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SMX Sydney: Writing Killer Ad Copy

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Live blogging of Writing Killer Ad Copy session by Lucas Ng of Fairfax Digital at SMX Sydney 2009.

Lucas starts by saying think about how you write. It doesn’t just apply to ad copy.

Google’s Guidelines for Writing Ad Copy

1) Use the keywords in your ads. Use of keywords give your ads 50% more clicks

Lucas then presented a case study showing an ad using a keyword and an ad without and the conversion rate difference.

2) Use prices and promotions

This sets a pricepoint for your users and lets them know what to expect.

3) Use a strong call to action e.g. get more information / buy now / subscribe today

That’s not all there is. Capitalize the first letter of each word in your ad, this apparently works. [I was really surprised to hear this.  I'd have thought AdWords editorial guidelines wouldn't allow that and even if they did, I don't think it's the most effective strategy].

Understand Your Audience

Who else is influencing the searcher? e.g. does the wife have the final say in the purchasing decision? Write the ad for the purchaser, not necessarily the searcher. Think about age, gender, geolocation.

For example, the day that Steve Irwin died, people were searching for:

1) Crocodile Hunter’s Deadly Dive

2) Crocodile Hunter Dead

3) Crocodile Man Killed

4) Steve Irwin dead

Fairfax’s competitor used headline 4), with Steve Irwin in the title, while Fairfax didn’t consider search trends for persons who knew his name and used the more generic headlines. Result was that their competitor became the #1 news site in Australia for the first time in 2 years.

Killer ad copy differentiates in two ways:

1) it uses a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – is it faster? is it cheaper? was it first? etc.

2) it’s highly relevant to your landing page

Great ad copy:

1) appeals directly to the audience

2) uses a USP

3) uses one or more psychological triggers (there are 30 of them!) e.g. a sense of urgency, a desire to collect, a desire to belong (brand association), exclusivity, instant gratification etc. Type *psychological triggers* into Google to see more.

4) filters clicks (qualifies your leads automatically)

5) differentiates

6) is a continual process of testing and refining. Try changing slight things e.g. question mark, capitals, different URL etc.

Test,  refine and test some more. For best results, you must always be testing new ad copy. You’ll need to write new ads and gradually phase out the ones that don’t work. Ad constipation occurs when you just can’t write a new ad. Ask people and get new ideas. Look at your competitors and do the opposite. Steal from your sales team, use Twitter, look at magazine covers for inspiration.

* Photo courtesy of Andrew Ballard of ReBusiness

SMX Sydney: 301 Redirects, Why are They Important?

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Live blogging of 301 Redirects and Domain Canonicalization session by Greg Boser of 3 Dog Media at SMX Sydney 2009.

Greg Boser says he is a Google Tool. This got a big laugh and tweets in stereo from the audience.

The 301 redirect is the greatest SEO tool EVER invented he says. Why? because it’s the only redirect that passes link “juice”. Understanding and properly using the 301 is all about making sure you always get proper credit for your hard work.

When to use 301s?

- domain migration
- canonicalization
- site architecture changes
- type-in, misspelled and marketing domains (to redirect any misspelled or related domains)

Although I’m a big fan of 301 redirects, I hadn’t really given the issue much thought beyond the fact that you should use them when you switch domains to help Googlebot find it’s way home, so Greg’s session was a bit of a wake-up call. Apart from being hard to pronounce, domain canonicalization is the type of issue that seems to strike fear into the most tech-savvy of webmasters. It’s also an issue that splits the industry, destroys friendships and sorts the geeks out from the nerds or something.

Greg recommended that the audience use the www where possible because most people will link to that version of your site rather than the non-www so you might as well take advantage of the default link juice rather than having to find and redirect the bad links. He also couldn’t resist a light-hearted dig at Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) for using the non-www URLs on all his sites. Which I couldn’t resist tweeting immediately to Danny because I’d always wondered the same thing.

Greg says it’s very important to set up your domains carefully. He gave the example of his old company name Guerilla Marketing vs Gorilla Marketing. He found that searchers would often type in the second, more common spelling but he didn’t own that domain. He couldn’t purchase that domain from the owner so he eventually threw in the towel and his company became 3 Dog Media. Greg said he made sure that he bought all potential versions of the domain this time (e.g. ThreeDogMedia.com, 3DogMedia.com etc)

What is a Conditional Redirect?

A conditional redirect is one that takes place only IF one or more pre-determined conditions are met (user agent, IP, referral source, country of origin etc.) When are they used? Conditional redirects are typically used when what is best for users conflicts with what is best for SEO.

