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14 Creative & Profitable Ways to Use Autoresponders!

11 2007 Tuesday

By Gunjan Tiwari in Featured

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email.

Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:

Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.
Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.
Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate’s page in your autoresponder.
Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Let’s say you’ve written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.
Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you’ve written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.
Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you’re selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.
Distribute advertising. Let’s say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects’ email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.
Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.
Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.
Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.
Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors’ email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.
Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.
Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.
Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!

Author: Gunjan Tiwari is making part-time healthy living online! Gunjan’s Free “NO BS, 6 Part E-course” is jam packed with tips and techniques on how you can create a non-stop cash flow online in less than 2 hours a day. Click Here to get an insight on how to REALLY make your living online for FREE

Social Media Outreach 101: 5 Tips for Integrating into Communities

11 2007 Tuesday

By Michelle Pierce in Featured

As our society continues the rapid shift to digital communities, forums and blogs have earned a prominent place in the Internet marketing spotlight. Specialized conversations are forming around every conceivable topic, giving businesses a glimpse into a promised land of highly targeted potential customers. Social media has become a buzzword for many companies looking to capitalize on these niche audiences.

At the same time, rumors of botched “outreach” attempts like Sony’s fake blogs have made many businesses hesitate to test the waters. One false step can lead to a backlash of very vocal antagonists.

The potential rewards of this digital frontier certainly make the efforts worthwhile. With a little care and planning, you can gain exposure for your business as well as gaining insights into your customers’ needs and wants. Here are a few tips to help you navigate the digital waters safely:

Choose communities you’re interested in

If you’re going to spend the time and effort to stay involved, you need to pick forums and blogs that interest you. People join communities because they are passionate about a topic. For you to successfully relate to them and gain trust, you have to share a common interest in what they’re talking about.

If you’re not interested, it will show, and you won’t be able to successfully integrate into that community. No one wants to spend time talking to the guy yawning in the back of the room. If that’s you, then you’re just wasting your time.

Don’t try to be everywhere

When you’re thinking of communities to get involved with, it can be easy to go overboard. The Web offers boundless opportunities for niche audiences, which can make it difficult to narrow your focus.

But you can’t be everywhere at once. There are only so many hours in a day, and your business won’t run itself. If you spread yourself across 15 different blogs and forums, the combined efforts won’t even register. Therefore, you need to limit your involvement to just a few and budget your time accordingly. Pick relevant blogs and forums to participate in.

Think of forums and blogs like joining local clubs. You can’t make five meetings all at the same time slot and you can’t drop in for two minutes every month and expect people to remember you. Better to form real connections with people who see you on a regular basis.

Invest in the community

Think of forums like a special interest group. The more you are involved in the discussion, the more help you provide your fellow members, the more your status in the group will rise. You’re looking to enhance your reputation as an expert and a helpful source of knowledge.

Don’t be a wallflower. Participate, respond, and contribute to the conversations. If people have questions, help them find the answers. If someone needs help, see if you can’t give some helpful tips, advice, or encouragement.

Hold off on the sales pitch

When you give advice without blatantly trying to gain a customer, you gain respect and prestige. People will start to see you as a trusted member of the community. Think about it: Would you be more likely to buy a golf club from the shop owner who helped organize the last local tournament, or the newcomer who’s pushing his business cards at everyone he can reach?

Forums and blogs are all about discussion. It’s like a corner bar where people can get together and talk about common interests. If you bring sales and promotion into that dynamic, prepare to be shunned.

Where it’s okay to sell

Some forums have sections dedicated to services and advertising. Look for a “Marketplace” or “Services” section or something similar. This is the place to strut your stuff or look for clients. People will post jobs they have available here, or announce the services they are offering.

In addition, always set up a signature with your website link and a one-liner describing what your company does. Some forums don’t allow more than a simple link. In any case, keep your signature very brief. Take a look at other people’s signatures to get a feel for what’s allowed.

If everyone else on the forum has a five-word motto and a link to their website, you don’t want to create a signature that throws your company history onto every post. Your goal should be to integrate into the community, not stick out like a sore thumb in a cheap suit.

Stay connected

If you tread carefully, joining communities like forums and blogs can be a great way to connect with potential clients and boost visibility for your company. By giving your company a voice in the sometimes impersonal World Wide Web, you can also differentiate your company from thousands of other competing sites.

Forums and blogs also allow you to keep an ear to the ground. These communities keep you plugged in to what your clients want. Concerns, complaints, wishes, and hopes are all aired on a continual basis. If you’re looking for areas to expand or ways to out-do the competition, this can be a great place to start market research.

For more information, Jennifer Laycock at Search Engine Guide did a series of articles about this. Here’s her advice for becoming part of the blog community: http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/hide-and-speak-4.php

Author: Jessica Cox and Michelle Pierce are graduates of the University of Oklahoma’s College of Journalism with a background in Internet marketing and writing for the Web. They currently provide PR services at Xeal Precision Marketing. Sign up to get crucial Internet marketing tips at Xeal’s free Thursday webinar at http://www.xeal.com/webinar.htm.

