources, tools, tips and other content that will actually help your subscribers. This will help in building the foundation of the essential trust relationship between you and your mailing list members.
- Make it Personal
Making your email more personal will help build trust and your reputation. You need to connect with your list and by making your emails more personal, warm and friendly, you will accomplish this task.
- Grab Their Interest with Your Subject Line
Grabbing the readers’ interest with the subject line can make all the difference as to whether they open the email or just delete it. Keep the subject line short and to the point. Use words that will pique the readers curiosity and make them want to know more. Use power and/or action words such as new, innovative, secret, reveal, etc.
Which email would you open? How to Increase sales or New, Innovative Sales Strategy Revealed…
- Be Available for Your Readers
There is nothing worse than emailing questions to a company about their products/services and waiting days or longer to get an answer. Make it a point to answer questions and concerns as soon as possible. Be as helpful and responsive as possible. You will be amazed at the difference this will make in your business.
- Be Consistent
I know some people that will send out an email here and an email there – sometimes with months in between. This will never bring you any results. Send out your emails on a regular basis using the same design, layout and format each time. Keep them neat, clean and free from a lot of clutter. You want your readers to become familiar with your mailings.
- Add New Features
Always be thinking of new features to add to your mailings to keep it fresh and alive. Add a Q&A section or do interviews with your readers. Give your readers a weekly challenge to accomplish to help them obtain their goals.Publish success stories. The possibilities are endless!
- Offer Subscriber Only Specials
Let your subscribers know they are appreciated by offering them deals and specials that you would not offer anyone else. Give them an extra percentage off the price or give them a free gift in your mailings. Doing little things like this can go a long way for your business.
- Get Your Mailing List Involved
Encourage them to email you with ideas, suggestions and feedback. Let them know you are willing to consider all their suggestions. Ask them if you can use their feedback. Post their questions with the answers to help all your readers. Make them feel like they make a difference because THEY DO!
- Contests and Competitions
Hold contests and competitions for your subscribers and offer prizes. For example: Each week in my newsletter I have a trivia challenge for free advertising and a movie quote contest for a free e-book. They are a lot of fun and my subscribers let me know how much they enjoy it.
- Offer Referral Incentives
Let your mailing list members know that if they refer people to your mailing list, they will be rewarded. Have contests on who can get the most referrals for a grand prize.
Business owners who successfully implement an email marketing campaign are likely to gain a huge advantage over those who don’t. But you must keep your email marketing fresh, alive, consistent and reliable. Keeping in contact with your mailing list members and providing them with useful, helpful information and resources will help build a solid foundation of trust with which to grow your business!
How to Navigate Online Marketing’s Slippery Path
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
How to Navigate Online Marketing’s Slippery Path
It’s not an easy task to be successful at online marketing. One slip and you can practically watch your leads and sales roll down a hill and end up with some other company.
Here are 10 key tips and suggestions to keep in mind as you make your way along online marketing routes.
1. Grow thick skin
Encourage your staff or consultants to tell you the plain truth instead of going out of their way not to offend or upset you.
If your website design has serious issues, own up to them so the rest of your campaign can really pay off. In other words, if you invest in getting more traffic and visitors give up on your website, then you’ve failed.
2. Pick the right keywords for search engine optimization (SEO)
It’s not about just researching keywords. It’s about selecting keywords. You need to think about site age, keywords in the domain, competition, current rankings, existing content, planned content, page headers, keywords in URLs and more.
3. Learn how paid search really works
The primary pay-per-click tools are easy. You can have an ad up in no time. If you waste your money, it’s not Google’s fault. If you send your paid search visitors to your home page and can make a good profit, great. Odds are, you’re better off directing them to a specific interior page. In fact, you’d be wise to make some outstanding custom landing pages with clear Calls to Action and not a lot of distracting navigation.
4. Use paid search negative keywords
Why should you pay for the wrong keywords? Think of all of the ways you don’t want to be found. Maybe you sell men’s jackets. You better rule out women’s jackets. Your options – broad, phrase and exact match can make a huge difference.
5. Use misspellings with paid search
You can find different tools to generate misspellings, including one at SEO Chat. Sure, these phrases won’t get a lot of traffic. But it could be worth while adding a number of them to your overall mix.
6. Write content – lots of content
At least from an SEO perspective, tiny websites get what they support – tiny traffic. Whether you expand the website with a blog or regular pages following existing navigation, write more words. Yes, you may rank well for keywords on a single page. However, several pages with cross-linked pages can make a big impact on rankings.
7. Don’t bury your calls to action
Too often, I see pages with 12 paragraphs followed by a phone number that’s probably going to be overlooked. Promote the phone number up high. Add a short form – you can easily see. Create an image that points visitors to case studies, white papers, demos, how-to guides, etc.
8. Track everything
Are website analytics on every page? Did you set up your goals (Google Analytics makes it easy)? Are you using all of the right settings with your paid search? For example, are your ads running all of the time or just when you want them to appear? Are you favoring certain ads or giving all of your ads a shot?
9. Don’t ignore link building
It takes time – a lot of time. Sure, you can register with hundreds of free directories. But what’s the impact? Make sure you get links from industry-related websites and credible directories with structures categories that relate to your services and products. Swap links with some other businesses (try to get them to include strategic keywords when they link to you). Create a blog and get involved in other blogs. If you participate, you’ll increase the odds that someone will link back to you. Share your knowledge – write articles for online publications (you always get a good link in your bio). Speak at conferences (you’ll get another link).
10. Test and measure everything
If people get lost on your website, fix it. If your keywords don’t rank, change them. If no one is calling, stop hiding your phone number next to your outdated 2003 copyright notice. Make note of where people leave their shopping carts in your digital aisle. Shorten your long response forms. Seriously, do you really need their address, zip code, state in all cases? Look at your competition. Are you charging more than they are and can you defend your pricing? Add some testimonials – real ones (the fake variety turn me off).
10 Networking Blunders That Cost You Sales
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
10 Networking Blunders That Cost You Sales
Networking is a critical skill sales; after all, the more people you connect with the more you sales opportunities you create. However, many sales people make a variety of mistakes that prevent them from maximizing the power of networking. Here are ten blunders and mistakes you need to avoid.
1. Attending the wrong networking events. When I first started my business I attended as many local networking events as I could fit into my schedule. However, I quickly noticed that I encountered the same people at these events-other small business owners out looking for business. These people were not my target market and very few of them interacted with the type of decision-maker I usually worked with so I realized that I was going to the wrong events. Get the most from your networking opportunities by showing up at events that your prospects attend.
2. Waiting for people to introduce themselves. Let’s face it; the vast majority of people are reluctant or hesitant to approach strangers. However, if you take the initiative to introduce yourself to others you will be perceived as a person of authority and power. Not to mention that the other person will be relieved that they didn’t have to make the first approach.
3. Spending too much time talking. One of the most fatal mistakes is to dominate the conversation. If you truly want to make a great impression, limit the amount you talk to no more than 40 percent of the airtime. Remember, networking events are not the appropriate setting to sell your solution. However, they are perfect situations to uncover potential sales opportunities.
4. Failing to ask other people questions. The most effective way to create a connection with someone is to ask them questions about their business and what they do. Ask them about the challenges they face and what they enjoy most about their work. High-value questions encourage people to share information and help you position yourself as an expert and a great networker.
5. Becoming distracted by other people. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who constantly watched the room instead of paying attention to what you were saying? If so, you likely felt ignored and unimportant. I also suspect that you would not refer business to that person. Don’t make the same mistake. Pay close attention to every person you meet and learn how you might be able to help them.
6. Focusing on your self-interest. This follows the last point. If you make the effort to find out how you can help someone else, the chances are they will reciprocate. In the words of motivational guru, Zig Ziglar, “You can anything you want in life if you just are willing to help enough other people get what they want.”
7. Failing to articulate your value proposition. I once spoke with a small business owner at a networking event and after a 20 minute conversation I still had no idea what she did because she was unable to clearly articulate the purpose of her company and her ideal client.
8. Failing to establish a connection. Effective networking means connecting with people. Although you will not connect with everyone you meet, you can improve your results by making great eye contact, smiling, asking questions, and showing interest in the other person.
9. Executing the “meet & move” strategy. We’ve all encountered the person at a networking event who introduces themselves, gives you their business card, asks for yours in return, and immediately moves on to repeat the process with another victim. You get much better results by connecting with a small number of people rather than trying to meet as many people as you can.
10. Failing to follow-up afterward. Post-event follow-up is critical. However, don’t make the mistake of calling someone three months after a networking meeting and saying something like, “We met a few months ago and I thought I’d touch base with you.” This approach simply does not add any type of value to the relationship. Here two follow-up strategies to consider:
- When you meet a potential customer, arrange to contact them shortly after the event. Mark it in your calendar and make sure you contact them on the agreed-upon day and time.
- After you meet someone who is NOT a prospect, look for opportunities to refer business to them. You can also help them by sending articles or information related to their business.
Networking effectively can have a dramatic impact on your sales providing it is done correctly. Avoid these fatal networking mistakes and improve your results.
The Impatience of Internet Marketing Newbies
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Impatience of Internet Marketing Newbies
If you attempted to take a test without studying, chances are, you’d fail. Yet, every single day on the Internet, thousands of newbies are performing the equivalent of the aforementioned test analogy, by putting up a website without having the slightest idea how to promote it. And guess what happens – they fail. No, they don’t all fail, but most do.
The point is starting a business – any business without having even basic marketing skills is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. It’s a bad move. Competency in marketing is one of the most important business skills that you can acquire. If you become proficient in the art of marketing, there is no limit to what you can accomplish in the business world.
A) Take the Time to Educate Yourself First
Look, there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious and enthusiastic. Those attributes can take you a long way in business. But you also need to be smart about how you approach things as well. Why be in such a hurry? Take some time to educate yourself first. Does it really matter if you build that website now, or a few months from now when you’re more prepared? Of course it doesn’t.
Starting a business is like building a house. You start with a strong foundation, and then you build on it. Well,in business, being knowledgeable about basic marketing fundamentals is your strong foundation. You just have to build on it.
That means taking the time to learn how to do things the right way. Be patient, and prepare yourself for success. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Study and apply basic marketing fundamentals. Read a few marketing books. To get started, I highly recommend Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. It’s actually eight books in one, and is written by multiple authors. It’s perfect for newbies, and touches all the bases including,
* Establishing a Web Presence
* Search Engine Optimization
* Web Analytics
* E-Mail Marketing
* Blogging and Podcasting
* Social Media Marketing
* Online Advertising & Pay-Per-Click
* Mobile Web Marketing
B) Increase the Odds in Your Favor
To be clear, I’m not suggesting you have to become some sort of marketing expert, before you build your website. After all, even experts don’t know everything. And reading books certainly doesn’t guarantee you’ll be successful. But at least by educating yourself first, you give yourself a fighting chance – you increase the odds in your favor. And the Internet marketing process won’t seem like such a foreign language to you. In addition, your learning curve won’t be nearly as steep.
Conversely, when newbies rush into the process with their eyes wide shut, more often than not, they end up thoroughly defeated, disillusioned, and convinced that Internet marketing doesn’t work. Many give up on Internet marketing altogether, and never bother trying again. And that’s a shame. The sad part is many times those failures could have been avoided, if newbies had just taken the time to learn how to do the process the right way.
C) What’s Effective Frequency?
I’m a member of several small business forums. And one of the questions newbies ask most often is why isn’t anyone responding to their ads. Now if these newbies had taken the time to educate themselves about marketing beforehand, they would know about effective frequency.
What’s effective frequency? Effective frequency is the number of times a person must be exposed to an advertising message before they act on it. How many times that actually is debatable. However, some marketing experts believe in The Rule of 7…meaning on average, people have to see your ad a minimum of seven times, before they act on it. Does that mean people will automatically buy what you’re offering after they’ve seen your ad seven times?
No it doesn’t. Again, it’s just an average. It could be more than seven, but it could also be less. The fact of the matter is there are far too many variables involved to suggest that after people see your ad seven times they will automatically whip out their credit card, and purchase what you’re offering – not the least of which is traffic quality, competency of your sales copy, and the viability of the item being offered.
The point is by educating yourself on basic marketing fundamentals, you will learn about and understand marketing theories and concepts like effective frequency. By the way, the theory of effective frequency isn’t new. In fact, as far back as 1885, Thomas Smith, a successful London businessman wrote:
1. The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
2. The second time, they don’t notice it.
3. The third time, they are aware that it is there.
4. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
5. The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
6. The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
7. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
8. The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
9. The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
10. The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
11. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
12. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
13. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
14. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
15. The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
16. The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
17. The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
18. The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
19. The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
20. The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.
Indeed, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Thomas Smith’s words are every bit as salient today as they were back then.
In closing, Internet marketing is serious business – so be sure to treat it that way. Slow down, and take the time to educate yourself first. In the long run, it will be in your best interest. Because unlike the movie, Field of Dreams, where “if you build it, he will come.” In the real world, if you build a website without knowing how to promote it – nobody’s coming!
Mobile Marketing – Another Market To Build Your Empire?
Smartphones have suddenly become the device to have. No longer a novelty, or a tool for the rich, everywhere I look I can see someone using their iPhone or Android phone. Doing everything from making calls to searching for information. That’s new eyes in a new market with new customers. How could you incorporate a business model using mobile marketing, and affiliate marketing, as a part of your Empire Building?
The surprise arrival of the iPhone a few years ago and its incredible growth has given rise to explosive growth in the mobile market. Over 2 million phones were sold recently by Apple. The recent launch of the iPhone 4 was Apple’s most successful yet. Then there are all the other handset manufacturers that are scrambling to catch up. Let’s stop and consider for a moment the number of people that are connected to the internet from their smartphone right now… Most people have their phones within 3 feet of them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Furthermore, over half of all new connections to the internet are from these new mobile phones.
* Smartphone marketing
What is it? In it’s broadest definition it is providing customers with personalized information that is time and location sensitive using media sources that is interactive and wireless to promote goods, services and ideas, such as from Google search.
There are not many marketers in this market yet. I will emphasize the word “yet”. With mobile advertising your ad is the ONLY ad that will be displayed on the page. With a bit of tweaking and personalizing your ad using a bit of research and geo marketing and you can begin to see how easy it would be to get someones attention without all the noise and distraction of other AdWords and flashing banners on the page.
Everything that you are using now in affiliate marketing using ClickBank, CPA offers, and building a list will also work the same with the mobile market as it does with a PC. The difference is that it is not as competitive.
The mobile marketing potential has just started, and there appears that it is not going to slow down anytime in the near future. The number of people going mobile continues to rise – using their smartphone for so many more things than just making calls.
How you could use this developing market to build your Empire?
Linking Strategies: “To Buy or not to Buy, That is the Question”
Buying text links for your website is a highly controversial subject online. Like it or not, approve of the practice or disapprove, it does exist and there are many website owners who are doing it. I’m not going to debate the issue one way or the other; just shed some light on what some consider a “gray subject.”
So why would you want or need to buy a text link on another website? It all goes back to “link popularity.” Search engines look at how many other sites are linking to yours when deciding on your ranking. Granted, this is just one criterion, but nevertheless an important one to pay attention to.
If you don’t know how many other sites are linking to yours, go to any search engine and type this in: link:http://www.yourdomain.com … you should get a pretty good idea of your “popularity.” Keep in mind that Google never shows all sites linking to yours, so what you see in the results will not be an accurate presentation of those linking to you. Why they do this is not clear (it’s one of those “Google Secrets”), but a possible explanation is that it’s one of the methods they use to keep their ranking algorithms private.
When considering a link purchase, only buy from sites that are related to your theme and use the Google Toolbar to check their page rank. You can download it here:
http://toolbar.google.com/
A page rank of 4 or above is pretty good but a 7 or 8 is excellent. Never buy a link based on page rank alone. If the site doesn’t relate to your site’s content, don’t do it.
Here are some things to keep in mind before making any purchases:
There are two types of links: one-way and reciprocal. A reciprocal link is when two sites agree to link to each other, a one-way link is just one site linking to another without linking back. Purchasing a text link is an example of a one-way link. One-way links are counted higher by most search engines and therefore are more valuable then reciprocal.
When supplying your text link to other sites, make sure to include your keywords in your anchor text. The anchor text is the part of the link that is clickable. Use a variety of key phrases so as not to raise any red flags with the search engines.
You also want to be consistent with your url. Use the “www.” part in all incoming links, as links to “yourdomain.com” and “www.yourdomain.com” could be treated as two different websites by the search engines.
Another tip when buying links is to do it slowly. Don’t buy too many at one time. You want it to look natural to the search engines. Hundreds of sites deciding to link to yours in a week is not “natural” and may catch unwanted attention from the powers that be.
Stay away from link farms when choosing link partners. Just associating with “bad sites” can be enough to get you banned by the search engines. You’ll also want to make sure you’re getting links from different IP addresses. Search engines will give the links more weight if they don’t all come from the same IP.
* So now that you have the basics, where do you buy the text links?
I thought you’d never ask:
1) LinkHaul: http://www.LinkHaul.com
Purchase static links to PR 4, 5,6, 7 or 8 websites. Pricing starts at 3.00 per month.
2) Text Link Brokers: http://TextLinkBrokers.com
Offering a variety of link building programs to increase your link popularity.
3) LinkAdage: http://www.LinkAdage.com
Buy or sell text links within an auction format or buy direct thru a broker.
4) Text-Link-Ads: http://www.Text-Link-Ads.com
Offering $100.00 in free text link ads when you spend $125.00. So you only have to spend an initial investment of $25.00
5) BackLinks: http://www.BackLinks.com
* A service that allows webmasters to trade, sell or buy text links
When you buy a link, it’s usually billed on a monthly basis and you’ll always pay more for a site with a higher page rank, and also for having them put your link on their main page compared to a page deeper down within the site. Once you purchase a link let it run for a few months at a time, search engines will need it in order to find and spider them.