Example Situations:

- Marketing domains
- Near duplicate content
- Self-hosted partner content
- Affiliate programs
- Session tracking removal
- Traditional A/B split Testing
- Bad SERP Correction

What about Robots.txt / Noindex?

Noindex/robots exclusion can be used to deal with indexing related issues but it is important to understand that excluded URLs do not pass link juice. So how does Google feel about conditional redirection? They hate it, says Greg, looking pointedly at Greg Grothaus from Google sitting on the podium next to him.

The Canonical Link Element (which Greg calls *RelCan*) helps a lot. From Google’s perspective, it’s much better than conditional redirects because they don’t have to trust you as much. From a Webmaster / SEO perspective, it has promise. It’s certainly easier to use.

What Else Has Google Been Doing Regarding 301s?

They’re a lot smarter about 301s now. Juice transfer via a 301 used to be automatic with no questions asked. Greg says that juice passage is now becoming more conditional. Redirection strategies that don’t create a normal looking footprint aren’t getting the credit they used to.

Some of the best technical examples on how to actually setup 301 redirects can be found in Stephan Spencer’s presentation).

* Photo courtesy of Andrew Ballard of ReBusiness

SMX Sydney: Leveraging Internal Links

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Live blogging of Internal Links session by Jane Copland of Ayima Search Marketing at SMX Sydney 2009.

Why are Internal Links Important?

- Along with on-page content, how a site’s links are structured often determines the rate of the site’s search engine performance

Internal links acheive a number of goals

- allow people to find their way around a site

- allow search engines to find their way around a s ite

- allow PageRank to take hold

Regular forms of internal linking include

- navigational links

- content links

- secondary/ tertiary navigation

- breadcrumbs

- footer links

- site wide links (often navigational links)

- resource links (categories, tags, related resources)

Each of these links is viewed and valued differently by search engines

Different Types of Internal Links

Navigational Links – use a consistent form of navigation througout a site. Links are not only good for humans, they play a viral role in letting search engines crawl deeper within the site. These should be created with HTML. Drop-downs from navigational links provide search engines further means to find your content

Distributing PageRank Throughout a Site

PageRank is the metric by which Google determines a page’s importance. Pages accumulate PageRank when other pages link to them. The more good links that point to a page, the more PageRank it accumulates and can pass on. You can use this to *sculpt* the flow of your site’s PageRank.

Footer Links and Site-wide Links

The least effective froms of internal linking are footer links and sitewide links that don’t have a strong navigational element. They provide little benefit to users. They often take a page’s total links to over 100 (a Google no no). Footer links have been abused for spam purposes. Also avoid the Wikipedia model of internal linking.

Resources, Tag Clouds and Categories

- These are often automatically generated by CMS

- They tend to be exponentially increase in volume and link to relatively useless pages

- They often take a page’s link count to well over 100

- Use tag clouds and category links sparingly, including those with the most content. Remove or no-follow the rest

Internal linking is the process of passing PageRank throughout a website. Pages with no-index meta tags can both accumulate and distribute PageRank. Only certain types of links pass PageRank. Links created with JavaScript do not. Links that include a no-follow tag do not either.

For the purpose of passing PageRank, the best type of link is a regular HTML link that is not an image. Because HTML links are the best/only way for a search engine to navigate a site and distribute PageRank, websites should not use JavaScript or Flash for linking.

Sculpting PageRank with Internal Links

Unless you carefully structure a site’s links, you have no control over how its’ PageRank is distributed. Page Rank is NOT evenly distributed across all of a page’s links. The best way to prevent PageRank from being passed is by using the no-follow link attribute.

The Dangers of Using No Follow

Using NoFollow to prevent pages being passed PageRank is not without drawbacks. People go overboard to flow PageRank. When choosing to no-follow a link on a prominent page, consider which pages the linked-to page links to. It is possible to prevent search engines from accessing entire sections of a site by being over ambitious with no-follow PageRank sculpting. A no-followed link will be treated as though it doesn’t exist. There is no danger in using nofollow from a trust perspective.

If a site’s CMS routinely creates duplicate pages, accessible via multiple URLs, the owner can:

- redirect

- use the canonical meta tag

- use noindex on or robots.txt exclusion of the duplicate pages

OR use no-follow on all links to that page

We’re not sure if pages LOSE PR when they link to external resources, but they do GIVE PR to external resources instead of to internal pages so consider this when linking out.