5 Reasons Why Blogging is the Best Internet Marketing Tool

11 2007 Monday

By Denise Palmer in Featured

Blogging has evolved into pages and pages, blog after blog of personal opinions on just about anything and everything under the sun. As it became more and more popular, online advertising tapped into the tremendous potential and ever growing audience. Here are 5 reasons why blogging is the best Internet marketing tool, today, for doing business online.

Blogging arrived on the Internet marketing scene in the late 90s. It originated as a way to Blogging and Internet Marketing comment on an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice their opinions. It opened the door for real-time, 2-way conversations, even highly charged debates, among bloggers and blog visitors. Blogging has evolved into pages and pages, blog after blog of personal opinions on just about anything and everything under the sun. As it became more and more popular, online advertising tapped into the tremendous potential and ever growing audience. Here are 5 reasons why blogging is , today, for doing business online.

1. Blogging is easy.

The simplest way to get your information, your products, and your services on the Internet is through blogging. No special skills are required… an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse. Think of a blog as a virtual tablet of paper and you simply write your ideas, experiences, new products, and service descriptions down and if well written, the truth behind your articles will entice your readers, or blog visitors, to want to know more about you and what you have to offer. So basically, if you have a computer and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic.

In this day and age where advertising saturates our lives, we question the credibility of most advertising claims. However, in the , your blog content will represent a Blogging and Internet Marketingmore personal aspect of who you are and what you have to offer, establishing your credibility up-front. Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience. Consumers definitely want to buy a tried and tested product. Your potential customers will “get to know you” first, then naturally want to buy from you once you earn their trust.

3. Blogging is free.

There are many reliable and respectable companies offering services which include hosting and blog (CMS). With a free blogging service you can create a professional and profitable blog at no cost. Any opportunity for free Internet marketing tools is definitely a bonus especially for a start-up business. Needless to say, there are also and they too have their advantages. These services may warrant your considerations either once you get your free blog generating revenue, or if you know up-front your blog will require advanced functionality.

4. Blogging builds credibility.

As you write your experiences on a particular product or industry, more frequently, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your blog posts for credible information, answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. As such, you become an expert that they routinely turn to; the benefit is that more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blog. As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market share.

Unless you are already famous, chances are, only your Mom and close friends are reading your blog. Mom has a lot of friends, and your friends have friends, and they let them know how interesting your blog site is, but you can’t depend on this circle of blog visitors to sustain your profit base for long. You should be using the following to build your market:

E-mail - Today, is rapidly surpassing the popularity and effectiveness of email to quickly and effectively reach your target market. In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading email is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog. Long gone are the days where we email pages and pages of information. You can now, simply shoot a very short email with a link to your blog where they can find the information in its’ entirety. Also be sure to include a signature in every email you send, to anyone, with a link to your blog.

Blogging and Internet Marketing-Subscriptions - An easy way to build your blogging audience, which in turn increases your market share, is to offer readers a . As a subscriber, they can receive email notifications when you update your blog, or when you have “special” offerings for subscribers only. It is very important though, to be responsible with your subscribers email addresses. The last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

Understand your readers - It’s important to be knowledgeable and constantly monitor your readers needs and wants. A simple survey, every few months will aid you in keeping your finger on the pulse of what your readers will benefit from the most. Additionally, you’ll be able to gather profile information and advertising preferences. By asking your readers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared, it’s like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview. Your readers will also appreciate the fact that you care, and you are willing to listen to them, especially when you implement things on your blog specific to their feedback.

Join a blog network – Be active and productively participate in a that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc. Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject. The links back from these relative blogs will improve your search engine optimization and at the same time, help build even stronger credibility for you with your blogging audience.

Use RSS Feeds - RSS feeds are the fastest growing technology on the Internet today. As such, having to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base. Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site and offer your readers the ability to zero in on the exact information that is of most interest to them.

Give your business a boost by effectively using blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

Put your blog readers needs first, build a strong, credible base and become the authority in your niche and the profits will naturally follow.

Author: Easy Blogs R Us is passionate about helping other bloggers and online marketers learn, save time and money, and most of all, succeed. Visit us today at http://www.easyblogsrus.com.

7 Strategies to Drive Local Traffic to Your Website

11 2007 Monday

By Donna Gunter in Featured

This area of Texas seems to be inundated by various phone directories. At last count, I think we had 3 directories in addition to the one published by our local phone provider. I decided that I was tired of them taking up valuable shelf space, so I threw out all but one. Why? Because when I need a local product or service, I’m more inclined to find the local business online rather than referring to the local telephone directory.

Apparently I’m not alone. In fact, an August 2006 Nielsen//NetRatings/WebVisible survey reported that 70% of a group of Internet searchers used the Internet to search for local businesses; 46% of them searched for local businesses in the last 90 days.

So, what is local search, anyway? Local search refers to using geographic location terms to find a local business online, i.e. using Google and searching for “dog groomer” + “Houston.” If you’re not yet taking advantage of local search options to help you get local traffic to your website, you are missing out on a substantial amount of business.

Here are some ways you can drive local traffic to your website:

1. Local search engines. Most of the major search engines permit you to list your website and attach it to a specific geographic area. These locally-focused websites include: Google Local, Yahoo Local, MSN Local, InfoUSA, Merchant Circle, TrueLocal.com, Local.com, and CraigsList.com.