Right or wrong, purchasing links is one way to improve your link popularity quickly and move your site up the ranks in the search engines. Remember, there are many ways to increase your website traffic, and buying text links is just another means to an end.
What is the Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, July 14, 2011
What is the Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing?
When it comes to marketing, you can go either inbound or outbound marketing. Most of us are familiar with outbound marketing. This type of marketing is a push strategy where you advertise to purchased leads, have a cold calling department, use telemarketing, and advertise through various channels. Inbound marketing is different in that it focuses on attracting people to your business.
Inbound marketing is where you focus on strategies to get the attention of prospects, industry leaders, and customers. An example of this is setting up a blog for your business where you attract subscribers and readers by posting valuable content. By focusing on quality content, you will start to establish yourself as an authority, gain credibility, and start a conversation in the community around your site.
An additional benefit of inbound strategies is that you will start to get traffic from the search engines because other websites start to naturally link to yours. You will also get traffic because the blogosphere is viral and loves to share great posts. Bloggers love to work together, share other valuable blogs, link to great resources, and are open to helping each other grow.
Another example of inbound marketing is email marketing. Many marketers use the Internet to deliver a regular newsletter to their subscribers. Through this newsletter and regular email communication, they are able to create relationships with prospects and customers. An email list also provides a great way to promote your latest product and services. Email campaigns have been known to generate big profits because of the fact that it is very affordable to use.
So should your business use inbound marketing or outbound marketing? It really depends on where you are and what direction you want to go. If you’re looking for quick results and have money to spend on advertising then outbound marketing may be a great way to grow your business. Most businesses depend on outbound marketing to bring in their profits.
However, if you’re on a limited budget and you have the time to spend on developing an authority site then inbound marketing may be the better choice. If you have the confidence to deliver something of value to your industry and community, then inbound marketing can really produce great results for you.
By establishing yourself in your market and industry, many people will choose you over competing businesses because they feel you’ve presented enough value, have established credibility, and also because they are more familiar with you as opposed to other businesses that don’t have a following behind them.
The difference between inbound and outbound marketing is that outbound marketing can help you get quick results and can give you a scientific way to measure your sales.
Inbound marketing is more about a long term strategy that will establish your business in the market and industry. It may be a great solution if outbound marketing channels are too crowded or expensive to compete in.
Many businesses that have used outbound marketing are also using inbound marketing to complement their business model. They are realizing that while maintaining cash flow with outbound marketing is important, they need to establish themselves in the marketplace and connect with people so that can ensure long term success.
Inbound marketing is still in its infancy and there is so much to learn about how to use it to its full capacity.
Many businesses are using multiple channels from blogs, email, Facebook, Twitter, to community forums. There are different ways to monetize these channels as well as rules that you need to follow when using them.
The best way to get the most out of inbound marketing is to focus on learning how to use one channel at a time and slowly integrating it into your overall strategy. There is a community of marketers devoted to learning how to use inbound marketing to grow their business and is worth your time to learn from them if you want to get the most out it.
In conclusion, there are big differences between inbound and outbound marketing. Some say that outbound marketing is the better choice while others think inbound marketing produces better results. It’s really up to you which strategy you go with as it will depend on your business model and also on what direction you want to lead your business towards.
Confidence Building Tips For Internet Marketers
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Confidence Building Tips For Internet Marketers
It doesn’t matter how much talent or acquired ability you have, if you lack confidence you aren’t going to get anywhere. On the other hand, if you have confidence plus desire, even if you lack the raw talent, you can acquire the ability you need to succeed.
This is as true on the Internet as it is anywhere else in life. When you look at who has succeeded with Internet marketing you will find a surprising range of people. They are not all technical whiz kids at all. Yes, some of the Internet marketing greats have a lot of technical talent, but on the other hand there are plenty of work from home mums, retired company employees, youngsters with no formal qualifications who have built successful businesses on the Internet.
They succeeded because they had the desire and determination plus the confidence to risk failure and not worry about what other people thought about their dream to succeed on the Internet.
So what can you do if you want to succeed as an Internet marketer but suffer with your confidence? Let’s look at some confidence building tips for Internet marketers.
Just telling yourself that you need to be more confident will not help. Instead, think about and imagine your ultimate goal as an Internet marketer. You may have no idea how you are going to achieve this goal at the moment. Don’t worry about that at this stage. It is important to see yourself as having already attained the goal that you have set for yourself. Don’t just see it, but feel the feeling of success, the exhilaration of having achieved your goal.
Now you will need to set yourself a series of small goals that you can achieve in a reasonable amount of time. Each small goal should be seen as a stepping stone towards the ultimate goal that you have mapped out in your imagination. State what it is that each mini goal is seeking to achieve and set a time limit in which you aim to achieve it.
When it comes to Internet marketing there are several things that you can try to achieve without challenging your fear of failure.
For example, you could aim to improve your website’s Alexa ranking by a certain amount in the course of the coming month. This kind of goal can be achieved with various online activities, such as posting articles, building back-links, blogging and posting comments on other people’s blogs or on forums and so forth. (See Alexa.com if you do not know what I am talking about!)
When you see that your activities are producing results, it will give your confidence boost and help you to set slightly more challenging goals, while keeping your new positive business building habits as part of your routine.
The next step could be, for example, starting to build a mailing list and aiming to get so many subscribers by a certain date. This would involve learning about auto responders and researching list building tactics and putting them into action, one step at a time.
Gradually, as you see your skills improve, your website ranking improve, and traffic to your website starting to increase, you will want to think about how to convert your traffic into your first sale. Just aiming for one sale if you have not yet begun to sell anything is a good goal to aim for because once you have sold something you will feel more confident in your ability to simply do it again. After all, if you’ve done it before you can do it again. And again and again.
As each of these small steps takes you a little nearer to your ultimate goal of Internet marketing success, they will in turn help to boost your confidence in your ability to succeed. A key confidence building tip is simply that the art of success is discovered in trying to succeed, and a feeling of self-confidence is generated almost as a side-effect of this process.
Finally, another valuable confidence building tip for helping to build confidence is to read the stories and testimonies of other people who have come from unpromising backgrounds and circumstances to achieve great success on the Internet.
There are many examples of successful Internet marketers who are just average people, with no special skills beyond a determination to succeed, often from a starting point of abject failure. Reading their stories will help you to build your own confidence and determination to succeed as a home-based Internet marketer.
5 Tips on Creating and Using Successful Squeeze Pages
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, July 11, 2011
5 Tips on Creating and Using Successful Squeeze Pages
* Creating a successful squeeze page that converts well is a must if you want to be successful as an Internet marketer
Basically, a squeeze page (also known as an opt-in page or a splash page) is used to capture visitor information, like their name and email address, so that you can build a relationship with them. A good squeeze page will help your business save time and money.
Getting traffic to your website can not only be very time consuming, but it can also be very costly. However, if you have a good squeeze page, you will attract more subscribers to your list. And with a list, you can leverage your marketing efforts for the years to come.
One problem most marketers face with their squeeze pages is the reluctance of people to enter their contact information online. To help you with this, five tips to effectively create successful squeeze pages are discussed below so you can increase your visitor opt-ins:
1. Personalize
Since you will be asking complete strangers to part with their information, you have to make sure they are comfortable in doing so. Introduce yourself and make them feel that they know something about the person they are giving their information to.
Add a video, picture, or an audio message of you so that you can establish rapport at your first point of contact.
2. Professional Layout
A professional layout means that you don’t overcrowd your squeeze page with graphics and bright colors. There is no need to hire a professional designer to accomplish this. Use the swipe system…simply check what other successful marketers have done with their squeeze pages and copy and paste the process.
Evaluate it and if it looks cluttered to you, adjust it accordingly.
3. Giveaways
In order to motivate your visitors to fill in your opt-in form, give them something in return when they do so. Simply offer them something of value like an excellent ereport, ebook, interview or video that would entice them to opt in.
Everyone loves freebies and you can take advantage of this fact. Just see to it that your giveaway is beneficial to your target market so that your conversion rate will increase.
4. Remove Distractions
Keep in mind that everything in your squeeze page should work together with one goal in mind – getting your visitor’s contact information. See to it that your headline, graphics, and copy support what you are trying to accomplish.
Don’t make the mistake that many marketers online make by creating extremely long squeeze pages with unnecessary information. This practice defeats the purpose of getting the much desired visitor information because when people get distracted, they tend to leave the page immediately.
Distracting them away from opting in on your squeeze page defeats the purpose of the squeeze page…to gather their personal information for your list.
5. Templates
If you’ve been around lately, you’ll see squeeze pages that look exactly like each other. Before you label these pages as spam, think again. There’s a reason why people continue to use them — they are very effective in getting the conversions required. For this reason alone, it is recommended that you create a squeeze page with a similar template and see it work its wonders for your conversions.
By taking these five tips into mind, you’ll surely have a squeeze page that will get you the conversions you need. However, if you already have a squeeze page up, you must test and tweak it until you receive your desired conversion rate.
The Forgotten Method of Marketing: Forums
Forums are a great way of marketing alongside articles, email and blogging – there is no real way to compare all of these, they are just a different way of communicating. The big difference however with forums is that many many more people will see you and get to know you which builds trust as you interact with the community.
Forums have been around in many forms since the dawn of the internet, they provide a means of conversation with like-minded people in a community-driven atmosphere of helping one another with problems. If you don’t know how they work, let me just tell you a bit about them.
First off, you have to find your forum in your niche, the best way to do this is type in subject forums as the keywords (replacing subject with your topic) into a search engine. Once you have found one in the topic you’re interested in, with a nice community going on, registration is the next step.
Registration is pretty simple, its just a case of filling your details in and perhaps entering a captcha (one of those funny sets of digits and numbers that tell the site that you are not an automated spammer!) You may have to click a link in your email to register the fact that you own the email address you registered with.
There usually is many sub-forums, i would reccomend finding one that usually reads something like “introduce yourself” and post a brief overview of what you are about and say hello. I would advise against just registering and posting “buy my product now” or “come to my website” etc. type comments as you’ll end up with a flame war – if you dont know what that is please do a search on it as its not a nice thing to happen to you!
Get involved in the forum, post replies to people’s problems to help with any questions that you can – its a community-type feeling that you will enjoy. Forums which are busy have the advantage of many more people in the nich you are targeting, so you can find out about some really exciting new widget thing in your niche that is very important to you, and also reply and ask more.
Some forums have a specific buy, sell or trade section where you can sell your products, this is the place to be if you want to directly pitch your product. Another way of pitching your product is to enter links to your website in your signature, this is shown directly under each post that you make and is updated automatically – be careful however, some forums dont like this and will ask you to remove them. Some have rules on the size of images or links allowed, please read these before adding it.
Some of the more advanced forums that run vbulletin have private messaging which can be great to directly carry out business to people privately on the forum, i’ve bought many websites and domain names using this – some sites like digital point have itrader which is also a way of showing how trustworthy the user is in terms of buying and selling, similar to the ebay feedback system.
One last thing to remember, forums are a great place to communicate rather than a place to pitch-fest – if you want to advertise on a forum, but you cant find any other method other than the ones i’ve outlined, contact the owners of the site and ask for banner rates, this is a great way of getting in front of these people, then you have the right to freely talk about your product or service which is a huge bonus compared to advertising on a static site!
Are You Sacrificing Your Long Term Internet Marketing Success For Short Term Profits?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Are You Sacrificing Your Long Term Internet Marketing Success For Short Term Profits?
One thing about internet marketing is that all the strategies you implement require a level of specialization in order to be successful. Very often, this causes internet marketing start-up businesses to sacrifice consistent, passive long-term profits for short-term gains.
This isn’t a bad strategy when done correctly, but it will most likely mean that you’ll always be looking for the next sale instead leveraging the power that you have gained over time. Here’s a look at some of the potential trade-offs that are often made.
* PPC vs. SEO
PPC is a very common short-term tactic which is one of the quickest ways to generate targeted traffic to your web pages. The key to effective PPC campaigns is a mix of bid management, effective ad creation and conversions. While this approach can be extremely successful, it also involves consistent monitoring. The skills involved also require some level of specialization and time.
On the other hand, SEO has consistently proved that it’s the most effective way to ensure that your website has long-term visibility. While more work will be required at the outset to generate traffic, in the medium-long term, less and less time needs to be allocated to SEO. Plus, all of the work builds upon itself, so over time it will provide you with a large number of valuable assets that can be leveraged to promote new websites you may have in the future.
The trade-off between PPC and SEO is twofold. The first is time. Putting emphasis on one almost requires focusing less on the other when there is only a limited amount of time and resources. While PPC marketing can generate short-term profits, you’ll need to monitor and tweak your strategy consistently. Plus, if you decide you no longer want to pay for anymore PPC ads, you’ll no longer get any traffic.
On the other hand, if you stop doing SEO tactics, you’ll still be able to generate traffic based upon your past efforts. In most cases, people can set-up small websites, and once efficient enough, can be left to generate passive income without any additional work. Thanks to effective SEO, these websites can continue to generate profits for years after they are left alone.
* Possible Solutions
There are ways that you can include both PPC and SEO into your short and long-term marketing strategies. Regarding PPC, make sure that your landing page is focused on generating opt-ins to your newsletter list rather than trying to directly sell a product. This will allow you to use PPC to feed your long-term traffic and marketing strategies.
Also, if you’re currently only using PPC, then take 25% of your net profits and use them to start building your SEO efforts. Then, you’ll still be able to generate short-term profits from PPC but will also be able to invest time and money into creating and executing a long-term SEO strategy.
You can now see that it can be tempting to put off generating long-term passive income for short-term profits. However, if you plan accordingly and make sure to focus on the end-goal, then you can easily maintain both short-term profits from PPC ads and your dedication to SEO tactics. By doing this, you’ll cut down the amount of work that needs to be done in the long-run, without giving up on generating a profit in the short-term. This is the key to Internet marketing success.
The Sunny Side Of Internet Marketing
I am the type of writer that can look at the glass half full or look at it half empty. Sometimes I think Internet marketers need to fully realize what a sunny business they have chosen to be in.
Here are 4 things that bring a smile to my Internet marketing lips!
1. Instant affiliate commissions. I love the fact that I can get paid to sell other people’s stuff and I do not have to wait to see my money.
Today there are affiliate programs you can join that will set you up with your own PayPal url. When you make a sale your commissions are instantly deposited into your PayPal account.
WackyCentral.com has a great program. PaySpree.com is an instant payment affiliate network. Both are worth joining for free.
2. Easy blog set up. I admit that I do not like to build websites. Even setting up a WordPress blog used to be enough to turn me into an A #1 Procrastinator. Not anymore.
Most hosting companies offer a Fantastico icon you can click on for fast WordPress set up. This is simple enough that I can even do it.
Because of how easy it is you can also pay someone to do it for you and not break the bank doing it. Outsourcing a WordPress blog set up is very cheap to do.
3. Very good training available. When I started out online good Internet training was expensive. Today you can join membership sites for under $1 a day and get some really good personal coaching. The Affiliate Power Group is at the top of my list.
There are also many top notch discussion forums where you can get excellent training and meet some fantastic Internet marketers. The Warrior Forum is one of my favorites.
4. People will pay you to do things for them. I learned this by mistake at first. I had my son write content articles for me starting back in 2005. He was a journalism major and I wanted to expose him to Internet writing.
Out of that came our own Internet writing company and article marketing company. We have been able to turn that into a 6 figure writing business.
There are many examples of people getting paid by other Internet marketers. Some of what they do includes copywriting, blog building, virtual assistant, graphic design and so on. You will be smiling all the way to the bank when you get paid to stay at home and do things for online businesses.
These are 4 things that make me happy about Internet marketing. It is very easy to see the sunny side of this business when you think about all of the advantages it offers!
Some Tips In Creating Consistent Marketing Collaterals
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Some Tips In Creating Consistent Marketing Collaterals
A few weeks ago a flyer was handed to a friend of mine at the mall by a lady selling real estate. My friend doesn’t have any intentions of purchasing a house, but she read the flyer anyway and checked out the company’s website. The houses looked nice and the prices were reasonable but being a marketer herself, she was turned off by the typographical errors she spotted on the flyer and wondered why the color schemes in the flyer and the site were different. In marketing, image is everything.
This is why having consistent marketing pieces is essential. You may have a clear mission, vision and values when you started your business. You know your objectives, and you’re thrilled to execute your marketing strategies.
You know you need to build your communications based on your value propositions, so you look at some of the most commonly used marketing materials and decide which ones you’ll create for your company such as brochures, newsletters, product sheets, and business cards. With a good copywriter and a creative graphic designer, it should be a piece of cake right?
* So why do we still see some inconsistent marketing messages in some marketing pieces?
a) The importance of a consistent look and feel
Just how important is producing quality, consistent marketing materials? These pieces are the “face” of the company, so it’s essential that they not only look great and have flawless content – they also need to sends out consistent messages in order to be effective. We wouldn’t want to mislead prospects, customer and clients with inconsistent messages, slogans and even company colors, would we?
I’ve enumerated some tips for creating consistent marketing pieces. These may be very easy and basic for any marketer, but still, I believe it bears repeating. Eventually, marketing materials speak volumes about your brand, company and credibility. Might as well make it perfect.
b) Colors and Images
Materials should be created from a consistent palate of colors and images. You don’t want to cause confusion. You would want to make certain that you are conveying a clear, consistent and compelling message, from your website, brochure and email newsletters to your print and billboard ads.
c) Perfect grammar, consistent terminology
What would you think of a company if you notice bad grammar after visiting their site or reading their brochure? Care about the words you use. Consistent marketing collaterals require the use of consistent terms so that your customers are clear on what you are explaining. Content is king in your marketing pieces, and this shows a lot about the professionalism of your company.
d) Update, update, update
After spending the time and money on your marketing collateral, perhaps, you don’t want to do it again.
