Archive for October, 2009

Articles Marketing May Seem Boring, But It Works

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Any website owner who starts down the path of internet marketing will soon discover how many “guru’s” are out there all claiming some secret trick to boost your search engine rankings.The reality of it is there are some key things to pay close attention to, but a lot of success just comes down to hard work and consistency.Depending on what keywords you are trying to rank with, you can get good results in as little as 1 week, or it may take months of hard work.

Asisde from basic webpage SEO stuff to make sure everything is done correctly, the biggest single factor still in your rankings is the number of links and where they come from.  The PR(page rank) of the site linking to you is important, as is the content on that site.  Recipricol links used to work really well (you link me, I link you) but now its really downplayed by Google as a valid method of links.

The easiest way to get links is through article marketing.This is not the path of the least work, it is the best path to get good, long term results.  The setup is simple:

  1. Do some keyword research on your topic.  Pick 2-4 keywords you will focus on.  Make sure they get decent search volume but do not go after stuff that is too generic (meaning it will have unusually large seached volume) – those will be way too hard to rank on in a reasonable time.
  2. Plan on writing 10 – 12 articles of 300-400 words each, using 2 of the keywords with links to your site in each article, with no more than 3 links per article total.Use the kwyword itself as your link text, not http://.
  3. Publish 4 of the articles on a major article directory that has good ranking such as Ezine Articles or ArticlesBase.  These have human reviewers so it will take a bit of time to get your article published.Luckily they do not require unique posts that are exclusive, so while you are waiting for their approval you can get it posted elsewhere as well.
  4. Make sure you get some software that helps to spin the article content and links.  Basically spinning allows you to subsitute words and sentences for one another so that you can get a different article from the same basic article.  DO NOT try to use rewriting software – I have seen none that do a decent job – usually it reads like garbage and that will not help your rankings.  If you spin an article right, you can easilly get 10-20 different reading articles from a single article, enough to not worry about duplicate content out there (and possible penalties).
  5. The next step is to mass distribute your articles to sites looking for great content.  You can do this manually for free, or find some tools to purchase that can greatly speed this up.  I usually choose to pay some money in the savings of time.There are so many aspects to getting good rankings, you need a trade off somewhere so you can get more done.  You want to make sure you spread out the distribution – its unnatural for any site to go from no links to 500 links in 1 day – what is more natural is 0 to 10 to 18 to 25 to 40 … over many weeks build the level up.
  6. You should start tracking where you rank on the few keywords you have chosen.  After you have about 300 or so links you should start to get decent ranking.  Some keywords that are not as competitive, much less, and of course, some it might take thousands.  Your goal should be to get on the top 2 pages of Google for your search terms.
  7. In addition to the article work, you can also use social media accounts to link to each of the articles you publish AND also to your main web site.  You should make a hub pages site and a squidoo lens about your site or niche as well with links to the site.

Sites all want fresh content on them to improve their quality score.Most want articles about their site topic to keep the viewer on the site longer and to get better search enging ranking.  This is exactly why article marketing works – you get links on disribution sites, webmasters get to search for content to add to their site from what is published.

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Knowing Your Target Market is Very Essential

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Before you can do any good advertising your product and service or undergo any decent marketing campaign you have to know your target market. You need to collect as much information as you can and take a thorough knowledge in order to have a successful marketing mix in internet marketing.Having an optimum knowledge about their demographics is important. You must be well aware to whom you want to reach for your online marketing campaign.

  • What does your ideal customer look like?
  • They belong to which age group?
  • What is their income?
  • What is their working environment?
  • Which place do they socialize?
  • In what ways they spend their money?

The strategies that you would integrate would comprise of all these factors. Fortunately it doesn’t take much to find out much of this. When your target is a particular geographical area taking the help of internet you can know about which prospect belongs to which region. If you are from US you can take help of the chamber of commerce for that particular area.Remember where are they located.

What culture they follow.

Get familiar with it and find out what things are typical for that region. Knowing about the region also plays a vital role in being familiar with the target audience, learn this with Keyword Elite. Along with finding out what marketing strategy is effective and well known, you also need to search the ones that are prohibited. What may seem harmless to one region may be a death sentence to your marketing strategy if your marketing research doesn’t find this information out. Make a note about all the features that may be affecting the buying habit of your prospects.

  • What is their approach towards fashion?
  • What environment they are surrounded by?
  • How liberally they spend their money?