2. Other local directories. Many times local media, organizations, or businesses offer locally-based directories where you can list your business for free or for a fee. Places you might check in your local area include regional or local newspapers, televisions stations, regional or city magazines, independently owned local directories, city guides of major search engines (like Yahoo City Guide), profession or industry directory, regional/state sites, and chamber of commerce or visitor bureau sites. Ask your local clients where they look online for local goods and services to give you an idea of the sites your target market actually uses.

3. Recommendation/review sites. Many of the locally focused websites noted above offer visitors the opportunity to post testimonials or reviews about the products or services of a business. Take a few minutes to ask your local customers to go in and review your business. These recommendation sites include: AOL City Guide, JudysBook.com, InsiderPages.com, AngiesList.com, and Yelp.com.

4. Optimize your website for local search. There are a number of tweaks you can add to your website to optimize it for local searches. These include:

Local terms in your page titles (i.e. don’t use home page as your home page title but Seattle Professional Organizer as the title of your home page).
Local terms in your anchor text, which is the visible, hyperlinked text on a web page that’s often underlined and/or a different color than the rest of the copy (i.e. don’t use your business name, Aamco Financial Services, but use New York City Financial Planning Services instead).
Local terms in your H1 and H2 tags (headlines) (i.e. those headlines that are flanked by H1 and H2 header code in the HTML code of your page)
Local terms in the body of your pages (i.e. mention “Houston professional dog groomer” rather than simply dog groomer or your business name in the content of your pages).

5. Location map on your site. Make it easy for locals to find you. Google Maps makes it very easy to embed a map of your location on a page of your website.

6. Physical address. Including your physical address on all pages of your site gives the search engines yet another reason to index you to be found locally.

7. Inbound Links. Request inbound links to your website from other local businesses. Search engines especially favor one-way inbound links from highly trafficked sites, so if you don’t have to list a reciprocal link back to the linking site on your site, the linking strategy becomes even stronger. Instead of using your business name as the anchor text, use a geographic description of your business as described in strategy #4 above.

If you have business with local clientele, it’s not too late to make sure that your business can be found through local search. After all, you don’t want to send your target market to the competition, do you?

Author: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

How to Hire Ghost Writers and Succeed in Keyword Ranking

11 2007 Monday

By Darren Dunner in Featured

Recently there has been a major change taking place not only in Google but in all the search engines. The search engines have 2 goals for their users. To filter out junk web sites from natural search results, and to make money on paid advertisements which are also know as sponsored links. This competition gives the search engines the power to choose how they accept sites and which they want to exclude. Though this process is not bullet proof, you will see more sites disappearing from the top 10 of the major search engines and more relevant sites appear relating to your keyword search.

Is your site appearing in these results naturally? Are you finding that no matter what you do, there is no progress for your site, though you spend hours daily trying to make this happen?

Many websites could easily climb the keyword ranks if they just apply some standard content to their site. After much effort and time, many site owners realize they need help in this area. These site owners have hired Ghost Writers to accomplish these tasks with some to no real success.

The frustration levels now are growing all around as people realize their need for help and yet still can’t find Ghost Writers who know any better then they do. The problem is too many people are not understanding of what the real needs are, and are hiring people without this knowledge and are once again wasting time.

Service companies offering Ghost Writers know your desires to move up in keyword ranks, but this doesn’t mean they are experts in SEO. The real needs here are some simple guidelines to follow when hiring a Ghost Writers.

Know Your Site Needs More Then Ghost Writers

The most important thing you need to understand is what your site needs more then any Ghost Writer can. If you direct these writers with a well thought out plan you will see more success with your keyword ranking.

Know Your Word Count
Your first plan is to know how many words each page of your site needs. To get the Search Engines Attention you want to have at least 300 words and not more then 500 words per page. The only time you really can use more then 500 words on a single web page is if you are offering news or press.

Make Your Point Stand Out
Each page of content by the Ghost Writers should have specific points readers can focus on. There are a few ways to do this:

Use a numbered point system. Have a section of your content break down 3 or 5 important things in the format of Numeric points
Bullet point your 3 or 5 things that make that page of content clear for your readers
Use Sub Headings to break down your thoughts as this helps people get to the most important parts to them.

Which ever way you choose, you are structuring your content in such a way that readers can skim through your information and find what they need.

Proper Keyword or Key Phrase Placement
You do not want your pages filled with keyword or phrases randomly just to get them in your site. This only delays your keyword rankings. Instruct the Ghost Writers to dedicate each page to a specific keyword.

Now, to make this point clear not confusing, what I am saying here is you will have your basic pages of content like your home page, contact page, about us page, service page, etc. Those pages you can put in different keyword phrases in the content itself and in the meta tag areas like Meta descriptions, keywords & title of page, but only put these in if they make sense to the reader as these pages are meant to drive sales and call people to action!

Create a section on your website either via an FAQ, Information page, Blog, News or something that will allow you to have titles and descriptions that link to their own independent pages where now you can have clear content focusing on 1 keyword or phrase that make sense to the readers and tells the search engines what keyword to place you for in their rankings.