Nevertheless, it’s important to keep them current. Make it a practice to check and review your pieces often to be certain that your messages are still consistent. Perhaps, you could even adjust the content and improve the design. No matter how busy business gets, never, never forget to keep your materials recent.
With consistent marketing pieces, you not only make an excellent impression – you also establish your brand and attract potential customers in!
5 Must-haves for Making it in Internet Marketing
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Successful Online Businesses: 5 Must-haves for Making it in Internet Marketing
Successful online businesses don’t come easy or we’d all have one—right? It is a hard game, and there are plenty of people who never make it, but the ones who do make it have a pretty good life indeed. And if you’re the type who was inspired by the Four Hour Workweek and loved Tim Ferris’s idea of tramping around the globe and leveraging currency differences in some of the best place son Earth, it doesn’t take all that much money for a good internet marketing business to set you free.
* So what does it take to create a successful online business then?
1. Ridiculous Work Ethic
Cast your assumptions aside – internet marketing success takes A LOT of hard, hard work – at least in the beginning. Most big-timers have put in massive amounts of time and energy to get their businesses where they are today. Sure, now they may be coasting now – although many learn to love the grind and just keep creating – but most have paid their dues.
Be prepared to put in 120% effort, as they say, and work while your friends and family are sleeping. Keep your eye on your dream, and push on.
2. Money to Invest
While it is possible to start successful online businesses from scratch, in most cases, it will take some money to get going along the way. Now, most costs, like web hosting, a domain name, and a quality autoresponder program, are quite cheap, but there are other costs you may not be taking into account until you get your feet wet.
I’d say a major one is skills. Learning things like graphics design, web design, and marketing itself – these things cost time and money. You can hire a quality freelancer to do some of them, and I recommend that with the most important ones, but if you want quality, be prepared to pay.
Another thing that costs is knowledge. You can find anything you want for free – or come up with them through your own through processes – but unless you want to grind away for years at this craft, it’s better to find someone highly successful to emulate, in which case you’ll likely need to pay for their knowledge.
Finally, if you don’t want to do all this while working a full-time job, you’d better have some money saved up – to last a good chunk of time. I highly recommend freelancing as a way to fund your internet marketing journey.
3. The Ability to Learn
Do you have the ability to learn new skills and the energy to keep after them until you have achieved mastery? In many cases, that’s what it takes, and while everyone says they can learn and love to do it, true learning is rare in our culture. Just look how often the people around you have made actual changes in their life if you don’t believe me.
4. Unrealistic Goals
Like any successful entrepreneur, you need to be somewhat of a dreamer. And the ability to stand behind those big dreams when no one else has faith in you is even more important in this business because all your friends and family will be there telling you it’s a sham.
5. Guidance
Finally, nothing is so valuable as solid guidance in the internet marketing world. It is hard to find someone you can put your faith in, but if you don’t find someone then you will find yourself running down one path after another, never staying on one long enough to get results.
I highly encourage you to find one person who you respect and trust that is doing very well for themselves, and follow them. Once you’ve mastered what they are teaching and begun making money, then you can begin to study someone else and keep building on your knowledge-base to emulate the successful online businesses that are already out there.
How To Have Great Results With Article Marketing?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
How To Have Great Results With Article Marketing?
Ever wonder how to get a virtual flood of FREE traffic to your websites? Yeah, me too! Then I discovered article marketing.
* What is Article Marketing?
Article Marketing is the art of the writing and distributing articles to article directories and blogs.
There are two main purposes of article marketing.
1.) To gain valuable backlinks from high page rank sites to your website or affiliate page
2.) To drive traffic to your website or affiliate page
* So how do you write good articles?
To start off with, the number one rule for writing articles is to provide value to the reader! This can be done by explaining a topic (like this article does) or by solving a problem the potential reader has. Providing Value is very important because if you are trying to get people to your website or affiliate page, what is the chance they are going to click through at the bottom of the article if you do not write a good article? Probably, no chance at all.
The 2nd rule when writing articles for maximum effect is to include a byline or signature that seems to be a natural extension of the article itself. There are far to many individuals who are not aware of this rule. What do I mean by this?
Well instead of writing an author’s signature like this (99% of people do this): Chris Gustafson is a expert in the field of search engine optimization.
Write something like this:
As you can see topic XYZ is not that hard to understand once you have it explained to you in plain English.
When you write a signature like the 2nd one your click through rate on your articles will go from 5% to above 20%.
Yes, it’s that big of difference!!!!
So there are your two golden rules that if followed will put you ahead of 99% of the other people out there who are using article marketing as a strategy. The next thing you need to know how to do is distribute your article. To do this you really have two options:
1.) Manually submit your article to all the top article directories
2.) Pay an article submission service to do this for you:
Option #1 is time consuming and get’s old real fast
Option #2 will cost you some money but may be worth it if you are in this for the long haul. To find article submission services it is as simple as Googling that term! There will be a ton of results; all you have to do is pick one. Make sure to do your homework first though.
In closing, I hope you enjoyed this article. I hope you learned something and it leads you to great article marketing success!
How Many Article Submission Sites Should I Submit To
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
How Many Article Submission Sites Should I Submit To
Here is an excellent question that I get sometimes: “Is it okay to submit the same article to multiple article submission sites?”
Sometimes people are afraid to do this, and that fear is completely unfounded. Let’s start by looking at the purpose of an article directory.
Article submission sites (aka article directories) are like libraries. They specialize in having content (free reprint articles) on all sorts of topics that can be “checked-out” for free, like in a library.
The difference is that with a library you need to bring the book back eventually, whereas the articles on directories do not need to be “returned”.
Publishers go to the article directories looking for content for their websites. They find an article that they like, and they may reprint that article for free, with the agreement that they will also republish the resource box with its link.
The purpose of an article submission site is to provide free reprint articles for publishers. Each article can be republished a limitless number of times–the more the better.
When you publish your article on a directory, you want it to be republished. That is how you build links, and building links impacts your search engine ranking, which in turn impacts the traffic you receive to your website.
So, article directories are never meant to be the end of the line–you do not publish there thinking that it will be the only place that your article will be published. That is not how article marketing works.
The power behind article marketing is in the republication of the articles.
You write one article, and it gets republished many times. You submit your article one time to a directory, and then let’s say 100 publishers find your article on that directory and put it on their site.
So, from one article submitted to one directory, you created 101 links–the first link came from the directory itself, when you submitted your article there. The other 100 links were the result of publishers finding your article on the directory and republishing it.
Let’s go back to the original question–is it alright to submit the same article to multiple article directories?
The answer is “yes”, and you will benefit greatly if you take the initiative to do that.
If you submit your article to one submission site, then you are totally dependent on the results that that one directory can bring. You do that one submission and you wait, and wait, and wait. Kind of passive, isn’t it?
But, if you submit your article to several directories, then you have helped your cause in two ways:
1 – You are automatically building more links by submitting to more sites. Submit your article to one directory, and you know for sure that you have build one backlink. Submit your article to ten directories, and you know for sure you have build ten new links.
2 – You multiply the opportunities for your article to be picked up for publication, which also multiplies your opportunities for building backlinks.
For example, submit your article to one directory, and then 100 publishers republish your article. That makes a total of 101 backlinks for you as a result of publishing that one article on that one directory.
Not bad, but what if you submitted your article to ten directories with the same result–101 backlinks build as a result of publishing on each site. That’s a big increase, isn’t it?
Would you rather have 101 new backlinks or 1,010?
When you submit your articles to more directories, you drastically increase the number of links that you can create.
Article directories are not expecting that they will be the only website that contains your article–the very purpose of an article submission site is to propagate the republication of articles.
Each article that you write should only be submitted one time to each directory, but you can submit that same article to as many directories as you like.
Issues on Privacy Concerns on Facebook
It seems that you can barely log into the internet today without finding dire warnings about the privacy of your FaceBook account. Hundreds (and possibly thousands) of users have declared May 31, 2010 as “Leave FaceBook Day”. Since the dawn of the internet, privacy has been a concern. However, if you put a google search in for “Facebook Privacy Concerns” it returns 17,400,000 results while Twitter returns 15,500,000 results and LinkedIn at the bottom of the pile returns 667,000 results.
In a viewpoint, Facebook is approximated to have the largest number of users among the three. And truthfully, the three (although often lumped together) are really different and have different audiences. With that said, how concerned should you be about your FaceBook security?
Well, like anything else that’s on the internet, it’s not hack-proof. Even the strongest privacy policy isn’t going to protect you if someone really wants to get at your information. Changes on the privacy policy on Facebook however seem to be on a craze and they don’t really mind how many protests they receive, it is more like a “woops” to them. Then there is the audacity of Facebook founders to tell you that having multiple “online” identities is displaying unethical behavior? He’s simply letting you know that your account for business and personal account on Facebook must be one and the same or you don’t have the ethics. And the answer to that?
Probably not – most of us tend to like to keep our “personal” and our “business” lives (especially online) separate as much as possible. I mean seriously – do your children really care if the company that you are promoting has already reached 1000 blog readers? Do those people who follows your company really need to know that your grand daughter is a part of a cheerleading tournament? Probably the answer to both of these is “not so much”.
Given the number of issues that have come around you’ll find hundreds of articles including a very interesting one from the New York Times where they referred to FaceBook privacy options as “A Bewildering Tangle of Options”. Unless you are willing to spend the time to verify all of these potential options, you might just want to rethink your FaceBook account. However, keep something else in mind – deleting your FaceBook account borders on amusing and is certainly confusing for most.
- Words of Caution:
* Disabling your Facebook account and deleting it are NOT the same thing!
* Links shared by other users after you posted them don’t get removed
* Photos that you shared who others shared don’t get removed
* There are other restrictions that can still cause you privacy issues.
* If you get through the delete process and don’t stay out of Facebook it negates the entire process!!
With that here are some options to help:
* A 33 slide show on how to lock down your privacy at Facebook
* Video instructions on how to delete your Facebook account
* Make sure you read some of the information and make an informed decision.
Good Conversation Topics Often Make Good Article Topics
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Good Conversation Topics Often Make Good Article Topics
Want to know how to get a quiet person to talk your ear off?
Ask them about something that they are passionate about– A hobby, their work, their favorite author or musician.
When you have the chance to speak about something that you are passionate about, you can talk for hours, and it feels like minutes.
I’ve noticed this with myself–some of my best articles about my niche are the products of spontaneous conversations I’ve had with people who innocently asked me something that I am very knowledgeable and passionate about.
Whenever I find myself in one of these conversations, I think “This would make a great article!”
When you are doing article marketing, you are always on the look out for new and compelling article ideas. The ideas listed below will help you generate more conversation oriented topics:
1 – Think of yourself as an ambassador for your niche
Wherever you go, no matter if you’re enjoying some leisure time or are officially “at work”, always be on the look out for someone who needs more information about your niche.
Even if you think that person will never become a customer or buy any of your products, still take the time to give them information that will help them succeed.
An ambassador lives to spread truth about his or her niche. This takes you out of the position as sales person (which can be a turn-off to others) and puts you into the amiable position of “the go-to expert”.
2 – Plan how you’ll answer this question, “What do you do for a living?”
This may be a very simple question for most humans, but for those of us who own internet businesses it can be a tricky question to answer outside of the context of the online world. Let’s say someone in the offline world asks you this question–what will you say? How can you explain what you do in a way that they will understand?
Here are some pointers I’ve developed:
* Instead of rattling off some obscure title or description that no one in the outside world would understand, talk about the type of people who you help and what you do to help them.
* Force yourself to avoid technical lingo–use language that your grandmother would understand.
* Speak about your general field, rather than about your specific business, at least at first. Remember, you don’t want to send any “I want to sell you something” vibes (because you really don’t want to sell anything–you’re just having a conversation).
As an example, I would say that I help business owners market their websites. That is something that someone from the offline world can sink their teeth into, and it will lead to other questions. Many of the conversations that you have about your niche with newbies or folks outside your field are excellent fodder for your articles.
If you are going through a writing slump or just want a fresh way to generate article ideas, I have an assignment for you:
Step 1:
Turn off your computer and go out where people are. Go to a party, a coffee shop, the gym, the grocery store–anywhere where you can encounter live humans.
Step 2:
Put on your ambassador hat. Smile at people, be open and friendly. Engage them in conversations. If someone talks to you, be interested in them and ask them questions. The point is to provide fertile ground for conversations to develop. No pressure here–just be yourself.
Step 3:
Did any article topics arise from your conversations? Sometimes you can take the simplest question that someone unfamiliar with your niche asks and turn it into a helpful article. No topic is too simple!
Do this, will you? What’s the worst that can happen?
At worst you will have enjoyed a break from sitting behind your keyboard and staring at your monitor. Sometimes that in itself is enough to jump start your creativity and inspire writing ideas.
My Secrets for Getting More Views and Clicks
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, March 5, 2011
My Secrets for Getting More Views and Clicks
When you are writing an article the reader should find it informative. If you are writing about the pros and cons of something then the reader should be able to identify with what you are saying. You need to come up with a solution to a given problem in the article. With this in mind, article writing can be easier than many of us think.
Here Are 5 Simple Tips On Writing Great Articles:
1. If the title of the article is ambiguous it should be simplified to make it more effective. The readers should find your writings both interesting and informative. You should know your target audience, before you start writing articles. This will help you write better. Make sure that your title is catchy. You will be up against thousands of articles so you want to be able to stand out from the crowd.
2. The success or failure of an article marketing campaign may rest on its use of keywords. They must be strategically placed. They should appear at least once in the title, opening and closing paragraphs. They should also appear in the middle. The rest should be sprinkled throughout the remainder of the piece. Keyword density should be about one to three percent.
3. Use conversational tone. Don’t even think about making your articles sound like novels or encyclopedia. To avoid alienating your readers, write as if you’re personally talking to them. Use first person pronouns when addressing them. Ask questions from time to time and find effective ways to engage them all the way.
4. Keep it short and scannable. As you might already know, online users are usually pressed for time. You can make your articles more attractive for these people if you make them relatively short and easy to skim through. Make sure that you will not use more than 500 words especially if you’re discussing very specific topics. Then, use subheadings, short paragraphs, and bullets lists as much as possible.
5. Use good grammar and proper spelling. This should go without saying. Yet some article writers/publishers seem to have a poor grasp on grammar and spelling. Even if your grammar and spelling are stellar, you should always run your articles through a spell/grammar check. This can help catch mistakes you might miss.
Writing a POWERFUL Resource Box
Never underestimate the power of the resource box. It may be small in size but they will provide a significant aid in driving traffic to your site. A boring resource box will never get the job done. Be fun and creative but at the same time show that you have a great deal to offer.
While the resource box encompasses only a small space, providing the right keywords and content will provide more prodding for the reader to go to your site. You do not need to give away everything in your article, but instead make your readers crave for more information. This will guide them to visit your website to get more details. You only get one chance to wow them and many other chances to repulse them.
Remembering these tips when you embark on creating an article marketing campaign will greatly increase your chances of success. Not only will it be great for business, you’ll undoubtedly come away with a tremendous sense of personal satisfaction.
Final Thoughts
What Article Marketing Lab taught me was how to write articles for certain products and how to use those articles to drive traffic to a simple landing page. The key to writing articles is target specific people looking for more information on my chosen topic and the landing page is there to deliver what my article readers are looking for. Pretty simple really once you know how.
I have been part of the buy everything going crowd and I have learned through this course that there is a way to succeed, there is a way forward and that is to stick to something that works. I have a lot to thank Team AML for opening my eyes to something that I know I can succeed in.
Article Marketing Is Still A Goldrush For Local Businesses
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, March 4, 2011
Article Marketing Is Still A Goldrush For Local Businesses
It’s no secret that the most competitive verticals online like Golf, Finance, Forex, Real Estate, Health and Internet Marketing are extremely competitive. That’s because these are known as Global Markets, which means people participate in these from all over the world. But what about Mary’s Hair Salon in Birmingham, AL or Grubby’s cafe in Oceanside, CA.? These are what they call local businesses, and to date very few of these types of businesses even have an SEO friendly website much less know what article marketing is or how to implement it.
Right now there are 8 major article repositories you can submit your articles to. They are Ezine Articles, GoArticles, Articles Base, Free Articles Zone, Article Alley, Articles Factory, Article Snatch and Article Dashboard. If you’re not familiar with these places just Google them and they’ll come right up. Each one requires you to sign up. They are all free to sign up for. Then you will have to spend a few minutes on each site uploading a photo of you or your business and filling out some author bio information.
Then you are ready to start writing and submitting articles. You can write articles for free on just about any subject there is. The key is to be an expert in what you are writing about. No one knows more about how to run your business than you do, so you should be the most qualified writer on your subject matter. The key is to write your articles and make them about 400-600 words each. Word Count Tool is a free tool you can use to check the word count of your articles before you submit them (Google it). I also use a free program called Note Tab Light which allows me to open up and edit multiple text files at once and is great for simple cut and paste operations.
Your goal should be to write at least 2 articles per day related to your niche subject. You would create an author biography that looks similar to the one you will see below. Take advantage of the 2 anchor text links for every author bio and use them in each article. You can even use the Google keyword tool which is free to collect a list of relevant keywords to your niche. Then start writing articles around these.
If you can type, or know someone who can there is nothing stopping you from becoming the dominator in your local market. The key is to just get out there and start writing and submitting articles every day. Even if you can only afford enough time to do one article per day that’s way better than doing nothing at all. Before you know it your website will start getting better Google rankings for all kinds of keywords related to your business. Of course you have to also pay attention to on-site optimization but that’s a topic for an entirely different article.
But right now article directories are hungry for your wisdom and knowledge about what you know about how your type of business is supposed to be run in your locale. Publish or perish couldn’t be more true. The first one out there with the content will be the supreme ruler in their local niche. I suggest you develop a sense of urgency soon and get out there with as much content as possible before your competition does.