Linking to Home Page

Linking from within a site to its home page is tricky. Try not to link back to the home page using a primary keyword over and over again. A home page will rank well naturally so it doesn’t need internal link sculpting. That said, internal linking is a great way to cut down on the keyword cannibalisation problem. Link back to your primary resource with keywords in your anchor text. This will help Google determine the *master* page on the subject within your site. For example, your blue widgets, red widgets and green widgets pages should all link back to your main widgets page. Google will then see that page as the master of your keyword theme.

Absolute versus Relative links

Use absolute where possible. If you’re using relative URLs, use the BASE href tag.

SEs generally view subdomains as relatively separate entities so blog.site.com and site.com are seen as separate but related. Jane recommends using sub-folders instead where it makes sense to do so.

Best Practices for Linking

- include less than 100 links per page
- don’t send internal links through redirects of any sort
- where possible, avoid pagination
- don’t use complex tracking codes on internal links
- use the # symbol for tracking code because Google ignores content following the hash symbol

Article Distribution vs. Guest Blogging: Is There a Difference?

By Karon Thackston in Featured

To many people, the idea of guest blogging is fresh and new and very “Web 2.0.” Personally, I find the discussion to be a rather déjà vu-like experience. In fact, one participant on my blog responded to a post about articles by asking how I would contrast guest blogging with article marketing. He wanted to know how I chose between placing my articles on directories and writing an exclusive blog post. The short answer is: I don’t.

Remembering the Good Old Days of Article Marketing

Circa 1990, the first article directories began to pop up online with the invention of ezines (email magazines). Many publishers of these soon-to-be-popular email newsletters quickly got tired of writing all the content themselves. Others decided to offer compilations of recent articles published by others about a particular topic.

The article directories provided a wonderful new outlet for gathering quality content in exchange for a simple bio at the end with a link back to the author’s site. Articles were written to provide quality information to readers in the hope that they would favor the author with a click.

A few of the many benefits of article marketing were (and still are):

> > Increasing traffic to your website > > Positioning before a highly targeted audience > > Branding yourself as an expert > > SEO > > Online networking and exposure before new groups of people > > Free advertising > > Infinite archiving of your material > > Almost instant propagation throughout the Internet

With changes in link popularity, it soon became common knowledge that using keyword-rich anchor text carried more weight with engines than simple http: links. As is typical with so many Internet-based marketing methods, the article marketing landscape began to be overtaken by spammers.

A Twisted Sense of Article Marketing

A push for quantity quickly took over the article marketing arena and left quality articles in their wake. The invention of article writing software that illegally harvests snippets of text from existing online content and the invention of article blaster software gave speed to those looking to distribute what are now referred to as “junk articles.”

While this may have caused a decrease in the quality of links coming from article directories, the other marketing benefits remain to this day. Quality articles that get picked up from directories and republished on website pages, in ezines and on blogs still enjoy the benefits article marketing has always offered.

Enter Guest Blogging

The advent of blogging and other social media outlets gave new opportunities for professionals to share their expertise with others. Companies as well as individuals found many advantages to publishing blogs including:

• Increasing traffic to your website
• Positioning before a highly targeted audience
• Branding yourself as an expert
• SEO
• Online networking and exposure before new groups of people
• Free advertising
• Infinite archiving of your material
• Almost instant propagation throughout the Internet

(Hmm… sounds familiar. Where have I heard this before?)

When we look back at blogging after two or three more years, will it have followed a path similar to article distribution? Will the evil, greedy powers that be attempt to stamp out the benefits of guest blogging in the near future? It’s very possible. We’re seeing it to some extent already. Trackbacks and ping backs are being manipulated by spammers as we speak.

Search Engine Optimization Issues

The same dark SEO clouds that hang over article marketing can be seen drifting towards blogs. Concerns about duplicate content can be voiced with regard to blog replication as well as articles. Entire blogs are duplicated on scraper sites every single day within seconds of the original posts being made public.

Should you be concerned? I’m not.

Truth is, article marketing is not devoid of search engine benefits as some claim. While the link quality of article directories themselves may have been degraded over time, they only account for one source of links. That’s because the article directories were just a jumping off point. They should never have been viewed as the final destination of articles. The goal has always been to have your article picked up from directories and reprinted on authority sites or blogs. That’s where your linking benefits come in.

Even if I get no SEO benefits from article marketing or guest blogging, I’d still do both on a regular basis. It’s not an either/or choice for me: it’s good marketing. Since long before the Internet was ever thought of, professionals would strive to gain exposure by having their articles published in print magazines. This type of marketing has proven to be successful for decades, online and off, and it’s still a valid marketing method today.