Make sure that you link the keyword at least 1 time back to your main home page, as this really helps push the search results to get people to the starting page of your site.

Only focus on 10 keywords for natural results when you first start this process. If you try for too many keywords then again you will slow down this process.

A Bit More Details on Meta Data
Make sure that your Ghost Writer includes:

Meta Title: This should be the primary keyword for that page along with 1 more keyword and then the name of your company. For example this article title tag could be “Ghost Writers, Keyword Ranking: The Content Writers”.
Meta Description: Your description should be compelling and to the point about what the particular page is about. A good description for this article could be “Ghost Writers, everything you need to know before you hire one. Read our step by step guide and watch your keyword rankings improve in no time at all”
Meta Keywords: Research your primary and secondary keywords first so that when you hand over the details to your Ghost Writer they will know already which ones you want. Though you already know yourself you want this included on the page of content written for easy copying and pasting. The keywords for this article could be “ghost writers, ghost writer, keyword ranking”

Final Preparation and Research To Find The Best Ghost Writers
Now that you have an idea on what you should plan for in advance this will make your Ghost Writers very happy as you are providing them with great details on what you want for main site content and for keyword site content. They know now what you are expecting in return and should speed up the process to return to you the content needed.

I want to note here that you are not presenting these writers with content for your site, only a specific outline of page names, keywords and expectation. You only need now to do a bit of research to find the best writer for your business.

When searching for a Ghost Writer you are now simplifying your search for someone who can follow your instructions rather then hope they know what they are doing for improving your keyword rankings. Here is a guide to help you find the best provider for you:

You want to find writers who are easily accessible via Phone or Email
Hire only a company that gives you a clear pricing plan so you know what to expect when all the content is complete. Typically you can have them break down a per word cost to make things really simple.
Have them write up 1 or 2 pages before you give the complete set of pages. This way you can see how quickly they return the content, if they followed your instructions and how well written the content is.
Leave a little room for content that is almost what you needed but not exactly on target. Remember, you are more of an expert then they are in your industry. This is very important because many times it is just a minor change in wording or adding a simple sentence to complete your page that you requested. If this is the case then make the fix and pay them for their work.
For terms of payment I suggest you work this out with them in advance but never pay 100% up front. A rule of thumb in business is let them collect 25% to 50% up front. This of course depends on your experience with them in regards to time and quality. If you see they are pretty close but need to send requests back to have fixes then try for the 25%, if they are pretty much right on target then pay the higher amount up front, and then pay them the full amount once the content is complete.

For your sites success and the success of the Ghost Writers you hire, I truly hope this information serves you well.

Author: Darren Dunner is editor for SiteProNews, a site to help web site owners understand what is happening in the online world of Business and SEO. Darren also provides a Ghost Writers service and has been in business for over 9 years.

Social Bookmark Traffic - Is It Useful?

11 2007 Friday

By Tyrone Lomman in Featured

In the very recent past, a friend of mine [Kate] was lucky enough to get her website listed (bookmarked) on Digg, a very popular social bookmark site. With her permission, I was given an excellent chance to overlook and analyze the traffic generated from these types of sites. Read on to discover the pro’s and con’s of social media site traffic, and how it could be utilized in your own website or online marketing efforts.

Firstly, it should be said that any sort of internet traffic, should not be considered useless. Visitors to your site should all be welcomed, as any visitor is a good thing. In saying that, however, it should be noted that traffic in all its greatness, is not created equally. Great differences become apparent when you start to analyze its source. The purpose of this article, is to take a much closer look at the traffic generated from social bookmarking, from the perspective of internet marketing.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 2 years, you’d notice a very big trend on the web–social bookmark and media websites have become “all that” on the web. Slashdot, Stumble upon, Digg; any of these popular sites sound familiar?

This is where a lot of social bookmark traffic will originate from. In essence, these sites are driven and “controlled” by the users. Users or members choose which content they want to bookmark, and this will lead into viewing and discussing of said bookmarked content. Sites such as these are immensely popular, and flow traffic that the average website owner can only ever imagine having. That’s a lot of traffic, isn’t it? But is it really useful?

All this traffic and hype must be a good thing, right? But is it really worth your time? Should you integrate active promotion to these types of social media websites? What about concentrating all your online marketing strategies on these types of sites? The question more at point is, what are the real pro’s and con’s of getting your website listed on the front page of sites like Stumble upon or Digg?

As a website owner myself, I wanted answers, and I wanted them quickly. In addition, I wondered if utilizing these sites could benefit me; i.e, could they help me generate more income online?

Recently, my friends listing on Digg enabled me to have a up close look at these sites, and the effects they brought to a website owner. This was a chance for a first-hand, up close study; I was not about to pass this up.

However, this didn’t happen by chance. Kate took the action of placing the free “Addthis.com” bookmark to all her pages. You can also do this quite easily. Using this simple bookmark “button”, you can start to attract these sites. However, be warned; a site featured on the front page of social media sites can almost instantly generate 100,000’s of visitors to your website; this in essence is enough traffic that it may overload your server. Not good!

So be careful; active promotion to these social bookmark sites should only be taken upon if your servers or web hosting company can withstand the sudden influx of traffic.