Article Marketing And The Eye Of The Spider
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Article Marketing And The Eye Of The Spider
Ever wondered how internet marketing worked? How does anybody who is into internet marketing inform his potential customers that he exists? And how do customers who are looking for something specific, know where to look for it?
Given the sheer profusion of pages on the internet, this can be a herculean task for both the buyer as well as the seller.
Internet marketing is all about catching the ‘eye of the spider’. ‘Spiders’ are ingenious little devices that search all the pages of the World Wide Web looking for those pages that are most relevant to the search term that the internet user has entered. Not only do spiders find the appropriate pages, but they also rank these pages in order of relevance, making it easier for the user to find what he is looking for. Goes without saying, anybody looking for something would first click on the page that is right on top of the list. If he finds what he is looking for, that’s it- he looks no further. It is only if he does not find what he wants that he will then go down the list of pages that the spiders have ranked in decreasing order of relevance. The key then, is to make sure your website is ranked right up there above all others that have the same keyword.
Here are a few tips on how you can use article marketing to catch the eye of that all-important spider and get your website ranked right up there, where it can be seen by millions of users:
* Make sure your article content is original
Spiders never forget! They memorize every article they have ever crawled over. If they come across a similar article during subsequent searches they immediately pick it out as a plagiarized copy. Instead of the brownie points you would expect to win for featuring valuable content on your web site, your web site would get penalized for featuring copied content. It is critical to make sure that your article content is always original.
Post your original articles on your own website first
By posting your original content on your own website before distributing it to other sites, you stake a claim to your article, and prevent those spiders from penalizing it for duplication. Also, when the spider picks up your article during a search, if the article is posted on your website, it will lead the reader straight to your site circumventing the round-about route.
* Embed those keywords and keyword phrases
Using appropriate keywords and keyword phrases throughout your article while maintaining optimum keyword density, is critical. Proper keywords used correctly helps spiders index your website and leverages your search engine optimization. It is important to remember that proper usage of keywords and keyword phrases is critical. Keywords that are randomly placed throughout the article, known as keyword stuffing, will only help get your article disqualified and penalized by search engines. And if your article that is unintelligently keyword stuffed, does get past the search engines, your site visitors will be none too impressed with the quality of your articles and will almost certainly turn away. Once this happens, it is almost impossible to lure them back again.
* Increase your link popularity
Spiders determine the popularity and relevancy of your website by the quality and quantity of inbound hyperlinks from other websites to yours. Include an “About the Author” section with a link to your website in every author resource box at the end of your article. It is obligatory for other websites to include this section if they decide to publish your article on their site. This in itself will guarantee you unlimited free publicity. If your article is informative and interesting, and is placed on several sites, you would automatically get plenty of links pointing back to your site. This is guaranteed to catch the eye of the spider and increase your search engine ranking.
* Maximize your exposure through article distribution sites
By submitting your articles to large distributions sites such as GoArticles.com or eZine.com you increase the chances of your article being re-purposed by other webmasters who are continuously seeking quality content. This can have a kind of viral effect and send a continuous stream of significant traffic towards the direction of your articles.
* Persistence pays
Writing just one article, no matter how good, is not enough to get you the desired results. Catching the eye of the spider takes time. To reap the benefits of article marketing requires time and patience as well as the unswerving commitment to generate and disseminate good quality articles consistently. This is what will create a valuable footprint in your field of expertise and help increase the number of back-links to your site.
* Maintain that word count
Most websites will only accept and distribute articles that meet their specified article requirements with regard to minimum and maximum length. As a rule, articles should be no more than 500 words and no less than 300 words.
An Editor’s Take on Article Writing: The Submission Process
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
An Editor’s Take on Article Writing: The Submission Process
As an editor for an online newsletter, I receive dozens of articles via personal submissions and article directories throughout the week. Many of these articles are extremely well written, many are very good, but unfortunately, many are well below industry standards due to poorly written or structured content. So, what makes for a good article and one that will actually be picked by an editor for publication?
Understanding what elements a publisher is looking for to use in its newsletter or on its website should be a consideration of any author who wants to be published, as well as having a good grasp of the English language, (i.e. grammar and punctuation). The recent surge of new article directories on the Web has brought a deluge of so called authors who churn out article after article on a subject with little regard, or maybe I should say knowledge, on how they are being reviewed by publishers. A simple, but effective, fine-tuning of those articles for publication will be of benefit to both author and publisher.
* What is a Publisher Looking for in an Article?
1. Good Content
Content on a relevant topic within our specific industry is the biggest consideration when selecting a piece for our newsletter or website. (If the newsletter is for web-programmers or web-designers – relevant topics for submission should be within that scope and pertinent areas.) There has been an influx of articles recently on article marketing and affiliate marketing. These are both great topics, but what I see is the same information rewritten over and over. Once an article has been published on this topic, unless the new article is obviously providing a different take on the subject or has new information to share…it is old news.
Therefore, authors must be creative and take a new direction on the topic; writing something that hasn’t been rehashed over and over. Be controversial. Do some research on the topic that will add value to the article by providing statistics, history, a new point-of-view – anything that is relevant and new that readers will find of interest and not just of interest to you, the author.
Make sure your first few sentences or paragraphs provide enough interest to keep your audience’s attention. You will lose them otherwise. Most people scan an article and move on if it is not compelling enough. Add compelling content! Simply stated is fine – but your content must also be interesting, thought provoking, and of value to the reader.
In addition — Spell-check your work!! A poorly written article is not only difficult to read, but takes time for the editor to proof and edit. Your articles should be well written pieces with spelling and grammar checked before submitting to article directories or directly to a publisher. This is my pet-peeve. With all the tools available to assist in most programs (i.e. Word, Works, Mac Word, iWorks, etc.) there shouldn’t be spelling or grammatical errors. Take the time to check your work, it’s well worth the effort.
2. Give the Article a Catchy Title
This is another very important point I cannot stress enough. A boring or vague title will not prompt a reader to either open an email or click on a link to your article. If your article is about Google – use Google in the title. Think about the point you are trying to make or bring to the reader’s attention and use it in the title. Strong titled articles will get the attention of a publisher and your readers.
3. Making the Word Count
Taking the time to write an article is a task in itself. Unless you are making money at article writing – your time is valuable and you want to make the most of your article writing. Getting published is your reward! With that in mind….A well written article on a hot topic should have a substantial word count, and if less than 550 words – the article may not be picked up by a publisher of a newsletter as a featured article. A featured article has substance and should be at least 750 words or longer for consideration. Still, many publishers are looking for shorter articles for their websites and a well-written article with a shorter word count will suffice.
* Finally…
To be a successfully, published author you must hone in your skills. Providing good, relevant content in an article that is spell-checked and grammatically correct, with a catchy title will entice and grab the attention of publishers. Experienced authors get published more often as they become a trusted source by editors to provide a professional piece which has that added attention to detail we editors all strive for!
How to Write Google Ads that Get New Patients
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
How to Write Google Ads that Get New Patients
If you’re using Pay-Per-Click advertising to promote your plastic surgery marketing practice online or if you’re even thinking about using PPC then you need to read this article right away.
* Why?
Because you can’t just buy the first spot anymore! There’s something called a quality score that Google uses. And if Google doesn’t like your ad or website, it will punish you by lowering the rank of your ad burying it so very few prospects will see it. Now, if you don’t write your Google Ads the right way, you can be spending thousands of dollars and not get one single new patient.
Why Most Google Ads Fail to Bring In New Patients
Imagine you are seated in a room, shoulder to shoulder with your fiercest competitors.
In the middle is a prospective patient for your plastic surgery practice.
This asks, “Why should I choose YOUR PRACTICE in 15 words or less?”
* What would you say?
Would you waste any of the 15 words? Would you waste 3-6 of the words on saying your name once or TWICE???? Would you waste a few words on “Board Certified” or “Free Consultation” that everyone else offers?
Well, believe it or not, the scenario above is basically your Google ad. It’s a preliminary 15-word interview of you versus all of your competition. And, most people doing pay-per-click advertising online stumble by adding words that are a complete waste. People add words that do not make people want to click and visit their website. By not writing an effective Google ad, you can kiss tens of thousands of dollars in new patients goodbye.
* How to Write an Effective Google Ad That Brings In New
Each word in your Google ad must earn its spot. If there’s not a strong persuasive element to every word you select, then you are wasting space and missing out on new patients. And, this includes inserting your name and the practice’s name within the ad. In fact, this is the pay-per-click advertising mistake that is committed everyday. People are obliviously taking up precious Google ad real estate.
For example, look at these to ads under a search for “San Diego Plastic Surgeon”:
Ad #1:
Smith Cosmetic Surgery
Dr. Ray Smith offers cosmetic
procedures for body, breast & face
(URL was placed here)
(Actual ad but name was changed here)
Ad #2
Facial Plastic Surgery
“Only Face; Only Superior Results” San Diego
San Diego Plastic Surgeon (CA)
(URL was placed here)
* Notice the difference between the two ads?
The Difference Between a Good Google Ad and a Poor Google Ad
1. The first ad forgets that the most important part of the ad is the headline. Put your name there and you might as well leave it blank.
2. The first ad in contrast tells the prospective patient nothing about why they should choose or even consider Smith over every other plastic surgeon out there. Everyone else “offers procedures for body, breast & face.” He’s positioned him self as just like everyone body else.
3. The second ad tells people we only do face. This eliminates people they don’t want– so they’re only paying for clicks from their target customers. The general public has been taught that specialists are “better.”
4. The second ad confirmed they are in San Diego, in two different spots. This bolds “San Diego” in the ad and it makes the ad stand out from the rest. Plus it assures someone looking for a surgeon in San Diego that in fact this is in line with what they are looking for.
The only fault that I find on the second ad is the use of “Only Superior Results.” What does that really mean to a prospective patient? Not a whole lot. Every patient is expecting superior results. Some have expectations set more towards miracles then “superior.”
On your Google ad, you want to describe what a patient is after and hit on some emotion. You want to have some psychological or emotional trigger within your ad copy that grabs prospective patients by the eyeballs and pulls them to your website.
* Your Next Steps…
You can continue to do pay-per-click advertising your way and waste thousands of dollars or you can consistently beat your competitors and get new patients even in a recession. And, you can have Google think of you as a long-term business partner they can count on. They give their long-term partners preferential treatment like:
* Higher position with a LOWER cost. It is possible to get a #1 spot for #3 prices or less.
* Your ads will show more often
The end result is more new patients and a lower new patient generation cost.
For more information on plastic surgery marketing that generates a flood of new patients visit www.clicksandpatients.com for our free report: “Recession Proof Strategies That Are Bringing In Scores Of New Patients For Plastic Surgeons In The Most Fiercely Competitive Plastic Surgery Market In The World – Beverly Hills.”
When Is the Right Time to Start Marketing Your Book?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, February 28, 2011
When Is the Right Time to Start Marketing Your Book?
Almost every book author wants to know: When is a good time to start marketing a book? While still writing the book, while looking for an agent or publisher, while going through the self-publishing process? When the book is available on Amazon?
There are few certain replies to this question except for one: It’s rather late to start marketing your book when it is already out on Amazon.
So what’s the answer as to when is the best time to start marketing a book? It depends.
And what it depends on is a great number of variables, including is this your first book, do you already have an online reputation, are you a renown newspaper journalist who is about to write a first novel, and any other variable that you care to name. (Such as, do you have a famous last name, such as Mary Higgins Clark’s daughter had when she started writing mysteries?)
If we can agree that we can’t pinpoint an exact right time that applies to everyone, are there general guidelines that can help all authors?
Yes, I believe there are. First, if you’re interested in promoting online, the earlier you start establishing yourself online the better. And the first step is to decide on your brand as a book author.
What do I mean by brand? I mean how you plan to position yourself in your marketing and promotion. What is it that will make you stand out from other writers of non-fiction or similar fiction? What will make people interested in you (and hopefully want to buy your book)?
The strategizing of your brand definitely takes place as early as possible in the publication quest for your book. And as part of this brand strategy, it’s very important to consider the proposed title of your book. This is even more relevant if you’re going to self-publish. You should check out your title with others even if you love the title.
Does your book title “read” the way you think it does? Or does your proposed tile have a different meaning to some people? For example, today I saw someone’s proposed book title that will be very hard to remember, let along spell on Amazon or for a URL. This is probably not the best name for a book.
And does the title stand out? Does it create an image in a potential reader’s mind so he/she can remember the title? A generic title such as “A Good Trip” doesn’t create a specific image, whereas “Six Sunny Days in Paris” creates a strong sense memory.
Once you are clear about your brand and have a good “working” book title (it still may change), you can begin to add elements to your brand positioning.
You can, for example, have someone create short videos (less than three minutes) of you talking about the stages you’re going through in researching and writing your book. Then you can use software such as Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit the video and to put text such as your name and, if you have a website, your website’s URL on the video.
And you can upload these short videos to YouTube and other video-sharing sites. Remember, it’s important to tag these videos with good keywords that relate to you and your brand so that people will have an easier time finding your videos.
You can start a blog, detailing the stages of your book’s process and sharing sample chapters with your blog readers. Getting feedback early on can help you refine your book. And you can offer to write guest posts for other people’s blogs, again staying true to your brand in what you offer to write about.
And then you’re ready for a website – a site that you can control yourself without waiting days for your web master to make one little change. That’s why I recommend having someone build you a website using WordPress.org. Once all the backend steps are done, you will have a website (and blog if you want) that is hosted on your own site and can be completely controlled (read “changed”) by you.
Finally, it’s time to establish a sincere presence on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as well as various book sites and other social media sites. Gradually build up your presence on these sites by engaging in conversations with others, offering advice when you can, and establishing relationships that will come in handy when your book is published.
Having a website or at least a blog hosted on another site such as blogger.com provides you with your own arena of visibility when you set up your profiles on social media sites. By using your website URL or blog URL as part of who you are on the internet, you’re more firmly establishing an online foundation for your book’s publication and marketing.
5 Reasons To Use Squidoo
An affiliate marketer has to have certain things. I consider it very important to have a web page where you can put your offers and content.
Then you can just get down to driving traffic to your site, making sales, and earning money.
Still, the beginning affiliate marketer and perhaps even some intermediates, would like it to be low priced and more straightforward than the typical setup.
Take as an example the mass of web pages called Squidoo.
It’s really just another website except for it’s size and variety of content. It’s VERY well known at Google.
By the end of 2009 there were nearly a million individual pages on this huge website and those pages are called “lenses” by the “Squids.”
Here are 5 good reasons to use Squidoo as an affiliate marketer.
The first reason is your cost for the hosting space. It’s zero.
The second reason is the cost of registering a domain name. It’s zero too!
Squidoo loks good because it’s practically effortless, AND it’s very low cost, especially when compared to the typical cost of hosting and domain at about $100 to $130 per year.
That doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t if your site is making money or if you just have plenty of it. But for affiliates who are just starting and a lot of intermediates too, it’s just perfect.
The third reason, and one of big importance to affiliates, is that it is relatively easy to get indexed by Google for your lens. Really it’s a web page. But Google seems to like them.
If you pick your domain name with a keyword relevant to your sites content, that you can easily rank for, and you put it at the beginning of your domain name, you will be on your way to good rankings.
Doing a good job optimizing your page (lens) for your relevant keyword, is the best way to get your site to come up on the search results page in Google. And Page One of Google for almost ANY keyword will result in some good traffic.
The fourth reason to use Squidoo is that there is on site help. There is lots of assistance.
This would have really helped me when I was getting started because it seemed like, for me, everything new wasn’t just new…it seemed wierd…alien even. I didn’t “get it.”
Squdoo helps you in a dozen ways and you can see for yourself by just going there and looking around.
In addition, there is a forum where you can go and ask questions and get answers. And maybe later you will even answer some questions.
The fifth reason to use these pages (lenses) is because they work!
By work I mean that you can make them look like a great web page. You can also set them up to get a good bit of traffic. And you can sell directly from them.
If you’d like a landing page, this is it!
And that’s not all. You will learn a lot!
Many of the stumbling blocks a typical newcomer or even intermediate affiliate marketer will run into are completely eliminated by this alternative. The first reason that comes to mind is the FREE domain name and hosting.
Go there, join up and start your first lens. Start fooling around with it. Learn how to do a few of the things you need to get a halfway decent site up. There’ll be plenty of help if you get stuck.
In a couple to three weeks you could have an affiliate site up, indexed, and getting traffic, and making sales.
Watch out because IF you do this, the next thing that will happen is that you will get a sale. A sale that didn’t cost you anything but your time and effort.
Only now you’ll know how to repeat it and increase your income.
3 Reasons Why Most Article Templates Do Not Help You Write Articles Fast
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, February 26, 2011
3 Reasons Why Most Article Templates Do Not Help You Write Articles Fast
Instant article writing templates such as those found at StartWritingArticlesFaster.com can help you overcome writer’s block. In many cases, with the right article templates, you can write your articles in 30 minutes or less.
Notice the keywords there – “with the right article templates.”
If you do a Google search for “instant article writing templates”, “instant article templates”, “article writing templates”, “free article templates” and “article templates”— underneath my websites and my articles you find hundreds of other resources. Some sites even give you free article templates.
Heck, I even give you 3 free article templates at http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com
Here’s the problem…most article templates are not designed to help you write better articles faster. Now, the creators of these article templates had good intentions. However, if you use the wrong article templates, you will find yourself even more confused.
The 3 Biggest Problems with Most Instant Article Writing Templates
1. Most article templates do not give you the structure and organization you need. In fact, here’s a sampling of what one article template provider offers…
Article Writing Template – What I Learned From….
This one is simply a bulleted list of what you have learned from any number of things or events such as what I learned from my parents, my sister, my brother, my son, my daughter, from my third grade teacher, from September 11th, from watching a TV show, etc.