Karon Thackston – Want to make the most of your article marketing campaign? Learn effective techniques to boost link popularity. Get more info today at http://www.searchenginecollege.com/article-marketing-distribution-course.shtml

How To Analyze Website Traffic

By Nelson Tan in Featured

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don’t understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let’s start by examining the most basic data-the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your website’s activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as “hits” and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your home page has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice an exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it’s time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor-meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase-the more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed-or should I say misdirected-to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor’s needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Nelson Tan is the webmaster behind Internet Mastery Center. Download $347 worth of FREE Internet Marketing gifts at http://www.internetmasterycenter.com

Protect Your Financial Future With An Online Business

By Bill Platt in Featured

The world around us is concerned about the future. With Obama in the White House and record government spending during this economic recession, many of our neighbors are sweating what the future holds in store for them.

I worried about it for a bit, and then I realized that those of us who live our business lives on the Internet will not see the same depths of recession that our brick-and-mortar counterparts will experience.

Twitter Tips – Twitter Tools

By Shannon Herod in Featured

There are many Twitter tools available today, but there are two that I simply cannot live without. If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, it is basically a social networking tool that allows you to converse with hundreds if not thousands of people at a time in 140 characters or less.

Twitter allows you to quickly build relationships that could easily be worth thousands of dollars or more. Plus, you cannot put a price tag on a great friendship! Also, twitter is a great platform to drive traffic and also sales. But, of course the main objective behind twitter is building relationships and friendships.

Now, let’s get to the two twitter tools that I cannot live without. The first is TweetDeck and the second is TweetLater. In the following paragraphs I will explain exactly why I like these tools so much.

TweetDeck is a tool that allows you to manage your twitter account with ease. TweetDeck will allow you to see all of your tweets, replies, and direct messages within one platform. They are easily read because they are lined up in different columns. They are separated and that makes it super easy to follow.

Plus, it runs right on your desktop. So, you can easily bounce back and forth between the work you are doing and responding and replying to tweets. Now, I’m not suggesting to waste a bunch of time on twitter. That is not the best use of your time. But, when you want to spend a little bit of time building relationships this is a great way to do it and still get work done.

Next, is TweetLater. TweetLater allows you to automate some of the essential tasks when it comes to using your twitter account. The two features I like the most is being able to follow the people that follow me automatically, and also being able to send out an automatic welcome message. Not spam message. Welcome message.

So, those are the two Twitter tools that I absolutely love and could not live without. Twitter is a great platform and an unbelievable tool to build great relationships. That is what it is all about. It is amazing how great it can be to have a bunch of friends and partners out there in cyberspace. You need to remember that these are real people out there. It makes it so great being able to jump on twitter and have a conversation with fellow human beings.

Author: Shannon Herod – Okay, so here’s what you need to do next… if you are not using twitter you need to start using it right now. If you are using twitter and you are not profiting from the platform you need to learn how. So, what I have done is put together an extensive Twitter special report. This special report will show you exactly the tips, tricks and strategies I have used to build great relationships and even pull in a massive $147 in a single day using twitter. So, if you are interested in building relationships, driving traffic and grabbing sales using twitter you cannot miss out on this report. Go grab the Twitter special report now and start getting a mass of followers, building great relationships and making a little money while you’re at it.

Google Strikes Again! Why Your Links Are Now Worthless

By Margo Little in Featured

It is no secret that Google shifted from content based ranking to link based several years ago. The way most people discovered this was by seeing their pages disappear from top ten placements overnight. Unfortunately that same lesson is being re-taught today as Google shifts from an “all link” model of determining popularity to one of “inbound only.”

It should not come as a big surprise. It’s been happening slowly for the past year or so but is now in overdrive. Pages that have dominated top spots for years are suddenly disappearing without a trace and linking is the key. In short, reciprocal links no longer count as they once did. Google expects to see one way inbound links in its top ranked sites. The reason apparently being that worthy sites can attract links without having to reciprocate.

Talk about a popularity contest! It reminds me of junior high school on Valentines Day where the most popular students would be buried in cards while sending out only a few of their own. Google even refers to inbound links as a form of “votes.”

So how does Google judge the value of inbound links? Let’s just say a nod from the prom king or queen is a lot more desirable than one from the kid who had to escort his first cousin to the last school dance due to lack of options. But even still, every vote counts even if just a little.

I agree that it is sad and unfair that quality of content counts for so little but Google, perhaps naively, believes the links (or votes) will go to the most deserving sites naturally. I can’t change Google’s mind, but I can help you crack Google’s link value code. Just follow these simple steps.