With Kate’s permission, I utilized Google Analytics and started to analyze these types of visitors and social bookmark traffic generated. Interestingly enough, some very important factors were realized. The Majority of this traffic will:

Simply bounce back.
Very few visitors will stay on your site; even for a short period of time.
Very few visitors will actually go into the depths of your site.
If you have a newsletter or similar, you’ll notice that very few sign-up for these.
If you utilize any type of marketing follow-ups, etc, very few will enter.

(In saying this, an unknown variable is the content of your site. Is it well written? Does it perform well? Is it useful or attractive to the visitor?)

Traffic from these sites does pose a very common problem, however; its temporary traffic, to say the least. The mass amount of traffic generated will usually only last a few days at most, that is, until your listing or bookmark is removed from the front page. Most of these visitors will rarely remain on your website for long, and the majority leave within seconds. In saying that, you may have a few sign-up’s to your newsletter or Ezine, or visitors that explore your site. But keep in mind, this number will not be very high..

Social media site traffic can be likened to customers in the drive-thru sections of fast food restaurants; they come and go as quick as they came. The visitors will basically view your content, and before you know it, have already left, surfing back to the main site to venture onto the next item or listing. Social bookmark traffic will always behave differently, to a large extent, when compared to organic search engine traffic, or your newsletter traffic, for instance. Very differently.

Visitors from Kate’s article posts will generally add up to 50 to a 100 new sign-ups a day; much different when compared to social bookmark traffic. In addition, readers and visitors to her articles are actually interested in her content, and therefore have been previously exposed to similar content upon reaching her website. So in this case, there was no comparison.

The choice of traffic will always lay in the visitors generated from search engines, at least when comparing to the traffic from social bookmarking sites. A question still remains, however– is social bookmark traffic really all that useless?

Firstly, as previously mentioned, you need to remember that no traffic should be considered useless. Any type of visitor to your website should be counted as a good thing. Any website owner should realize that getting traffic and visitors to your website is a must; otherwise its game over.

When someone searches for a particular term in a search engine, and they end up at your website, this means that your visitor is there because you have what they’re looking for. This type of traffic is essential to your website. Visitors like these are considered to be “targeted traffic”; that is, they’re more likely to read your pitch-page, overlook your information, sign-up to a newsletter, or even buy a product. Additionally, they may also become repeat visitors. Traffic like this is ideal. These are the types of visitors you really want.

However, its not all bad news. Social media or bookmark sites do have a bright side.

How would you like the possibility of your website gaining exposure to millions of people? Sounds good, doesn’t it? Even though you may not get sales, for instance, this traffic can assist in getting your websites name out there; branding it, creating a buzz.

If your website appeals to a more mass market, then you are even more in luck. Social bookmark traffic in this case can be an excellent source of traffic and visitors.

Social sites such as these also have another added bonus; gaining a link on high PR7 and PR8 websites, with high traffic flow, can’t hurt your search engine rankings. After your website is featured on a social media site such as Digg, your link can also appear on a large number of secondary websites on the web, as much as 1000 or more. Much of this traffic will also be using the Firefox web browser, which is embedded with the Alexa toolbar– what does this do for you? Your Alexa traffic rank will be improved. As much as 50% of the visitors hitting Kate’s website we’re running the Firefox browser.

Something worth pointing out, is that the traffic generated from Stumble upon was much different. Longer stay durations were the common thing in this traffic, that is, this traffic behaved more like organic traffic. This could possibly be attributed to the fact that Stumble upon is a higher quality site, and this was reflected from the higher quality of the visitors originating from there. This also made me come to the realization that not all social media/bookmark traffic can be measured with the same stick. This experience also pointed me out to something important; the content featured on Kate’s website is geared towards targeted visitors from search engines and articles, and is generally not suited to the mainstream net-surfer.

An idea to better take advantage of this type of traffic, is to gear your website and its content to more mainstream internet users. Whether or not this enables you to achieve a greater level of success, is largely dependant on what you offer and how it is offered.

Another unknown variable, unfortunately.

In the near future, I hope to gain the chance to further study social bookmark traffic, and its long-term effects on websites. In specific, the effect it would have on keyword rankings and link popularity rankings in search engines; only then can I come to any type of real judgments. However, for now, my mind is being kept open, and the idea is being tossed up as to whether social media and bookmark traffic is actually worth the time or the effort. Is the time taken away from your usual day-to-day marketing efforts worth it?

Guess there is only one way to find out, really.

Author: Tyrone L. is a successful, experienced, and seasoned online marketer and A owner. To find out more information regarding online marketing, products, and free services, please head over to his website at: www.ebooksandlinks.com Submitted by: online article submission

How to Get Repeat Web Traffic

11 2007 Friday

By Anne-Marie Ronsen in Featured

Search Engine Optimization service encompasses everything from consultation, keyword research, copy writing, redeveloping the Website, creating incoming links, submitting to search engines and finally, reporting on its results.