Bullet 1-
Bullet 2-
Bullet 3-
And, so on…
Now, to me this is not a workable template. Templates are supposed to be worksheets that guide you throughout the process. For example, I put my “Instant Article Writing Templates” in MS Word format. Each template is in chart format. All you have to do is put the information that’s in your head and put it exactly where I ask you to. Once the template is complete, all you have to do is copy each section and paste it into a new document – and you’ll have a finished article.
2. Most article templates don’t keep you, the article writer, focused. If I don’t use my article templates, I find myself rambling, going from one topic to another. And, I’m the article writing and article marketing expert. When you have a workable template that provides you with structure and organization, your copy will automatically become more focused. It becomes an easier, better read for your readers. However, most templates like the example I showed you above do not give you a structure and organization to follow. And, they allow you to bounce from one idea to another without any kind of transition.
3. Most article template resources do not provide real article examples from a wide number of industries. If there are any article examples provided along with the article templates, you’ll just find articles that the creator wrote. So, you’ll just find Internet marketing articles that promote the creator’s other products and services. You want to look for article resources that provide actual article examples of those in your niche. For example, in my Instant Article Writing Templates Kit, I not only share with you some of my own articles, but I share with articles that are written by my clients who are authors, speakers and entrepreneurs dealing with a wide number of business, finance, relationship and parenting issues.
Again, I do not mean to mock or offend those in my industry. I just want to help you write your articles faster. Now, that you aware of the problems that most instant article writing templates have – you can choose wisely.
Use These 3 Tips so that Your Online Income Affiliate Business can Survive
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, February 24, 2011
As an affiliate marketer who would like to not only survive but also generate a large income you will need to utilize these 3 tips given here and be prepared to work hard as there is not magical formula to success.
As an affiliate marketer using these 3 tips will help your chances of success with your online marketing business. Using these 3 tips will help your online business survive the competition that is found in an online based business environment.
1. Give your readers free reports.
Either place these reports where they can be easily seen near the top of your website or alternatively give them as an incentive to visitors who are will to give you their name and email address.
Use a unique squeeze page, in other words one that is different from what everyone else is using, to offer your reports in exchange for their email address and make sure that you have an opt in box on that squeeze page that goes to your auto-responder account.
It is a known fact that the majority of people will not purchase anything the first time they see it. Normally it will take a minimum of seven views for them to make the purchase. Keep in mind that usually people are more willing to spend money with a person that they believe is trustworthy and has taken the time to build a relationship with them, they need to know that they are not just dealing with some faceless website but a real person who is willing to help them.
If the only connection is the product on your website, not only will you not build a list, but chances are that even if someone is interested in the product you are selling they will move on and in the end buy it from someone else.
2. Promote each product on a separate web page.
If you use this method of marketing your products you will be keeping the reader focused on one thing at a time and they will become less distracted than if there were too many things on the one page.
Help the reader to make a decision on each product by having a review for each one on your website. This not only gives it a more personal touch but also helps to encourage a sale. If you are able to get some testimonials from any of your previous customers who have already tried the product then this is something that you can use to your advantage.
Just be sure that those customers are happy to allow you to use their name and if possible their photo.
3. Aim to generate a lot of targeted traffic to your website.
There is absolutely no point in getting people to visit your site who have no interest whatsoever in the products that you are promoting. Write articles and submit them to ezines and article directories and focus on the niche that you are promoting your products to. There is no point in spending your time promoting your affiliate internet business where no one is interested in what you are selling, but writing articles and publishing them in article directories is a great way to become known and brand yourself and your business and the best thing is that this type of advertising will not cost you any money.
If you want to benefit from marketing your online business by using article marketing you will need to write a minimum of 2 articles every week. If you continue to do this consistently you will see that over time your traffic will increase and it will be people who are interested in your products and what you have to say.
None of these tips are really difficult to follow and take action on it just needs some time and thought from you. Try using these tips for a few of your affiliate internet based business programs and see how they will help your opportunity to survive as an online affiliate marketer. Another great thing about this is the increase in the pay checks you will be receiving.
What Benefits Your Online Business more Automating or Building a Relationship with Your List?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
What Benefits Your Online Business more Automating or Building a Relationship with Your List?
Anyone who has been involved in a legitimate online business for any length of time will have heard the statement “the money is in the list”. While this is true there is also another phrase that one hears repeatedly and that is “the importance of automating your business”.
Both these statements have a great deal of truth in them and using an auto-responder to collect names addresses and send out regular emails is an essential part of running a successful internet marketing campaign.
The point to consider though is whether you should rely on these pre-written automated newsletters alone or if you should also send broadcast messages to the subscribers on your email list keeping them abreast of up to the minute news and giving them information that can be of benefit to them.
Let’s face it, if you want to build a successful and profitable list of subscribers, it is important to remember that every time a newsletter gets sent out to an email address there is a real flesh and blood person at the receiving end who is going to be reading and responding in some way to that message.
It is very true that the money is in the list but you need to keep in mind when you have these pre-written newsletters that over a period of time they can become stale and outdated. So from time to time it is necessary to check them and see that the information you are sending out still applies and discard anything that becomes obsolete. A good idea would be to go through these letters every six months or so to be sure that what you are sending out is still relevant.
In addition send out a broadcast weekly or more often if you prefer, with topical information, and learn to build a relationship with your email subscribers if you want a responsive and profitable list. An automated emailing system has a lot of benefits and is well worth having so long as you don’t just rely on that entirely if you want your readers to remain on your list and become customers as well.
A simple method to use for building a list is to advertise with a squeeze page and every time anyone signs up for your newsletter through your squeeze page they will automatically be added to your mailing list by your auto-responder service and they will begin to receive your newsletters. If they enjoy what they read and like the products you are offering there is a good chance that they will purchase from you.
Then it is up to you to start building a relationship with them so that they can become regular customers as this is what will pay the bills for your legitimate online business.
Another way to keep your subscribers up to date and interested in what you do is to set up your auto-responder to notify them whenever you make a new post on your blog. In this way they will be receiving regular information from you and it doesn’t require any extra work.
Finally keep in mind that what matters most in making your online business successful is not so much the size of your list it is more the responsiveness and the amount of money that your subscribers are happy to spend with you.
How To Create Your First Info Product in 7 Easy Steps?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, February 21, 2011
How To Create Your First Info Product in 7 Easy Steps?
Once you’ve mastered your online marketing system and you’re growing your list on a daily basis, this is a good time to then set about creating additional offerings for your subscribers. This is where you start to look at your Product & Marketing Funnel and see where the gaps are and where new products can fit.
If you’re like most solo service professionals you’ll have something at the top (i.e. the widest part) of your funnel, which is usually your free taste, and then you’ll have something at the bottom (i.e. the narrowest part) of your funnel, which is usually your most expensive one-on-one services, but you won’t have anything in-between.
This is where you need to create products at different price points so that your clients and customers can experience your services and expertise without having to invest in your top (most expensive) service, but they want more than you are offering at the ‘free’ level.
A great first info product to create is one that sits at the second level within your Product & Marketing Funnel; somewhere between $1 and $50.
So, here is the step-by-step guide on how to create that all-important first paid offering.
Step 1: Host a Free Teleclass
Not only is this a great way to build your list, but it also exposes your audience to your expertise. You get to interact with your target market via the teleclass and they are able to ask you questions right there on the call.
Step 2: Record Your Teleclass
In addition to this being a great incentive to getting more sign-ups (if a registrant is not able to make it to the live teleclass they know that they’ll be able to get hold of the information afterwards via the recording), but this is where you’ll turn your free teleclass into your first paid info product.
Step 3: Create an Accompanying Guide or Special Report
Using the notes you prepared for your teleclass, turn these into a guide to accompany your teleclass. Or turn your notes into a special report and sell the report as the paid product and offer the teleclass recording as a bonus.
Step 4: Create a Workbook
If you also provided instructions or how-to information as part of your free teleclass, take that information and create an additional workbook. A workbook is a simple document that will allow your customer/client to make notes, write down their ideas, or plan out how they’re going to implement the how-to information that you shared with them on the teleclass.
Step 5: Bundle It All Together
Now that you have your teleclass recording, and you’ve created an accompanying guide/ebook and/or workbook, bundle all this information together to offer as a paid product at the second level within your funnel i.e. between the $1 and $50 price range.
Step 6: Create a Sales Page and Shopping Cart Link
You now need to create a sales page for your product, and associated shopping cart link. It is also a great customer service feature to create an autoresponder so that you can follow-up with your customers to check that they are happy with their purchase and are implementing the information you shared with them.
Step 7: Promote to Your List
Once you have your product all set up (Step 5), and created the sales page (Step 6) it’s time to promote it to your list and make sales! This is the exciting part! Include some teaser information in your newsletter leading up to the launch of your product, and once you’re ready to take sales send a solo mailing announcing the launch of your product. A solo mailing is much more effective than including the announcement as part of your regular newsletter.
After the initial launch continue to promote your product through your newsletter; promote it on your blog; and tell all your social networks about your product.
How to Target your Website’s Visitors for Optimized Traffic
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, February 20, 2011
How to Target your Website’s Visitors for Optimized Traffic
Over the past decade, the web has grown to such a scale that there are websites covering every single topic under the sun. Due to the sheer scale of it, it is near impossible to pin point the exact number of websites which are on the web; however, statistics show that in February 2007 there were an estimated 29.7 billion pages on web. Taking into consideration the speed in which the web has grown since it’s beginnings in the 1990’s, it is safe to say that this number has increased greatly over the past three years. When it comes to using the internet in connection to our business, targeting the right customers can be hard due to the level of competition our website has. There are various methods in which we may attempt to attract the right visitors as a means to increase our traffic, but some of the most effective methods are in actual fact the cheapest and easiest methods.
Increasing your website’s traffic is all about making your presence known on the web. Marketing and advertising strategies are the main way in which to do this, but in terms of traditional business these can be costly and take sometime to be effective. However, the internet is a fast paced business which allows for your campaigns to be made live in a much shorter space of time, as well as lowering your costs to almost nothing. One of the best ways in which to target visitors is through the use of back links. These can be placed on a wide variety of sites which gain high traffic such as social networking websites and blog sites, but can also be placed on other sites which you can partner up with, exchanging links. When using back links, the first thing you must take into consideration is what your website/product is and what your target market is. In doing this, you will have a clearer idea of what the best sites will be for you to target as irrelevant sites or sites which receive a low level of traffic will be of no use to your website. If you are fortunate to have capital to use, you can also use the aid of Pay per Click schemes. Large search engine sites such as Google can offer this to you but before deciding on this as a means to help your traffic, think about how much you can honestly afford as not to risk a loss in profits.
As businesses look for cheap ways in which to promote their websites, there has been a great increase in the amount of blogs and article directory sites on the web. These allow you to promote your product or service, as well as providing a link back to your website all for the simple exchange of your content on the website. This is a great way in which to gain more back links to your website, as well as s great method of advertising and self promotion. Different websites will have their own guidelines in terms of what you may submit to their sites, but in most cases this is one of the easiest ways in which to promote your business for free. The more external websites you use, the more links you will accumulate on the web which will help your overall traffic level. However, ensure you submit content to reputable sites which have some kind of relevance to your website so that you are targeting the right visitors for your market.
Finally there is one of the most beneficial forms of advertisement- word of mouth marketing. This is not necessarily something which you can achieve yourself, but rather a method of marketing which is completed by your current customers and visitors for free. Word of mouth marketing works by users of your site adding their own back links on to websites in the form of link sharing. Many companies and websites have benefited from this increasing their traffic thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The way in which you can help this become possible is by providing a website and service which is worth talking about. By doing your own part in terms of promoting your website and your own marketing strategies on sites such as these, they are more likely to be noticed by visitors who will then be motivated to visit them. If they like what they see, they can then use bookmarking and other back linking methods to share with other web users they know, thus providing you with free marketing.
Generating traffic to your site is simple when you take into consideration what is right for your website. By looking at the way in which other websites are using the web to promote themselves, you too will soon discover the benefits which come from using simple, yet effective marketing techniques and see your traffic levels soar.
3 Simple Tricks to Optimize Your Pay Per Click Advertising Efforts
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, February 19, 2011
3 Simple Tricks to Optimize Your Pay Per Click Advertising Efforts
While it is important to get your PPC ad seen and even more important to get visitors to click on your ad, those aims pale in comparison with your conversion rate. There are simple tricks that can be used to optimize your pay per click advertising efforts, but they are tricks that are often overlooked.
Running a PPC campaign can be an overwhelming task. There are so many things to do, that the details are often overlooked until it is too late. Here are a few tricks to help increase your conversion rate and optimize your pay per click advertising efforts.
1. Make Getting Conversions Easy
If you make your visitors take a multitude of steps in order to make a purchase, then it is more likely that your customers will get discouraged. While this may not be a problem if you are using pay per click advertising for list-building purposes, it is often a killer in regards to making a sale.
One of the easiest ways to increase your conversion rate (even when list-building) is to only collect the information that is absolutely necessary. Studies have shown that the best converting pages require customers to only enter an email address.
While it is nice to get someone’s name, address, phone number, etc it really isn’t critical information to have. If it is necessary, consider obtaining this information after you have already secured their email address.
2. Focus Your Landing Page
Once you decide what the goal of your landing page is, make sure that you do not distract viewers from it. Many people choose to simply use a page from their website as their landing page. Unfortunately, these pages often contain a jumble of additional ads, unrelated content, and links to other web pages. All of these things can either distract or overwhelm visitors, both of which lead to the customer leaving. It is essential to keep your landing pages as simple and succinct as possible to optimize your pay per click advertising efforts.
3. Include Critical Information in Your Ad Copy
Everyone knows that pay per click advertising is advantageous because it can drive highly targeted traffic to your landing page.
However, many people may still click on your ad that are not part of your target audience. This is because your ad copy does not include the right information.
For example, if you are selling a product that is similar or the same as your competitors, then the price is important to include in your ad copy. Many customers base their purchasing decision on price and if your product is out of their price range, there is no reason for them to click on your ad. By including the price in your ad, you can automatically filter out people who would not purchase your product anyways.
Pay per click advertising can be one of the most profitable and lucrative online advertising methods available. However, if steps are not taken to optimize every step of the sales process, money and opportunities will be lost and expenses will climb.
The more you can do to ensure that you target is highly optimized and that you landing page has the ability to create a maximum conversion rate, the more successful your pay per click advertising ventures will be.
Is it a Good Idea to Rebrand E-Books as an Online Business Building Tool?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, February 18, 2011
Is it a Good Idea to Rebrand E-Books as an Online Business Building Tool?
Many well known internet marketers recommend rebranding e-books when possible as a way to increase visitors to your website and build a successful online business income. Because re-branding e-books has proved to be profitable does this mean that it is actually the best strategy?
Like so many other things with internet marketing this question has both a for and against answer, and it basically needs to be looked at as a separate case in each instance.
1. Reasons why rebranding e-books is a good idea!
It is easy to do
Rebranding an e-book can take a very short period of time to do and can bring you extra income over a long period of time. These e-books can usually be offered as a free download as an incentive for someone to join your emailing list, which just requires them to fill in their name and email address in an optin box on your website and then they can download the book.
Alternatively you could add a free download section on your website where visitors would be able to download a variety of e-books. If they choose to purchase any of the products that are offered via an e-book that you have re-branded, you will get the benefit of earning a commission on that product.
An added advantage of using this method is that it does not involve you having to write anything, create any graphics or create a product. All that is required of you is to re-brand the book and share it with other people online.
If you are involved in any type of MLM affiliate program, by passing on a rebranded e-book you will not only make a direct profit, but will also benefit from any affiliates below you who may generate extra income for you as well.
2. Reasons why re-branding e-books may be a Bad Idea!
Inside every re-brandable e-book there are certain links that cannot be changed and these are links that generally belong to the person who created the book in the first place and they will also continue to benefit from the work that you do in sharing the e-book with others.
If this scenario does not appeal to you then you should think about writing an e-book that is perhaps similar to the one you were thinking of rebranding and then you could keep all the profits as all the ads will be your own.
Another disadvantage of a rebranded e-book is that if you find an affiliate product that you would like to sell and the creator of that product offers you an e-book that you can rebrand to get started, chances are if the product has been around for any length of time, that the e-book can already be found all over the internet and it will not attract many interested people.
With affiliate products it is important to have a unique selling point if you wish to be successful and if you have something that is already last weeks news it will not work for you. With a little extra work you could have a report that is unique and that no one else has seen yet and this will give you a much greater chance of being successful.
Rebranding e-books definitely has a place in marketing an online business opportunity and should not be judged too harshly. The secret is to look at each case individually and make a decision on what will work best for you. Depending on what you want to achieve and the quality of the book, you can then make an educated choice on what will work best for your online income business.
5 Secrets to Turbocharging Your Online Business with a Telesummit
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, February 17, 2011
5 Secrets to Turbocharging Your Online Business with a Telesummit
I’ve been listening to a number of list building and lead generation teleclasses lately, and many of them have been offered in the form of a telesummit. A telesummit is a virtual online conference that offers a line-up of varied speakers over a period of time, like a few days or over several weeks. The telesummit is usually organized by a theme, like outsourcing or lead generation, or for a particular target market, like the online telesummit for virtual assistants for which I was recently a guest speaker.
Participation in many of these telesummits requires you to pay a registration fee, but the model I’ve been seeing a great deal recently is the “free for live” model in which registrants can participate in the “live” version of the program, but if they’re not able to be on the call live, the only way that they can access the content is to pay a registration fee for the audio file and PDF transcripts.
What I love about telesummits is that they are perfect for a downturned economy. There’s no airline reservation to make, no hotel to book, no clothes to pack, no shuttle fees to pay, no bad hotel food to endure….it’s simply conducted from the convenience of your home, the home of your speakers, and the home of your participants. You offer high value with low cost — a great combination!
In my opinion, this type of event is a genius way to turbocharge your business.