This may seem to be like working on much things however by doing this you will get good results and your marketing plan will be effective. The most important part of your marketing research will be understanding your customers needs.

Your ad campaign will be better if you understand this properly.If you are able to do this, it will create a brand image of your product in their minds. The best way to  know more about the market is to be there for some time. If your hope is to have a coffee shop, you are going to want to see first hand what works and doesn’t work. You should evaluate as to what the customers expect out of the product or service that you are providing. This is very vital for online internet marketing campaign.

It is important that you spend some of your time with your prospects to know better about their expectations. Participating in the forum is one way how you can know what is there in their minds.Try to be one of them involve yourself and then try to know their needs. The more you can understand them, the more effective you will be a marketing to your target market.

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Trying To Self-Publish Ebooks

Ebooks

In today’s world and with the new technologies, ebooks can be downloaded for free from the Internet. One can create his or her own ebooks and market them at a low and affordable price. The ebook is good and preferred by most of the people because it immediately provides Internet users with the information they require without taking much of their time. When an individual has purchased an ebook complier and created his or her own ebook, he or she will automatically have the stock and inventory in hand.

The ones, who have started selling their ebooks, earn a lot of money for every single sale. What can help you in writing an ebook is choosing to write for your potential customers, since you are in a position to provide your customers with what exactly they would like to have. You should be able to know what your clients need by researching on the Internet. This can be achieved by searching the online discussion groups. You can also peruse the posts and check the questions. The questions that have been asked frequently will help you in knowing what your clients would like to read. You can also check the forums and message boards.

You should be able to realize what your focus on creating ebooks is and when you have determined your focus, you will be able to break down your subject into not less than ten different areas. Each area should represent a chapter. You should leave space between each paragraph and use a font that is easy to read. Remember that bad fonts and black paragraphs will put your targeted group off. It is advisable to do your level best to make your clients comfortable in all areas. The readers of your ebooks should be able to locate the important information without straining or struggling and therefore, you need to be well-organized.

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working girl
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You have to have an internet marketing plan.  There is so information coming at you all the time that it can really be overwhelming sometimes.  So it is important to have a course of action to stick to, so that you are not distracted by thousands of offers every day and end up accomplishing nothing.

My internet marketing plan consists of a few things that I do every day.  These are the tools which I have found work the best for me on a daily basis.

  • Write an article every day.  I love article marketing as it is a great internet marketing strategy.  Before writing the article, I decide which one of my products I want to promote.  Then I do research to find  a good keyword to use for the promotion of that product.  Every article that I write carries my links to a product that I am promoting and to my blog.    I like to write 600 – 800 word articles, with a lot of information and content.  The more informative the article, the more exposure it will get.
  • Distribute my article.  I also distribute my article to several article directories.  I make sure to distribute it to Website-Articles.net, Ezine Articles, and GoArticles.  I also to go to the social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit, Technorati, and others.  By doing this my article gets picked up by the search engines.  It also gets exposure through other blogs that post my article on their blogs, with my signature and links in it.  I also distribute it to ezines, or newsletters that are specific to internet marketing.  This way it is also exposed to many ezine subscribers in that specific niche.
  • Update my autoresponder messages.  I check to see that I am up to date with all my lists, and that I have follow up messages going out to them.  If I have a great product or content, I will broadcast a message to all my lists.  I am always trying to find great deals that I can offer my lists.  I want to make sure that I do not lose contact with any of my lists, and that I answer any questions they may have.
  • Educate myself every day.  I keep on learning on a daily basis.  I have  two memberships that provide a lot of content and new information.  I like to stick to the information that I receive from these two sources, so that I am not all over the internet looking at all the information that everyone is putting out there.  The two sources that I have are very reliable and trustworthy, so I rely on them mostly for my internet marketing education.
  • Visit forums.  Forums are a great way of staying in touch with my peers and also of learning a lot.  People in forums speak honestly and freely and also offer excellent information.  This is a wonderful source of education as well.  I have found great gems in forums.  I love the Warrior Forum, and recommend it if you are in the internet marketing niche.  There are some great internet marketers on this forum.  Of course, if you are in another niche, there are forums for all kinds of niches.
  • Work on a project.  I usually have a product that I am working on.  Sometimes it is a website that I am putting up to promote a new product.  Sometimes I have affiliate products that I want to look at to see if I would like to promote them.