You can’t just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites. The following are 25 online safest techniques, suggestions and tips to avoid losing potential visitors:

Set a goal. Figure out how fast you can do it, then create a plan to increase and improve your Page Ranking. Start your own Marketing Linking Campaign;
Update the pages on your website frequently. Use your time collecting valuable information on your site, and then tell everyone you can! Offer a web site full of interesting details that similar sites’ readers can’t live without. The best way to gain readership is by offering a valuable resource! You can even put a date counter on the page to show when it was last updated
Think carefully about key terms that your users will search on, and use those terms to construct your page.
Offer additional value on your website. For affiliates and partners you can place links to their sites and products and ask them to do the same for you. You can also advertise their books or videos, if these products relate to your industry and are not in competition with your own product.
Write relevant articles and publish them for free. Make sure to include a Bio Box that includes a link to your site. Stipulate that the article may be reprinted for free as long as the Bio Box is included. This will instantaneously provide extra links to your page when people reprint your work.
Choose your reciprocal links wisely. Connect only to websites that contain related information that readers will enjoy.
Email other webmasters and simply ask for a link and provide a pre-coded HTML link for them to cut and paste to their page.
Place a link on your site to invite customers to ‘opt in’ to get a monthly newsletter or valuable coupons. Use a “description” meta-tag and write your description carefully.
Add a link to your primary page with a script ‘Book Mark or Add this site to your Favorites’.
Add a link ‘Recommend this site to a Friend’ so that the visitor can email your website link
Use a distinct list of keywords for each page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords on every page.
Keep relevant text and links in HTML. Placing them in graphics or image maps means search engines can’t search for the text and the crawler can’t follow links to your site’s other pages. An HTML site map, with a link from your welcome page, can help make sure all your pages are crawled.
Avoid stuffing pages with irrelevant words and content. Also don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with significantly duplicate content.
Use ALT text for graphics.
Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with hardly any original content.
The robots.txt file on your web server should be current and should not block the Googlebot crawler. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled.
If you want to improve your Page Ranking try to do not link to sites that are irrelevant to yours and avoid sites that have a “Links Page” that is hard to find.
Building links is another way to improve how high you rank on a search engine index. Links consist of your hyperlink of your web site that is posted onto another web site. The more links of your web site that can be found throughout the internet on other sites, usually the higher you will rank in the search engines.
Use consistent colors, logos and slogans and always provide a ‘Contact Us’ link on each page.
Create a FAQ page which addresses most of the doubts and clarifications about your product or your company that are likely to be asked. This helps to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site.
Create a ‘Our Policies’ page that clearly defines your philosophy and principles in dealing with your customers. Also post your privacy policy as well so that clients know they are secure when they visit your site.
Ensure that each page on your website has appropriate titles and keywords Offer a web site full of interesting details that similar sites’ readers can’t live without. The best way to gain readership is by offering a valuable resource!
Try to please dissatisfied customers as much as possible.
Never spam a client, who has opted for newsletters, with unsolicited emails.
A site map is required to help the users go around your site and in case the site map has more than 100 links, then it is advisable to break it into several pages to avoid clutter

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. The fastest and most powerful way to make your website known is to submit it to as many relevant web directories as you can. Directory submission is the BEST way to gain targeted traffic to your site. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines.

Concentrate of giving the search engines what they really want - great content, well-organized, well-published and linked to other relevant material. Concentrate on that and you will be rewarded.

Author: Anne-Marie RONSEN is the author of many wealth and self development books for women. Download FREE e-books and software from http://www.e-bestsellers.com , http://www.PLRbestsellers.com or http://www.UniversalPublishingltd.com… You will learn about the best tips and recommendations to improve your health, weight and wealth. You’ll also discover how you can get a top position that will mean loads of traffic, recognition and sales

Google’s Paid Search vs. Organic Results – A Rickety Wall of Separation

11 2007 Friday

By Scott Buresh in Featured

The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results – that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory. But do they live up to this ideal in practice?

“Chinese Wall - The ethical (not physical) barrier between different divisions of a financial (or other) institution to avoid conflict of interest…”
Investopedia.com

“While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results.”
Google’s Webmaster Help Center FAQ

“NO pay for inclusion, and a complete separation of the search index part from the money part.”
Google Chief Engineer Craig Neville-Manning, Search Engine Strategies 2004

Perhaps one of the most helpful analytical tools you can use on your site. Google Analytics will give you a wealth of information about your site’s traffic. Where it comes from, how long it stays on your site, where it goes on your site, how well your content converts… invaluable information every webmaster should have in their possession. ( www.google.com/analytics )

You don’t hear Google talking much about Chinese Walls these days. This is certainly in part because they have had great difficulty gaining traction in the literal and very competitive Chinese market (headlines such as “Google Hits Chinese Wall” or even “Google Advance Halted at Great Wall of China” were commonplace). But might there be other, more nefarious reasons? Is there a reason why we hear less and less from Google about the virtual wall that separates paid search results from organic search engine placement?

What Is Google Really Doing for Its Big Spenders?

It has long been rumored that Google will offer technical assistance in achieving better organic search engine placement to those who spend more for paid search results. I know for certain that these rumors are true in at least two instances. In fact, I actually have the minutes from one of these technical assistance meetings after the company met with Google engineers. While the identity of these two companies is irrelevant, suffice to say that they are companies that you have almost certainly heard of and that they spend millions of dollars on paid search words each year.