Here are 5 secrets to turbocharging your online business with a telesummit:
1. Grows your list fast. Many telesummit hosts report that holding a telesummit has helped them grow their list from 2,000 to 10,000 or 15,000 or greater in a span of only a few weeks when the participants are required to give their name and email address to get the telesummit call-in information. Best of all, the additions to the host’s email list are perfect leads for their target market. How did this happen? Because the host carefully chose their speakers who market products and services to a similar target market and created a telesummit around an issue or theme important to their target market. And, in an ideal world, the speaker has a large list and agrees to help market the telesummit to that list.
2. Establishes you as the preeminent expert. When you hold an event featuring well-known speakers, you suddenly become the authority, or the expert in the field. After all, how else could you have attracted these experts if you were not an expert yourself?
3. Helps you open the door for valuable joint ventures (JVs) and strategic alliances. Once you’ve invited someone to be a guest on your telesummit, you have provided a great service to them by introducing them to others who may not have previously heard of them. And, if you offered some healthy affiliate commissions for telesummit upgrades, they love you because you’ve helped them make money without a lot of effort. Assuming that your event was a success and there were no major hiccups in the process, this success has paved the way for future joint ventures and strategic alliances with this person. This certainly beats cold-calling someone to try and speak to them to sell them on a JV proposal, doesn’t it?
4. Increases your credibility. Another key factor in hosting a telesummit is that the notoriety of your speakers rubs off on you as the host. One of the quickest ways to go from “no name” to “big name” in your industry is to invite the industry experts to speak at your telesummit. The fact that you now have a connection with the movers and shakers in your industry gives you a leg up boosting your own credibility and expertise in the industry.
5. Makes some cash in the process. In addition to the advantages listed previously, there are a number of ways to make a little money in this free telesummit model. First, you offer every participant the ability to “upgrade” to get all the recordings and transcripts of the telesummit. Creating a price increase deadline (before summit vs after summit pricing) may encourage more participants to buy. Secondly, once the telesummit is complete, you can go back to your speakers and offer to interview them a second time exclusively for members of their list. The upsell in this second interview is the complete telesummit recordings and transcripts, on which you pay them a healthy commission on all packages sold.
Examine your business model and see how well a telesummit fits into the mix. You’ll need to begin planning 8-10 weeks in advance, but once you see the results, you may want to make your telesummit an annual event.
9 Ways To Increase Your Email Clickthrough Rate
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
9 Ways To Increase Your Email Clickthrough Rate
Like all forms of marketing, an email marketing campaign usually has a single end goal: the conversion of non-buyers into buyers. Buying decisions tend not to be made all at once, but rather in a series of small steps toward a commitment.
For an email marketer, the first step toward conversion is signing up for your mailing list. After that, it’s the click-through. With each of these actions, the subscriber makes a small behavioral commitment to the idea that you are someone who provides value to them. Below, you’ll find 9 ways to help your email subscribers click through the links in your messages.
1. Segment your lists for maximum relevance
People just don’t have time for mailings that aren’t relevant to them. If you send them a few messages that they can’t use, they’re likely to get impatient with you and either unsubscribe or click the spam button. Even if only part of your message is relevant to them, they’ll be less likely to find it and cilck through if they have to wade through parts that they have no use for. Modern email list managers such as ActiveCampaign’s Email Marketing make it easy to split your mailing list into smaller segments and customize the content based on which segment it’s being delivered to. This boost in relevancy can have a dramatic effect on your reader response.
2. Use a simple template that’s easy to scan
Yes, your messages should be attractive, but they should also be clean and simple. Use a layout that lets the reader easily find what they’re looking for without the distraction of navigation links and multiple panels.
3. Tantalize your readers with article previews
If your newsletter includes informative articles, consider moving those articles onto your main web site and simply including a teaser in the body of your message. This not only wins you the emotional benefit of the clickthrough, it also makes your email easier to scan so that readers can focus on the content that matters most to them.
4. Put your main call to action above the fold
If you’re sending a message that has a main purpose, make sure that purpose is the most prominent thing in it. At least half of your readers will only ever look at your message in their preview pane. Make sure that your main proposition and call to action are visible in that limited space.
5. Make the benefits of clicking obvious
If you don’t describe in detail what the reader has to gain by clicking on your link, they’re going to be a lot less likely to click on it. This is just plain common sense. Yet too often you’ll see email newsletters that offer up links without any clear description of what the reader has to gain by clicking them. Don’t just describe what the reader will find at the other end of your link, tell them what it will do for them.
6. Consistently deliver on your promises
An effective email campaign builds up a relationship with the subscriber. Over time, your readers should come to see you and your business as trustworthy and beneficial. You can build up that trust by simply delivering on any promises you make in your messages. Don’t promise a benefit unless you’re sure you can deliver it.
7. Set limitations to spur action
People naturally respond to scarcity and competition. You can put that to good use by limiting the offers you make to your subscribers. For example, you might make a special offer that is only valid for a day or two after your message goes out. You can also offer a special gift or a chance to win for the first 100 subscribers that respond.
8. Add a link in a P.S.
If someone makes it all the way through your message, they’re probably very interested in your work! But they may also have forgotten about an important call to action that occurred earlier in your message. It’s a good idea to add a “P.S.” after your signature line to remind your readers what you want them to do and why.
9. Split test!
Some tactics will work better than others depending on your industry and target demographics. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a mind-reader to figure out which work best. Simply write up a few different versions of your message, taking a different approach to inducing action in each version.
5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit
Internet business owners have found online article directories to be positive for their business. Here are five ways you can benefit from using article directories on the Internet to promote your business.
Before we get into the directories understand that article marketing is effective when you write keyword rich articles and include a resource box at the end of them. Think of the resource box as your classified ad and the more opportunities you give people to find you the better off you will be. That is the real power of online article directories.
1. Submit your articles to the top article directories only and concentrate on the quality of the article. This is one strategy you can use and it certainly takes some of the pressure off of writing high number of articles. The key to making this work is to develop unique versions of your article and submit them to only the top directories online.
2. Once you have submitted it to the top directories ezine publishers may find your article. This can lead to your article being published in newsletters on the Internet. It can also end up in the inbox of prospective customers. Many online ezines have a huge customer base you might not otherwise we reach. If the ezine is archived online this can give you long term exposure and backlinks.
3. Go for volume of articles and to submit to multiple directories by the hundreds or even thousands. Unless you use article rewriting software to make each article unique this is not a very effective strategy. Some Internet marketers prefer to play the numbers game and just get their articles out where they can be found.
4. Printed publications might pick up your articles from an online directory. These can be picked up by magazines giving you additional exposure. Again the point is to have a link in your resource box to get traffic from an off line reader to your online website.
5. Many online directories have links back to them placed on other Internet marketers websites and blogs. You see this in the form of text links or banner ads. Any directory that is getting traffic coming to it can potentially benefit you if your articles are being published by them.
There certainly are more ways you can benefit from online article directories. This is just a handful of them, but really shows the power of marketing with articles in directories on the Internet today.
Internet Marketing Via E-mail Promotion
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Internet Marketing Via E-mail Promotion
Marketing, as defined by the American Marketing Association, is any activity that involves the flow of services, products and/or goods starting from production until consumption. It involves various activities such as profiling, planning, pricing, promotion, and distribution of products and services.
Promotion is a crucial method that can make or break a market. Promotion stimulates demand and therefore increases profit from sales. It makes use of every media available that are accessible to potential customers.
Recently, promotion management of various companies opts for internet as the effective tool to increasing demands among customers.
Have you ever thought of this query to yourself, “What is the difference between internet marketing and e-mail marketing?”
Internet marketing is an advertisement method that makes use of search engines to promote websites using different strategies such as e-mail marketing. Currently, this provides all companies with the edge among competitors.
Internet is one medium that is sought by clients to promote their companies’ products and services. Moreover, they view internet marketing as a potential strategy to attain maximum return of investment or ROI. However, clients must be very critical in choosing the appropriate and effective advertising company.
These are the few things to remember about successful internet marketing:
1. The advertising company dealing with internet marketing must be abreast with pace and competition set by new products and services being introduced.
2. The advertising company must enable websites to be in the ranks of search engines for as many keywords as possible.
3. The advertising company must exhaust appropriate strategies to make the websites produce ranks in search engines.
4. The advertising company must assist their clients earn automatically within a few months.
5. The advertising company must help their clients receive their maximum return of investments of ROI.
Just what now is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing is an internet advertising tool that is cost effective to connect with existing and even potential customers. Moreover, this is about quality of the data the internet advertising company that can be sent to the addresses of potential and existing customers.
These are the things to be considered about successful e-mail marketing:
1. The best way to perform marketing with e-mail addresses is through cost per acquisition.
2. Companies must ensure that internet advertising service providers are allowed to give you e-mail addresses for corporations to contact.
3. E-mail designs must be simple yet elegant. Companies must avoid sensory overload. This can be done with the help of internet service providers.
Generally speaking, these are the things that are offered by internet service providers in e-mail marketing:
Services may include:
* Appropriate strategy for e-mail campaign
* Identification of opportunities for growth
* Maintenance and development of list of addresses
* List set-up for client’s email
* Sign-up form for client’s web site
* Importation or set-up database for client’s database
* Updates regarding client’s success and development of
Newsletter or HTML E-mail Development comprises:
* Newsletter or e-mail design
* Content formatting and developing
* Various integration with client’s website
* Programming compatibility and functionality
Sending e-mails employ the following actions:
* Set-up and sending of client’s account
* Cleaning and exportation of database
* Employing of Web Analytics to determine areas of successes and improvement
Business-minded people should be smart people. Investing a lot on an advertising company is not the turnkey strategy. Dealing with credible internet service provider is the effective step to make it big in the marketing industry.
What is Pay-Per-Click?
Basically there are search engines which offer a marketing option called “pay-per-click” to advertisers.
Most of the major search engines offer this type of service.
The advertiser places a small advertisement on the search results page based on a specific keyword or phrase. Although you don’t pay to place the advertisement, as such the search engine company makes their money by charging you for every time someone clicks on your advertisement. Hence the name “pay-per-click.” Note that this is different from organic (free) search engine optimization obtained through other methods of advertising. How pay-per-click operates is that when a person asks a question of the search engine e.g. “How does such and such work” or “how can I do…” then if the words used tally with your keyword/phrase then your advertisement appears. Should your advertisement appeal to the enquirer and they click onto it then you are charged by the search engine company. If your advertisement doesn’t ring any bells and is not clicked on then you will not have to pay any money. Bear in mind though that if your advert is clicked on and it is not of interest to the reader you will still be charged. So it is very important to ensure that your keywords are very specific to your targeted audience. Whilst this method of advertising seems fairly simple it is in fact one of the most feared by newbies and with good reason. If you don’t know what you are doing then you can very quickly lose all of your advertising budget.
On the other hand done correctly the rewards can be HUGE. It is very important that you have your website set up properly after due diligence before even considering pay-per-click. My advice would be that you shouldn’t use company replicated sites (unless brand new!) because everyone else is! You need to have set up your own branding pages, submitted articles etc first. Make sure that your foundations are secure before entering this field! Assuming you are now in a position to go ahead with pay-per-click then how do you pay?
You bid! Oh no I have to get in an auction? Basically yep!
In essence the greater the bid the higher your advertisement is placed on the search engine.
That is a rather simplified explanation so please study further so that you fully understand how to construct a suitable campaign.
Normally the bid price is in cents rather than dollars but can still work out very expensive unless you have suitable controls in place.
As with most things you have to educate yourself first.
You have probably gathered by now that pay-per-click requires a serious learning curve and plenty of patience if you wish to be successful advertising in this medium.
As with all things testing is paramount.
So, yes, pay-per-click is a mayor way of selling your product/service on the internet and should be included in your advertising campaigns.
Just be sure you know what you are doing before dipping your toe in the water as you are playing with the big boys here. To your success.
Is Direct Mail Really Dead
Even with sky high postage costs, a properly executed direct mail campaign still provides a solid ROI. What? You’ve bought into the myth that direct mail is dead?
You’re not alone. And while people are entitled to their own opinions about direct mail, they’re not entitled to their own facts. Here are the facts: According to an annual study from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), spending on direct mail marketing is expected to increase by more than $1 billion in 2010. Yes, that’s billion with a “B”. Hmmmm…it would appear that rumors of direct mail’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Don’t People Hate Junk Mail?
And if you’ve also bought into the myth that people hate junk mail (and that’s exactly what it is a myth), here are the myth-busting facts: According to the 2010 DMA Statistical Fact Book, 79% of households either read or skim junk mail advertising sent to their home.
That study is right in line with an International Communications Research survey commissioned by postal automation giant, Pitney Bowes. The survey found, despite the immense popularity, and widespread use of digital media, consumers still prefer mail over e-mail, as it relates to receiving new product announcements, as well as confidential business communications such as bank statements and other financial information.
Here’s how the numbers breakdown: 73 percent of consumers prefer mail for receiving new product announcements or offers from companies they do business with, as compared to 18 percent for e-mail.
For important and confidential communications such as bills, bank statements and other financial information, a huge majority of respondents (86 percent)preferred mail as their communication method of choice, as compared with 10 percent for e-mail.
But wait, the news gets even better: The survey also found that 31 percent of consumers are less likely to discard unopened mail – including new product announcements, coupons, brochures, catalogs, etc. – than they are to delete unsolicited e-mails (spam) regarding new product announcements (53.2 percent).
When consumers were asked what specific advantages they saw in junk mail versus unsolicited e-mail and telemarketing calls, 45.3 percent of respondents found mail to be, get this – less intrusive; (40.2) percent more convenient – can be saved and considered at leisure; (30.2) less high-pressured – lets you consider your decision; (22.7 percent)more descriptive – lets you picture the offer; and (12 percent)more persuasive – encourages you to respond. I don’t know about you, but those numbers definitely got my attention.
What is Cooperative Direct Mail?
If you haven’t considered trying direct mail, maybe you should. A properly executed direct mail campaign combined with online marketing methods could be an unbeatable combination. Don’t know where to start? No problem. Cooperative direct mail companies like Valpak and Clipper Magazine make launching a direct mail campaign easy and affordable, for even the most budget conscious small business.
So what exactly is cooperative direct mail? Cooperative direct mail simply means you share an envelope with other advertisers – mostly local merchants, but usually a couple of national companies as well. Sharing an envelope with other advertisers reduces your costs significantly.
For example, if you were to do a mailing on your own to 10,000 homes, it would cost you thousands of dollars – even at reduced bulk rate postage costs. However, that same mailing shared with other advertisers would only cost you a few hundred dollars. That’s a huge difference that allows you to free up valuable marketing dollars that can be used elsewhere.
And if you’re a “push the envelope” type of marketer and really want to take your direct mail campaign to the next level, a new company named Dukky (pronounced ducky) is merging “junk mail” with social marketing and web technology – creating an amazingly effective and powerful marketing combination. Dukky’s web address is www.dukky.com.
In closing, if you do decide to give direct mail a try, whatever you do, don’t approach the process blindly. In order to utilize direct mail to its optimum effectiveness, you need to know what you’re doing.
In that regard, I highly recommend you purchase the book Million Dollar Mailing$ by the undisputed King of direct mail, Denny Hatch.
Just remember:
“You will go only as far as the limits of your knowledge. If you want to go farther, increase your knowledge.” – David Jackson
Affiliate Tracking Software – What to Watch Out For
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Affiliate Tracking Software – What to Watch Out For
A large number of business owners rely on their affiliate programs to help increase their sales and their profits. Personally, affiliate marketing and programs play a major roll in my earnings. If you are interested, you can also be one of those individuals. All online business owners can benefit from the use of an affiliate program, but there are some business owners who can benefit more than others. Those business owners run and operate businesses that either sells a product or a service. If you are one of those business owners and you would like to start an affiliate program, you will need to think about purchasing affiliate tracking software.
Affiliate tracking software is a unique program that is vital to the successful operation of an affiliate program. Without tracking software, you would be unable to determine whether or not one of your sales were generated with the assistance of an affiliate, let alone which affiliate it was. With affiliate tracking software, you can easily find out this important information. Therefore, this means that if you haven’t already purchased affiliate tracking software, you will need to do so right away.
When it comes to purchasing affiliate tracking software, you are first advised to familiarize yourself with all of your available options. This can easily be done by performing a standard internet search. Your search results are likely to include a number of different software sellers. Your first impulse may be to purchase the first affiliate tracking software program you come across, but you are advised against doing this. That is because these software programs come in a wide variety of different styles. Each program is likely to have its own unique services and features. You are encouraged to examine each of those services and features before making a decision.
If you are unfamiliar with affiliate marketing and affiliate tracking software, you may not know what you should be looking for. If this is the case, it may be easier to understand what you should watch out for. One of the many things that you should be concerned about is the software name or the name of the software seller.
Unfortunately, there are a number of different software sellers that will scam internet users; however, not all of them will. Before purchasing a particular affiliate tracking software program, you may want to perform a standard internet search on that program and the individual or company selling it. If you come across any warnings, you may want to stop and start searching for another software program.
It is also important to be on the lookout for affiliate tracking software that is being sold without information on the program. All legitimate software sellers should provide you with detailed information about their products, including affiliate tracking software. This information may include, but should not be limited to product descriptions, product services, and product features. Without this information, you will not know how an affiliate tracking software program works or how it can help you and your business. There are plenty of software sellers that will provide you with this information; you are encouraged to do business with them.
You will also want to watch out for affiliate tracking software that costs too much money. It is true that the more services and features you are provided with, the more the program will cost. However, that does not mean that you should have to pay an outrageous price. For an average cost of affiliate tracking software, you are advised to examine and then compare a number of different prices. If anything seems out of the ordinary, you are advised to move on and find software that is more affordable.
By knowing what to lookout for and avoid, you should be able to find an affiliate tracking software program that can give you exactly what you want and need. You should also be able to find that software at an affordable price.