These are the main items on my internet marketing plan, which I try to accomplish on a daily basis.  It is a good day when I can actually do everything that I set out to do.  However, having this plan gives me focus and helps me to keep moving forward.

Many people have a problem with information overload.  This can cause you to become paralyzed with inaction and feel totally overwhelmed and out of control.

You need an internet marketing plan.  Let someone who knows guide you to success.  My guide is Turbo Membership, where I get everything I need to succeed on a monthly basis.

Cris Santeiro has written many articles on internet marketing.  For more information and to register for her free newsletter please visit www.CrisSuggests.com.

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Rush Hour 106/365: Traffic
Image by Jer Kunz via Flickr

Targeted internet marketing is essential for internet marketing success.  Internet marketing is a very large business.  There are millions of internet marketers on the internet every day, buying and selling, some making huge profits and amassing fortunes.  There are also many who struggle and try to make it to the top, and many others who quit.

Knowing how to generate targeted internet marketing traffic is essential.  You can generate a lot of traffic that does not turn into sales unless you target your traffic.  This is how to create targeted internet marketing traffic that will be effective and will bring you results.

Choose a Niche

It is important to choose a profitable niche.  A niche is a small section of the market, which you are going to dedicate your efforts towards, or target.  You might choose the weight loss niche, or the dog training niche, or the relationship niche, or even the internet marketing information niche.  Your audience will be a specific group of people who are interested in your specific products relating to that section of the market.

To choose a profitable niche you need to find what people are interested in.  You do this by doing some research.  Go to Clickbank and type in the keywords for your chosen niche and find out if there are a lot of products serving your market.  Amazon is another marketplace that you can research.  You can also visit magazine stands and see if there are publications regarding that niche.  If you find enough interest in these market places, then you probably have a profitable niche.

Find What Your Niche is interested in

You can also research what the people in your niche are buying by going to Clickbank, Amazon and Google. Browse the categories or use their search function to search for niche products.  The products at the top of the search results and categories are the bestsellers.  You want to offer products that people are already interested in.  Look at the top products that are selling, and sell these or similar products.

Redirect Traffic to your website

Once you know what the products are that interest your audience, you need to present your products to these people.  So you have to go to find these people that are going to buy your products.  You need to locate the best traffic sources.  Some of the best sites for targeted internet marketing are:

  1. Forums related to your niche:  People congregate in forums to look for information and value in their specific niche, so this is very targeted traffic.  You can interact with others in forums by contributing to existing threads, answering questions and offering valuable content.  This way you are establishing yourself as an expert in your field and others will be attracted to you.  You leave a signature link every time you make a post, which you can use to lead readers back to your website.
  2. Social networks and social bookmarkings.  In some websites, such as Facebook, you can join different groups that are targeted to specific niches.  In Twitter, you can find people with similar interests to yours by doing a search on Twollo for specific keywords, and following these people.  This way you can interact with your targeted niche.Social networks should be treated like cocktail parties, where you go to interact with others and be sociable.  You do not just go to tell people what to buy or to post your link.  But if there is a chance to offer a solution to someone’s request, you can certainly bring a solution that will be helpful.  It should be treated just like a conversation at a party.
  3. Article marketing: Article marketing is very targeted, as you can write whole articles specific to your niche.  This is a great way to market and brand yourself, as well as to produce long term traffic.By writing articles about different aspects of your niche, you establish yourself as an expert in your field, thus attracting people to you.  Once you distribute your articles to article directories, ezines and social bookmarking sites chances are your articles will have a long life on the internet.  They can bring you business for years to come.
  4. Video sharing sites.  Just like article marketing, video marketing is very widely used to promote specific products.  Video has become one of the most popular ways of marketing.  YouTube alone gets millions of visitors.  There are many other video sharing sites where people are getting great results from their marketing efforts.Post a 5 minute informational video with a link back to your site.  There are many new products such as Camtasia, Article Video Robot, and others, which can really help you create great videos easily, without too much techy knowledge.

Targeted internet marketing traffic attracts the best kind of traffic.  Take the above steps to create a solid business and a customer base that will want what you are offering, because you know what they want, and where to find them.

Build a targeted internet marketing business.  Get free access to eMarketers Club and learn how to attract a legion of hungry buyers.

Cris Santeiro writes extensively on internet marketing.  For a free copy of her newsletter (and a free IM Resources ebook) please visit her website at www.CrisSanteiro.com.

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