To be fair, based on the meeting minutes I have, the advice that the engineers gave to the company does not include anything groundbreaking. It is mostly common sense advice that a good search engine optimization firm already knows about organic search engine placement and other issues, and much of it is already covered in the publicly-available Google Webmaster Guidelines. This, however, is beside the point. Google has obviously decided that it must offer perks to its big paid search spenders to keep them happy (or rather, happy enough to not pull their advertising). Clearly, one of these perks is access to Google engineers and the ability to glean information about organic search engine placement, a luxury that smaller advertisers do not enjoy.

Organic Search Engine Placement for Sale – The New Google Reality?

From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense, of course. Big-dollar advertisers make up the bulk of Google’s revenue for paid search, and any intelligent business will take whatever steps they deem necessary to hold on to their most valuable customers. This is why larger advertisers already have a designated account representative from Google. I am willing to bet that this perk was not Google’s idea. Rather, it almost certainly stemmed from the sense of entitlement that those spending large sums on paid search felt and the fact that technical help with their organic search engine placement is what they demanded.

Unfortunately, this reality leaves an advertiser with a small budget for paid search at a disadvantage. If Google is willing to offer this secret perk to larger advertisers now, what might they do in the future? Offer price breaks to larger paid search spenders? Increase the minimum monthly spend to squeeze out smaller companies and please the larger ones? It certainly has the potential to become a slippery slope, and I am interested to see where it goes next.

One final point – since Google is willing to give advice about organic search engine placement to companies that spend a great deal of money on Google advertising, is the phrase “While Google never sells better ranking in our search results…” truly accurate? I suppose this is open for interpretation. It may be technically true, but offering advice regarding organic search engine placement straight from the horse’s mouth in exchange for millions of dollars in money for paid search results isn’t far from selling rankings, in my opinion.

Conclusion

Please don’t get me wrong – I still believe that Google is the best search engine out there, I greatly admire the way that they are continually reinventing themselves, and I think they are still the target for those seeking the most benefit from organic search engine placement. They have the folks in Redmond constantly guessing and always three steps behind, and I love how they have started from humble beginnings to take on one of the biggest corporations in the world (and consistently win). I simply believe that they have played the underdog, anti-corporate card for too long, and that even if it has not outlived its usefulness, it has outlived its truthfulness. Google is now a huge multinational corporation that answers to its shareholders. To pretend anything otherwise is silly, but it seems that, for now at least, the charade will continue.

Google’s overriding principle, one that they have been happy to espouse to the media, has long been “Don’t Be Evil.” Whether they still adhere to this principle since they have become a public company is another question that is open for interpretation. If you are a smaller advertiser and feel that Google’s favoritism toward larger paid search customers regarding organic search engine placement is evil, it probably seems as though the “Don’t Be Evil” principle no longer applies. You may conclude that the principles of “Don’t Be Evil” and “Keep Shareholders Happy” are mutually incompatible, and that the latter has gained the upper hand.

Author: Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Download Medium Blue’s latest exclusive whitepaper, “Adding Search to Your Marketing Mix,” for more insight.

Advice On Building Your Own Website

11 2007 Thursday

By Roger Theron in Featured

So you want to build your own website, but where do you start? Once you decide that your company will benefit by going online, you should know that building a website requires a lot of time, hard work and dedication. The most important part of building your website is the planning stage; only once you’ve put all your ideas on paper can you move forward with purpose.

The First Step, Choosing a Domain Name

Choosing a domain name for your website can be exciting but also exasperating. It is easy enough to find a domain name which is catchy and suits your company, but is it available? The best and most obvious domain names are often already taken, which leaves you back at square one. The best way to go about choosing a domain name is to brainstorm a few ideas; sometimes it’s the most obvious or descriptive domain names that are available to register.

Now Register It

Once you’ve checked the availability of your chosen domain name you should register it to make sure that somebody else doesn’t beat you to it. If you’re aiming to receive South African traffic on your website you can register your domain name as a .co.za site and if you’re aiming for global traffic you can register as a .com website. You may find that your domain name is available as a .co.za, but not as a .com or vice versa. Consider choosing a domain name that is available in both, so that if your website grows you have the option of transforming it into a .com site, also, if a visitor mistakes your URL they won’t land on someone else’s page.

You can register yourself or you can ask a web hosting company to do it on your behalf, provided that they register the domain in your name. This is crucial if you wish to switch service providers at a later stage. Site registration takes between 24 and 72 hours for the process to be completed after which your site will go live. Once it’s live, everybody who navigates to your URL will be able to see your website.

Finding a Web Host

There are a lot of web hosting companies out there, so when searching for the ideal web host for your site, get quotes from a number of hosting companies. It’s always better to get a second opinion - and even better if you get a third, fourth and fifth.

Some web hosting companies ask you to sign annual contracts which means that you won’t be able to get rid of them if you’re not happy with their service, so before you sign anything, check them out thoroughly. Support is typically the number one priority, so look into this aspect very carefully; call or e-mail the support team of a prospective host to see what the response is like.