9 Ways To Increase Your Email Clickthrough Rate
posted by Web_University @ 8:52 AM
Saturday, October 16, 2010
9 Ways To Increase Your Email Clickthrough Rate
Like all forms of marketing, an email marketing campaign usually has a single end goal: the conversion of non-buyers into buyers. Buying decisions tend not to be made all at once, but rather in a series of small steps toward a commitment.
For an email marketer, the first step toward conversion is signing up for your mailing list. After that, it’s the click-through. With each of these actions, the subscriber makes a small behavioral commitment to the idea that you are someone who provides value to them. Below, you’ll find 9 ways to help your email subscribers click through the links in your messages.
1. Segment your lists for maximum relevance
People just don’t have time for mailings that aren’t relevant to them. If you send them a few messages that they can’t use, they’re likely to get impatient with you and either unsubscribe or click the spam button. Even if only part of your message is relevant to them, they’ll be less likely to find it and cilck through if they have to wade through parts that they have no use for. Modern email list managers such as ActiveCampaign’s Email Marketing make it easy to split your mailing list into smaller segments and customize the content based on which segment it’s being delivered to. This boost in relevancy can have a dramatic effect on your reader response.
2. Use a simple template that’s easy to scan
Yes, your messages should be attractive, but they should also be clean and simple. Use a layout that lets the reader easily find what they’re looking for without the distraction of navigation links and multiple panels.
3. Tantalize your readers with article previews
If your newsletter includes informative articles, consider moving those articles onto your main web site and simply including a teaser in the body of your message. This not only wins you the emotional benefit of the clickthrough, it also makes your email easier to scan so that readers can focus on the content that matters most to them.
4. Put your main call to action above the fold
If you’re sending a message that has a main purpose, make sure that purpose is the most prominent thing in it. At least half of your readers will only ever look at your message in their preview pane. Make sure that your main proposition and call to action are visible in that limited space.
5. Make the benefits of clicking obvious
If you don’t describe in detail what the reader has to gain by clicking on your link, they’re going to be a lot less likely to click on it. This is just plain common sense. Yet too often you’ll see email newsletters that offer up links without any clear description of what the reader has to gain by clicking them. Don’t just describe what the reader will find at the other end of your link, tell them what it will do for them.
6. Consistently deliver on your promises
An effective email campaign builds up a relationship with the subscriber. Over time, your readers should come to see you and your business as trustworthy and beneficial. You can build up that trust by simply delivering on any promises you make in your messages. Don’t promise a benefit unless you’re sure you can deliver it.
7. Set limitations to spur action
People naturally respond to scarcity and competition. You can put that to good use by limiting the offers you make to your subscribers. For example, you might make a special offer that is only valid for a day or two after your message goes out. You can also offer a special gift or a chance to win for the first 100 subscribers that respond.
8. Add a link in a P.S.
If someone makes it all the way through your message, they’re probably very interested in your work! But they may also have forgotten about an important call to action that occurred earlier in your message. It’s a good idea to add a “P.S.” after your signature line to remind your readers what you want them to do and why.
9. Split test!
Some tactics will work better than others depending on your industry and target demographics. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a mind-reader to figure out which work best. Simply write up a few different versions of your message, taking a different approach to inducing action in each version.
Organic SEO or PPC advertising?
Sadly enough, there are still many online business entrepreneurs who take it for granted that they can still use the old marketing techniques in order to overtake their competitors. Little do they realize that those old basic techniques such as including a simple “click here” link, simply doesn’t cut it anymore. If for example you own an online business which is currently in dire need of some changes, then you may need to consider taking advantage of online marketing techniques which include the likes of search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already heard about these techniques from some of the world’s best internet marketers, but the truth is, you might be reluctant to begin integrating them into your existing business. However, there’s nothing to be gained by simply keeping these strategies on hold, so here are a few tips on how to go about using search engine optimisation (SEO) and PPC advertising.
Search Engine Optimisation
Organic search engine optimisation is essentially an online marketing strategy which is dependent on having momentum and some long term commitment. By utilising SEO, you’ll be taking a step in the right direction in terms of accumulating information regarding link building campaigns, relationship building with other webmasters, and even some respectable and desirable publications. Of course, in order to be in full control, you need to set certain milestones so that you’ll be able to monitor your progress as you proceed.
For example, you need to ask yourself what it is exactly that you wish to accomplish. You also need to pay attention to your current image and to the level of optimisation regarding your website.
An experienced SEO specialist will be able to help you determine which the best keywords to use are, and of course they’ll be able to help you integrate those keywords into your meta tags so that you’re able to restructure your marketing strategies in order to overcome any negative fallout resulting from your previous attempts. Over and above SEO, you could of course also take advantage of other techniques, such as paid one way links and link exchanges for example, providing you do so with other reputable websites. But don’t forget – once you start organic SEO, you need to continue with it in order to maintain the momentum or else your diligently attained rankings will go down.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
PPC advertising places much emphasis on keyword usage and the placement of adverts which are relevant to a specific website. In fact, it’s often said that this form of advertising has revolutionised the world of online advertising, in that it can provide small businesses with the same amount of leverage as what the big businesses have. Providing it’s done correctly, PPC advertising can certainly help you stand out from the crowd. If you’re currently considering a PPC campaign then you should also pay attention to the following three questions:
What do I have to offer?
Why will customers want to click on my advert?
How can I hook them with just ten words?
At this point, the most important thing for you to do is to integrate an ideal title and ten words which tell potential customers what your business is all about. The most difficult aspect of PPC advertising is that you will be in close proximity to your competitors, both in search engine results and in sponsored positions. Remember, if someone types in a search relevant to the type of website you own, your advert will appear at the top of the page or on the right hand side, and it’s vital that your advertisement must be powerful enough in order to trigger an immediate response.
Essentially, in order to get the best results you should ideally consider using SEO and PPC advertising simultaneously, rather than just opting for one of them.
Advertising is Dead – Long Live Advertising
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Advertising is Dead – Long Live Advertising
Brand leadership through social media
Not so long ago, the relationship that brands had with their
customers was a one-way street. The brand was the boss. They
told their customers what to like and how to like it. The only
say the customer had was the decision to buy. This is no longer
the case. Customers are very publicly talking back and it is
making the management teams of some brands very nervous.
Web-based social networking platforms give customers power never
seen before. Now one voice can be heard by thousands of people.
Brands need to learn to deal with this evolution, so here is a
primer.
First, some background on how the internet has altered consumer
behaviour. The internet, and particularly the rise of social
media, has allowed people with similar interests to connect.
This becomes obvious when one trawls through Twitter, where the
common social network model of simply connecting with people you
know tends to give way to people connecting in groups according
to interest. Indeed, people interested in any topic imaginable
from all areas of the world are connecting. It’s like
subject-based forums on steroids. People are forming tribes.
Humans have always formed tribes. Religion, family, sports and
fashion are all examples of tribal behaviour. The difference now
is that any interest group can form a tribe almost instantly.
Social media has allowed any fringe idea to become the basis of
a tribe and a movement. People want desperately to be connected,
but, even more importantly, they want to be led. We are in a
time of massive change, which is driven by everybody’s desire
to do things in a new way and to be heard.
Barack Obama’s recent landslide victory is a good example of
this. He promised change, he communicated differently and led
with integrity. He connected to his audience through social
media. He started a movement, formed a tribe and then he and his
followers charged to victory. What the world discovered is that
you can now make an ad campaign as slick as you want, but if the
product is poor then it simply doesn’t matter.
So “advertising is dead” in the sense the old methods don’t
work the same way they used to. Obama’s opponents didn’t fully
understand the impact that social networking has had on society.
They continued to use the old and trusted methods of marketing.
These apparently transparent methods are diminishing in
influence as social networking begins to infiltrate every media
touch-point. In two recent articles I wrote for Anthill I talked
about how this is already happening to television and how the
newspaper industry needs to change to avoid becoming
irrelevant.
Social media is much more than a passing phase. Human
civilisation is built around social interaction. It’s what the
people want and this new media is only going to get bigger. It
will eventually become part of everything. Individual social
media companies might fade away (MySpace seems to be in that
category) as better designed products come onto the market, but
the world has spoken and it wants to be connected. Brands that
don’t adapt to this reality will be left behind. They will
become the guy at the party that nobody wants to sit next to
because he just keeps talking about himself.
Tribal Behaviour
Blogs have become socially and commercially influential. From
what started out as individuals chatting on about their lives,
blogs have become business tools and money making ventures. They
influence groups, buying patterns and fashion. They are modern
tribal leaders.
Not so long ago commentators speculated that blogging was simply
a passing fad. What these commentators didn’t realise was that
it was yet to achieve maturation and once it had it would signal
big trouble for the large media organisations. Now anyone with a
camera or a desire to write is ‘the press’. This pattern is
being repeated for micro-blogging, a category in which Twitter
is the current market leader. Some commentators question the
relevance of utilising Twitter to listen to people “drone on
about their lives”. But Twitter, and other micro-blogs, are in
the early stages of their development. They too will mature,
most probably much quicker than the original blogs, and enable
much bigger tribes to develop around even more specific subject
matter.
The tribal leaders of these new social media can be reached and
persuaded to support you, no matter what platform they decide to
use. Unlike the old ‘one way’ approach however, they need to
be interacted with on their own terms. Provided they have a
group of true fans, they can influence hundreds of thousands of
people – in a matter of hours. This is what gives them such
power.
And this is what marketers in the current environment have to
understand. The ‘mass-market’ model is on the decline. What is
needed now is a pattern of marketing to the ‘early adopters’ -
the ones at the front of the bell curve who have a true interest
in what you have to offer – and form a base of evangelists that
will market for you. You no longer have to aim to connect with
everyone. This really leaves the field wide open for the smaller
brands to break through – the ones willing to challenge.
The Age of the Challenger
In marketing speak, a ‘challenger brand’ is code for ‘the
small brand’. A challenger brand is one that is meant to be
fast, flexible and innovative in its communications. But in my
view the word ‘challenger’ should instead be short-hand for
‘emerging leader’.
Emerging leaders challenge the status quo, they challenge
themselves and they connect with others who have similar ideas -
those people who need a leader to show what to do and inspire
them. The market leader wants the status quo to remain just
that. They want to speak and be heard in a mass market. No
discussion thanks. The challenger realises that, in order to
create a movement there needs to be systems in place for
everybody in that tribe to be heard, and they commit to leading
that tribe with everything they’ve got.
Traditional advertising is not about interaction with the
individual. It is predominately a one-way conversation to a mass
audience. But nobody likes to be forced into making decisions.
This is why the traditional advertising model is beginning to
fail. It relies on mass media, and this media is itself being
transformed by social networks.
What can Social Networking do for Your Brand?
All of this may sound a bit scary for brand managers. It’s true
that it does take time and effort to build a community. And to
be truly effective, you have to obey some rules. Even so, it is
not a hard thing to do. It takes far more time and resources to
build that fan base with traditional advertising. Be honest, be
helpful and contribute to the community and you’ll get
supporters fast.
Social networking is far more than having a Facebook profile. It
is any platform that gives the end user an ability to
contribute. Many companies have realised that developing an
internal social media platform can aid in communication but have
yet to work out how it can help shape their brand personality.
A good social media strategy accepts that you can’t do
everything at once. A company can employ a social platform to
perform customer service, to connect directly with customers
(thereby humanising the brand), to obtain demographic
information on individuals to improve the effectiveness of
direct marketing or to harness a mass of surplus cognitive
resources to generate new ideas.
You can’t do everything with social media, but as long as you
are focused you will be able to do much more than you may
expect.
Where to Start
In the coming months, many companies will try to market through
social networks and many will fail. There are, of course, ways
of dramatically upping the chances of success, not least of
which is making sure you hire a company that knows the space
well. Making sure you know the fundamentals will help move
things along quickly.
The first thing any company moving into social networking should
decide is the overall goal. Knowing what you want to achieve and
why you are doing it may seem obvious but is something that is
easily overlooked if you rush into a project too quickly.
As with any good marketing activity, you need to know how your
customers think and behave. Unlike traditional advertising,
marketing online is very data-rich. It is possible to know
exactly what your customers are looking at, how long they spend
doing it and who they then talk to about the experience. Make
sure you know as much of this information as is possible before
you develop a strategy any further.
From there, deciding what channels you wish to utilise becomes a
very important choice. You should know where your target market
is by this stage, so deciding if Facebook, Twitter, Bebo or any
other platform is right should be easy. Deciding to create your
own platform is a bigger step but can be very rewarding if it is
done correctly. Again, make sure you are getting good advice and
a solid strategy and don’t just assume that if you make
something it will get used.
Measurement is important in all areas of business and social
networking is no exception. Developing good metric methods
should be an early priority. Remember that it is possible to
measure everything but not all information has value. Knowing
what you are looking at is vital. If you are hiring a marketing
firm to build you a social networking campaign, it makes sense
to have part of the payment tied to the performance of that
campaign. If you are building a network to get staff talking to
each other and your customers, the quality of the content will
go down if you assign KPIs to ‘platforms usage’ only.
Most importantly, make sure everyone involved knows what your
‘voice’ is. It is wise to develop a policy around social
networking usage, but if that policy is too tight you will lose
support. This is about people. Learn that it is OK to give up
control of your marketing message and become part of the
conversation. Be honest, be objective and be involved. And do
not leave your community. You have made a promise to these
people to listen to them. If you stop participating, they will
abandon you in an instant.
Start Lending
There is no better time to start developing social media
strategies. All market segments are spending a lot more time on
social networks (the time spent on Facebook grew by over 500
percent in the year Dec ’07 to Dec ’08) and in this time of
economic downturn it may be wise to attract new customers from
further afield. In the not-too-distant future, every company
will have a social networking policy, so getting in early will
give you an edge.
Marketing in social networks is not rocket science. It may
involve technology but, at its core, it is what human
civilisation is built upon. If you can hold a conversation you
can market in social media.
So get good advice and get moving. The world is changing and the
challengers are going to come out on top. They will create
movements and lead tribes. They will interact and not be afraid
of change. They will know how to listen and realise the greatest
power they have is to empower their customers.
If you understand that these networks have all been built
because it’s what your customers want, then the challenger, the
leader, can be you.
What to Expect from Web 3.0
Video: Google to provide Fastest Internet in US
The buzz is growing about Web 3.0, but as usual you have to filter out all the hype, self-serving PR, old-fashioned nonsense, newfangled marketing verbiage and other noise. You will then find a few facts that you can grab onto and try to figure out what’s going on. The first thing to remember is that, like “Web 2.0,” the term Web 3.0 is not an official term of any sort, does not represent any particular protocol or standard, belongs to no one – and is used, misused and made nearly meaningless by everybody. It is, quite simply, just an arbitrary “version number” that, at most, describes how the Internet is built and how it delivers services, at least as of the freeze-framed moment in time that represents the end of 2.0 and the start of 3.0.
Sometimes it is called the “semantic Web,” but perhaps the less-used term “everyware” is more descriptive. The new scenario is one of ubiquitous computing, the advent of cloud computing where a “thin client” (no- or low-powered PC, or even just a monitor and mouse) runs cloud-based applications using cloud-based data and services. The Apple iPhone, iPod and iPad are all examples of formerly standalone devices that were integrated into the Web, and connect people in a seamless, real-time and very simple way with – well, with everything, from libraries and department stores to other people, anywhere in the world.
From Read-Only to Interactivity
One of the Web’s true “parents” was Tim Berners-Lee, who had his own notion of how the technology and the Internet developed. The first phase of the Web had read-only capabilities. It was essentially a spectator experience until read-write functionality came along (sure, call it Web 2.0) that included services to enable contribution, collaboration, content creation and interactivity. The next step in Berners-Lee’s version vision, Web 3.0, is heralded as “new territory,” where users can assemble and run their own applications, create all sorts of cooperative and collaborative enterprises, and truly put their ideas in motion rather than simply uploading stuff to this, that or the other site.
People with money invested in other, still-useful devices – phones, PDAs, fax machines, etc. – don’t have to worry about Web 3.0 making them obsolete. In addition to letting users create their own tools, Web 3.0 is another step in the evolution of usage and interaction in which the Internet holds multiple databases and content that will be accessible to many non-browser-based devices and applications. The obvious uses will be video that streams from a PC to a TV, picture frames that receive wireless updates from an online or local photo app, and phones that display items recommended by your trusted sources – friends, review sites, experts – when you’re shopping.
From Data to Knowledge
In addition to the foregoing characteristics, Web 3.0 is also said to encompass other important advances. For one thing, all sorts of inputs are possible, which means all sorts of new combinations become possible. Content can be made even more broadly relevant when it’s related to GPS, so that social networking, for example, can be enhanced by knowing who is where and doing what.
More importantly, you will get more and better control of your data and be able to establish a number of personalization systems to “wrap” your personal information with different levels and types of protection – so that you can share it widely, narrowly or not at all. Over time, the accuracy of recommendations and trustworthiness of ranking systems will help us determine which data sources to take seriously and which to avoid.
From Business Faxes to Online Games
With the rise of “linkable web apps” you will be able to use all of your different desktop, server and mobile devices and applications – telephones, fax machines and online fax services, instant messaging, pagers – and control them from a single browser window on your desktop, smartphone or handheld device. All of it will take place in an always-on, always-everywhere environment, with functionality embedded sometimes in hardware, sometimes in software, sometimes in both – so that when you need to take care of business without downloading the capability, you’ll be able to do so.
Along with more of the visual and voice-based services that are already starting to proliferate, there will be more lifelike avatar interactions in the growing virtual social networking world. This will lead to social shopping trips and virtual reality gaming far beyond anything currently being done.
In mid-2009, the “Wall Street Journal” ran a story on the development of Web 3.0 capabilities and the promise of ever-greater interconnectedness among technologies, products, services and people. The story even gave us a yardstick by which to measure the success of Web 3.0, if in fact it does succeed. If, as the WSJ puts it, “computing could become as integrated and invisible as electricity and just as important” – and we can attribute it to the new and improved Web – we’ll know that the promise has lived up to the hype. Here’s hoping!
How To Think About Webmedia
We’ve all seen Web video campaigns and television commercials that we actually enjoyed watching, not once, but over and over again. Whether it’s the Mac Versus PC ads or the thoroughly entertaining Visa Pizza Twirling Commercial, great campaigns are as memorable as great movies or television shows. When commercial presentations meet that standard, they transcend mere commercial status, and reach the level of Experiences.
Killer Campaigns is all about marketing campaigns that are memorable experiences, but why is that important; why should you care? Well if you want to grow your business, create, establish, or enhance a brand, or just plain sell more stuff on the Web, then you have to learn how to turn “advertising into content and content into an experience.”
What We’ll Show You
Each segment will feature an example of what we consider a great campaign that achieves memorable experience status. It may be a television commercial, a YouTube video, or even a video microsite, but whatever form it takes it will be worth watching, or more to the point, worth experiencing.
But just watching excellent advertising is not enough to understand why and how it works. You have to understand the technique used, and why it is effective. In some cases we may even show you failed examples of the same technique used, and explain why one campaign worked and one didn’t.
Our Perspective
We start with a particular point-of-view. You may agree with it or you may not, but by the time you’ve been through several segments of The Killer Campaign series you will at least understand how to think about great marketing concepts, and you will watch webmedia from a whole new frame-of-reference, and with a more critical eye.
Our perspective is deceivingly simple: we create marketing communication, that’s video campaigns, websites, and video microsites based on the notion that Web traffic is an audience, not prospects, clients, or potential suckers, but an audience.
The Technique and Why It Worked
The analysis we use to evaluate the effectiveness of these techniques is based on the preceding perspective of treating website traffic like an audience. Why you may ask don’t we do what everybody else does, and look at the numbers? And the answer is simple: numbers lie. Numbers themselves don’t tell you the whole story.
An effective campaign may fail because of poor implementation or faulty targeting, or any number of other reasons that don’t speak to the creation and effectiveness of the media itself. After all, one of the greatest commercials ever made, the introduction of the Macintosh computer, hardly ever got shown because certain members of the board of directors got cold feet.
Killer Campaigns: Words & Music
As powerful and important as visual communication is, without finely crafted, supportive words and music, the visuals will fall flat; they will lack the emotional impact that connects you the advertiser, with them, the audience.
The Visa Pizza Twirler Commercial with the Morgan Freeman voice-over is a tour-de-force of commercial communication. Take a look and listen:
Visa Pizza Twirler Video with Sound
But what would this presentation be like without words and music? Here’s a video of the filming of the pizza-tossing scene without any voice-over or music. The pizza-chef is brilliant but without the words and music it’s merely a pleasant distraction without emotional or commercial relevance.
Visa Pizza Twirler Video – No Words and Music
The Web and television are both multimedia communication venues that rely on visual impact and sound design combined with the element of performance, but at least one major difference makes commercial presentation on the Web a more difficult challenge: television watching is a passive exercise, while Web surfing is a proactive activity. You’ll suffer through bad television commercials to watch your favorite program but on the Web, people won’t tolerate it. That said, there are some great commercials that do get it right.
HTC You Campaign
The HTC You Campaign hits the proverbial marketing nail right on the head. This is a company that communicates the right message in the right way, because the message is not about the phone, it’s about what you need in a phone. Just listen to the tag line: “you don’t need to get a phone, you need a phone that gets you, and you, and you, and we are HTC.”
This is a presentation that transcends commercial status. At the heart of the video are words and music that form a hypnotizing poetic social commentary on our over-stimulated hectic lives, and it provides a human solution, not a technical one. The concept is brilliant: this is not a product, it’s a life enabler, and who couldn’t use one of those. There is no discussion of features or price. It’s not even about the phone; it’s about making life easier for you, and it does it with a brilliant script and a hypnotic musical score.
HTC You Campaign Video
Conclusion
In order for a commercial, a website, or a webmedia campaign to attain the level of an effective content experience, it must connect with an audience on an emotional level, the level at which decisions are made, and actions approved.
The HTC You Campaign illustrates how poetic words, delivered in an inspiring voice-over, supported by a hypnotic musical score, with associated images, turn advertising into content and content into an experience.
Does your website presentation or webmedia marketing strike this kind of cord with your audience, or are you still trying to win the hearts and minds of your audience with just another feature or price adjustment?
The Web is a different kind of communication venue. The old broadcast scenario of repeat, repeat, repeat, until they say your brand name in their sleep, just won’t work on the Web. You may only get one shot at any individual audience member, don’t screw it up.
Ten Top Tips for Video Marketing Your Online Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Nearly all internet marketing professionals use video as one of the core methods for marketing their business. These ten tips aim to help you get started creating short, attractive, effective videos based on solid keywords that convert and that stand the test of time.
Video grabs people’s attention far more quickly and effectively than text, audio or photographs. Making a short video can capture a thousand words and pictures and helps to get across your personal brand and lifestyle.
It’s important to stand out in the crowd on video channels and search engines. Aim your headlines at capturing the imagination regarding your topic. So don’t be dull – test out curiosity, shock or fun tactics for getting those download clícks.
First of all, get set up.
When you’re starting out, it’s ok to just use your webcam. It will give you the chance to practice while you’re honing your presentation skills before you fork out for a camcorder. When you’re ready, you can purchase an inexpensive digital video recorder, like say the Flip and a tripod.
Make sure you take your videos in well-lit conditions. Inside your office you’ll need decent lighting, or you can whip out your camera when you’re out and about. It makes for a much more interesting back drop.
OK. So now let’s go through each of my TOP 10 TIPS for creating and using videos to market your business.
#1: Keep Your Videos Short
Whether you’re loading videos on YouTube or just putting them up on your website or blog, it’s really important to keep to just 5 or 6 minutes.
If needed, you can of course break longer topics up into a series of smaller videos, which you could market as a series (see tip 10).
#2: Post Videos on Your Sales PagesM
You can use video on your sales page to introduce the main benefits of your product or business opportuníty. How about placing a video on your sales page or sign up pages.
This helps to orientate visitors and to highlight the main points of your regular, written sales letter.
#3: Choose Your Keywords Carefully
This is really an important tip, because it will affect how your video gets picked up by the search engines and other internet ‘bots’ that seek out content.
Research your top keyword phrases. Pick keywords that will attract the right kind of traffic and leads – research like crazy to find out what your prospects are looking for – and be sure to include your keywords in headings and tags and description boxes.
Doing this research and tracking clíck thrus (CTR) and conversions will help you secure your most cost-effective keywords and keyword phrases.
#4: Have a Clear Purpose & Structure
Your keywords will help make sure you target your video on the right purpose before you start. Does your video answer the questions your visitors have in their heads when they’re searching for solutions. Make things crystal clear.
Stay on topic and give added value – unique value if possible – and your videos will convert much better for you. Write down a structure – a set of headings – for what you’re going to cover. Have a script if necessary.
You can mention any links that you have to another video specifically on that related topic.
#5: Look at the Camera
The aim here is to connect with your audience, both in the topic you choose and the content as well as in your communication style. Remember you are talking to people – real live people. What are their needs and wants, hopes and fears.
With regards to presentation, stick your líst of headings right next to the camera so you stay looking in the camera at all times, rather than looking away at a screen or down at your notes.
An authentic and honest video is far more valuable than a glossy TV like broadcast. So don’t worry if you’re not up to TV presenter standards. Just be yourself and enjoy the opportuníty to reach out to people in a different way than using text copy.
#6: Create a Clear Call to Action
You should create one very clear service and call to action. It’s very important that people know exactly what to do as a result of watching your video.
What is your most wanted response (MWR)? Don’t confuse visitors with lots of options and different offers. Focus on the single most wanted response.
Alternatively, you can put your video up next to a sign up box – linked to your emaíl marketing – and clearly ask them to opt ín, more than once. Provide an incentive, such as a free report or further video coaching resources.
#7: Encourage Comments on Your Video
One of the best things about video is that it’s a very personal, social medium. The more people that are talking about your video and passing it on, the more buzz you’ll create.
Visitors may return to your page to see who has commented since their last comment. There may accumulate a whole líst of tips that have been created by your niche community, prompted by your initial video post.
Google’s SEO Report Card… Information Nuggets or Fool’s Gold?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Google’s SEO Report Card… Information Nuggets or Fool’s Gold?
While ostensibly aimed at helping Google target potential weaknesses in its own product pages, and of no direct use to SEOs, there is nonetheless more than a little gold to be found here, if one just examines the document in a little more depth. So while the post at Google’s Webmaster Central Blog is already beginning to bristle with comments lamenting the fact that this isn’t a clear treasure map to the search-ranking mother lode, it’s worth sifting through the Report Card to see what informational nuggets are hidden inside.
Subject I: Search Result Presentation
It’s easy to see why some readers simply dismissed this document out of hand, as the first section starts off being little more than a rehash of the standard “Use Page Titles, Use Meta Descriptions” advice found in any SEO-101 manual. Only by persevering to the part talking about Google Sitelink Triggering, does one begin to suspect that there may be a little more to the report card than meets the eye. Here the authors throw out a couple of crumbs about categorizing website and link-structure, and consolidating a site’s URLs to maximize its informational focus with the aim of increasing the chances of Google generating Sitelinks.
Even so, it’s nothing most professionals haven’t heard before, and I suspect that by this time a lot of readers had given up, thinking that nothing interesting was in store.
Subject II: URLs and Redirects
This is where we see a little glitter among the rubble, as the section starts off with the statement that: “Google products’ URLs take many different forms. Most larger products use a subdomain, while smaller ones usually use a directory form…”
In itself this is not an exceptional statement, and the chapter continues to give handy, but hardly unique, information about canonicalization, URL structure, and redirects until Page 10, where we find the following declaration:
“Subdomains require an extra DNS lookup, slightly affecting latency, which is very important at Google.”
Page load-speeds are an important factor to Google. There’s been talk and speculation about this ever since Matt Cutts dropped the first hints last year, and these days most SEOs are busily proclaiming that slow websites are now a handicap.
Haven’t they always been?
Be that as it may, this fact is not common knowledge with the average webmaster, as demonstrated by a question I’m regularly confronted with over at the Google Webmaster Help Forum:
“Which is a better way to categorize my site, subdomains or folders?”
The standard answer to this question used to be “Whichever you prefer” before load-times became an issue. Now, however, we find a clear indicator that a folder-based approach is much-preferable unless a category actually contains enough information to merit its own site, which is effectively what a subdomain turns it into.
Subject III: On-Page Optimizations
While at first glance this chapter is more standard SEO-101 fodder, it’s where we find a sizable nugget, as the report talks about semantic markup, and how Google uses it to gauge a page’s content.
“Nothing new here; we all use H1 tags.” you might say, but you’d only be partially right, because this issue not only runs much deeper than H1 headings, it runs beyond Heading tags altogether, as I’ll explain shortly. For the moment, however, let’s stay with them.
In the past few years, a great many Optimizers have reached the conclusion that only H1, and, to a degree, H2 are of any promotional value, and that lesser headings (H3 – H6) carry practically no weight at all. But let’s take a look at the following statement, taken from Page 38 of the Report:
“Most product main pages have an opportuníty to use one
tag, like the example above, but they’re currently only using other heading tags (
in this case) or larger font styling. While styling your text so it appears larger might achieve the same visual presentation, it does not provide the same semantic meaning to the search engine that an
tag does.”
tag does.”
For starters it’s obvious that the lesser headings are alive and well, and being used by Google. We’re also told that Google does not, or cannot, judge the visual-context meaning of CSS styled text. The conclusion is to use more heading tags instead of CSS styles wherever your content calls for it. However, there’s more to it still. Let’s take another look at part of that statement:
“…but they’re currently only using other heading tags…”
It would appear that Google still places greater value on other semantic markup tags (em, strong, blockquote, etc.) than many professionals give them acknowledgment, for these days. Otherwise why would the author specifically note the fact that Google only uses headings and font styles?
I personally know quite a few professionals who have long-since abandoned most semantic markup tags in favour of CSS style, since the prevailing attitude of designers and SEOs has been that making text bold or italic no longer carries much promotional weight, following widespread abuses in the mid-2000s and Google’s consequent algorithm updates.
And although the above statement may be a tentative one, it might just point the way back to a more HTML-based approach to web design. Indeed, if it can be taken at face-value, it’s entirely possible that those SEOs and designers advocating CSS-based, table-less design as the way forward are barking up the wrong tree. Whatever the case may be, there is undoubtedly more to the SEO Report Card than first meets the eye, and at the very least, there is a little gold to be extracted from the mass of standard information. Only by reading the full document will you be able to make an assessment yourself.
What should also be remembered is that the SEO Report Card is not aimed at high-flying SEOs or E-lebrity industry pundits, but at the intermediate webmaster for whom even the report’s basic information is of immense value, if read alongside Google’s SEO Starter Guide
Pay Per Click Marketing vs Facebook Advertising
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Monday, March 1, 2010
Pay Per Click Marketing vs Facebook Advertising
Google is the Bad Egg of Internet Marketing & MLM. With so
many accounts slapped and closed down for good, Top Gurus
are turning to Facebook Advertising as a far superior
option for cheap targeted traffic.
Don’t Put your Eggs in One Marketing Basket
Savvy Pro marketers like our members aren’t panicking -
we’ve always had a back up plan on the go. Our advice has
been simple – don’t put all your eggs in one basket -
especially Google’s! If you’re using Pay Per Click
Advertising, then make sure you also have some SEO going on
- to generate organic traffic.
It takes a lot of hard work to get your site ranked
through organic traffic – writing articles, forum posts,
blogs, squidoo lenses, hub pages, video marketing – to
build up your online presence and expertise for your chosen
niche keywords.
Organic takes time. So if you don’t have the patience and
want to generate lots of traffic fast, PPC is a good to
have as part of your marketing model.
But internet marketers and PPC experts are absolutely fed
up with the arrogance of Google. So if we’re not doing
Google Adwords for our marketing, where do we get the
masses of traffic we are still able to generate on a daily
basis?
Adding Content Rich Social Marketing into the Mix
If you want free traffic, you usually have to spend masses
of your time with manually writing copy and creating
podcasts and video marketing. So really it’s not free at
all – time is money and all that. Hiring a copy writing
group to create niche content can become quite expensive.
So all this organic SEO friendly traffic takes time to
build up and requires consistent daily effort. This is good
to add to your marketing mix but won’t give you fast
traffic.
What’s super important too is that organic SEO content is
ultimately still controlled by the search engines, so
Google still has power over how you get seen by your
prospects.
How hard is it these days to do enough clever keyword
research to get your unique niche and rank on page one of
Google. Almost impossible – especially if you’re one newbie
trying to compete with the big gurus in internet marketing
or MLM network marketing arena.
What Marketing Strategies to Use that Beat Google Adwords
Fair and Square?
What company is fair and sane, loves affiliates and direct
marketers? What company attracts nearly 40 billion views a
month and the traffic is uber quality and dirt cheap? Who
is this company? Well, it’s your friendly neighbourhood….
Facebook!
Facebook is the only company that Google actually
acknowledges is a real competitor to them. Facebook is
currently showing up as having four hundred million active
members – that makes it 5 times the size of Google!!!
Yet Facebook ads represent just 5% of the advertising done
on Google.
Now don’t be thinking Facebook is just for youngsters!
Insidefacebook.com published its statistics and show that
only 11% of users are aged 13-17. While 33% are 18-25s, a
whopping 18% are aged between 35 and 44. That’s 100 million
people! And a further 9% are aged 45-54 and 4% 55-65.
Don’t spend another cent with Google till you’ve checked
out Facebook Advertising.
Why Facebook is the New Face of Paid Advertising
Facebook is pretty much untapped compared to PPC
advertising on Google, Yahoo or Bing.
It’s truly a “sleeping giant”, an ingenious source of
traffic that is…
- much bigger than PPC
- less competitive than PPC
- more targeted than PPC
- less expensive than PPC
And what’s more, Facebook’s integrated personal profiles
mean you can hone in on exactly the demographic you are
trying to target – not just on keyword phrases, you can
also target only Facebook members who are in particular age
groups, regions and/or have specifically stated certain
interest areas – it’s simply awesome how deep you can get
into Facebook – giving you massive choice and combinations.
Because of this, Facebook allows you to use the same ad in
many different ways so you can really hit the hot spots of
your users and their interests. Imagine being able to
target by age, gender, film interests, AND keywords… you
can really hit your message home.
So what this means in practice is that the clicks you get
on your Facebook ad are immensely more targeted and convert
far better and cost far less than what you’d achieve on
Google Adwords.
If all that targeting isn’t enough to convince you, here
are some more benefits of using Facebook advertising:
- Facebook is also great for newbies. It’s really easy to
use and to set up your campaigns. If you can send an
email, you can do Facebook ads.
- Facebook ads work in any market and will give a far
better ROI than PPC, even for affiliate marketing.
- Facebook advertiser competition is minimal right now,
so now is the time to tap into this massive source of
traffic.
- Your ad in Facebook can include not only titles and
descriptions but also images, which you can’t do with
PPC ads.
- Facebook ads leave little wastage because you can seek
out ultra targeted members who are likely to respond to
your offer.
Following the Facebook Rules
There is a downside.
Facebook is hugely protective of its users. So you have to
really study and follow their rules. And this will take you
some time.
The general rule of thumb stems from what is called
“permission marketing”. So make sure you check this out so
you don’t get your account cancelled.
How To Use Web Analytics To Grow Your Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:03 AM
Sunday, February 15, 2009
How To Use Web Analytics To Grow Your Business
By Mike Tekula (c) 2009
Got a website?
If you own a business, chances are you do. But don’t pat
yourself on the back too quickly.
By now it’s widely-accepted that if you have a business
card you should probably have a website. It doesn’t matter
what your company is selling – a website, however modest,
has become a standard.
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