Make sure that the host is established and that their business is stable. Look at the quality and locality of their data centres. If you don’t know anything about data centres, ask an expert so that all the relevant questions can be asked. Make sure that their hardware and software packages are up to standard and that their network platform is reliable. You don’t want constant crashes when your website is up and running, so do your homework well.

Adding Content to Your Site

Building a website is not a once off event; it is an ongoing business process, requiring a commitment to maintenance. The more time and effort you are willing to put in, the more reward you will get out. It is difficult to get a site to start off with a bang, so continue adding content if you want to see traffic increasing.

You have to please your target market, so naturally your content should be centered around what your target market wants to read. Do your research and find the topics that your prospective customers want to read about.

Steer clear of Flash, unless you know exactly what you are doing; the design of your site is typically not as important as the content. People would much rather pay attention to the type of articles you have posted on your site than images that move around the screen. Having said that, good design should not to be neglected, because you can have the best content on your website, but if the layout and overall look of your site is not appealing then the content won’t look appealing either. A great website will have the balance of both; excellent content and a creative design.

Contact Details

When setting up a website you’re going to need an email address so that your visitors can contact you. Registering your own domain name means you can use the name for email too. It is important that you use a company or business email in order to portray a professional image. These are just guidelines to get you started, but they are not set rules. It’s not about following rules; it’s about playing around with the web and finding a formula that works for you. Once your website is off the ground all you’ll need is content and the World Wide Web’s your oyster.

Author: Roger Theron is a copywriter for AlterSage, a company offering online marketing services for increasing traffic to your website.

Generating Real Estate Leads Through the Internet

11 2007 Thursday

By Reg Gustin in Featured

Generating real estate leads through the Internet is an excellent tool for expanding your business, eliminating geographical barriers and increasing sales.

But how do we create leads from cyber space? After all, the information highway is infinite with no boundaries. How can a small business owner, you the real estate agent, create qualified traffic?

Imagine your web site is a small store on a busy street and you are surrounded by large corporate department stores. Outside your store window are pedestrians, bicyclists and automobiles passing by. This is traffic. And, in this traffic are people interested in your product. These are prospects. Of these prospects, some will come in the store and make inquiries. These are contacts. Some of these contacts will start to shop. These are leads. Some of these shoppers will make a purchase. These are clients.

Your web site is no different. The keys to successful Internet marketing are the THREE C’s:

Create - create traffic
Capture- capture prospects, thus creating contacts
Cultivate - cultivate contacts into leads, then into clients

Create - the first step in generating real estate leads through your web site is to CREATE traffic. Creating traffic for your web site is done using three primary approaches:

Search Engine Site Rankings - the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.) rank your web site based on a number of factors including age, popularity, content, link-ins, etc., and list your site accordingly in the directory. This can be a long process, as a couple of major contributing factors are age and traffic. Thus, if you have a new site or a rarely used site, your ranking remains low, and because your ranking remains low, your traffic remains low. Because your traffic remains low, your ranking remains low, and so on. You can see the cycle.

Keywords Pay-Per-Clicks - you, the web site owner, bid on keywords with the search engines, and the search engines list your site in the Sponsored Links section of the directory. This can be an efficient way to drive traffic to your site, but it does come with a cost.

Owner Driven Traffic - you, the web site owner, drive traffic to your web site via electronic articles, emails, signs, print media etc. This can be very costly, as it is difficult to generate enough traffic to capture leads.

So how do you Create enough traffic to generate quality prospects? Well it’s not as difficult as it seems. First create a quality keyword driven web site, and then use all three methods until your site is ranked high enough to maintain an adequate stream of prospects through the search engine directories.

Capture - the second step in generating leads through your web site is to CAPTURE the traffic. Capturing traffic for your web site is done using tools such as guest books or registration forms with bait. Capture the user’s information; do not give away free information. Example: a user is searching the Internet for the MESA MLS. Now, the user has found our site, so do not give the information away for free. Searching the MLS is our bait, and a registration form is our capture tool. More often than not, an agent will allow the user to use the MLS without registering, and the rationalization is that users do not want to provide the info or the info is faulty. No problem, this is the first filter. We are trying to find out who is serious and who isn’t. Utilize the registration form as a filter. If you don’t, they won’t be back… what do you have to lose?

Cultivate - the final step in generating prospects through your web site is to Cultivate the leads. Cultivate leads with DRIP CAMPAIGNS. A Drip Campaign is a series of content driven messages sent over time. Preferably this system is automated:

In our example: the keyword was Mesa MLS, and a user found our site and signed up on our registration form. Now what? Implement “The Drip Campaign” - an automated series of messages delivering content that differentiates you the agent. Cultivate the prospect and convert them into a lead, then into a sale.

A great drip campaign is the MLS search provided by ARMLS. On your registration form, request information relating to their home search, then set up an automated search on the MLS that sends them listings.

Be careful, don’t send the user into information overload, and only send a couple of listings at a time.

Many real estate agents have decided to concentrate their efforts on cultivation. Therefore, a quality lead generating company may be an effective way of advertising.

Author: To find out more about generating real estate leads through the internet, go to http://www.pro-onlineagent.com.

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