First: Know your link targets. You want pages whose topics relate to your topic and with the highest PR possible.

Note: PR refers to Google PageRank which is a value assigned to the page on a scale of 1 to 10. Pages begin at 0 and earn PR points for various reasons. There are plenty of ones and twos but anything above three gets scarcer and more valuable. You can easily find a page’s PageRank by using the Google Toolbar available at http://toolbar.google.com.

Second: Forget about just linking to the home page. Google now prefers deep links so make the majority of your links go to pages at least one level deep below the home page. And be sure that page is named after its main keyword, such as “main-keyword.htm” or “main-keyword.htm.”

Third: Make sure the pages you are linking to, link back to your home page by using their main keyword as anchor text.

Note: Anchor text is simply a clickable text link. It is usually a different color; such as blue and underlined to show it is a link. You want your main keyword to be a clickable link leading from the topic page to the home page.

Fourth: Be sure the inbound links you build consist of your main keywords embedded in anchor text.

Recap: So if “online business services” was the main keyword the words “online business services” would be embedded as anchor text leading to a page called “online-business-services.htm” and that page would in turn link to the home page using “online business services” as its anchor text link.

Fifth: Google scans not only the area immediately surrounding the anchor text but also the whole page of text around it. It will be looking for consistency of topic throughout the page so be sure your link is coming from a page closely related to the topic of the keyword you are targeting.

Note: This last part is crucial because if you can control what is on the page you get links from, you can rocket to the top of Google. This can be done through blog postings, article publishing and even simple directory submission. If you are in a hurry, try a pre-packaged solution that removes the guesswork. I use a combo training and automated software system called “Link A Minute” (http://www.linkaminute.com) that does the trick for me. There are good ones out there so hunt around and find one you like. Just do not try any link farms if you value any future placement on Google.

Follow these tips and you can steal a top spot on Google in no time.

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Margo Little is a successful SEO marketing consultant who got her start in 1997. Today SEOSoftwareSurvey.com benefits from her knowledge. From finding a killer suite to a simple keyword tool, she can help.

5 Ways to Use Testimonials in Your Marketing

By Katrina Sawa in Featured

This is an obvious message for some of you but is it for all of you? Are there areas you’re missing in your marketing where you could be utilizing testimonials in order to give you, your business and your products and services more credibility?

Using testimonials in your marketing in various ways is a F.R.E.E. way to compel people to buy from you so you really want to maximize your efforts.

First of course you have to HAVE testimonials to show. If you don’t have any then ASK your customers for them. If they drag their heels in getting them to you on their own then offer to write them for them if you have to and let them review and approve them. If you have customers that are business owners, offer to showcase their testimonial with their picture and website link on your website or in your ezine and they’ll get added exposure for their business just for helping you out.

Build Your Email List Using Social Media: 8 Surefire Ways

By Christine Gallagher in Featured

When you are doing business online, it is important to build a list of targeted subscribers to market your products or services to. You want a responsive list and your job is to provide consistent value to them. Whether you have a blog or a website, you should definitely have an opt-in form to capture a visitor’s name and email address in a prominent location.

Two big components of effective marketing are reach and frequency. Reach refers to the number of people you reach with your message; while frequency refers to the number of times each person is reached on average. Frequency builds trust and drives your particular message home.

More people than ever are using social media tools so more of your target market is reachable there today than even just a few short months ago. Take advantage of these top ways to add subscribers when using social media sites so that you can begin communicating regularly with more potential clients and customers.

1) Create an effective profile. What do I mean by effective? Use a real photo of yourself and your real name. Include your location and a good bio–complete, up-to-date and with all contact information.

2) Offer events. A great way to add targeted subscribers is to hold an event such as a teleclass. Invite your followers and friends and direct them to a sign-up page specifically for the event. Let them know that in addition to signing up for whatever the event is, they will also receive a complimentary subscription to your e-zine or other valuable information.

3) Join a Ning network or create your own. Ning is a platform which allows people to create their own social networks online. Anyone can create a network for free around a specific interest. This is a great tool for getting in front of your niche or target market.

4) Sync your newsletter broadcasts with Twitter. If you use an email list service such as AWeber, you have the option to automatically tweet a link to your newsletter when the broadcast is sent out. Just choose Syndicate and Twitter Update.

5) Place an opt-in box on your Facebook profile. This is something I explain how to do in detail in my free e-course. The Profile HTML application in Facebook allows you to add your opt-in box for collecting names and emails very easily. This way you can capture new subscribers right from your profile.

6) Use social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking is a way for internet users to search, organize and store bookmarks of web pages. Have a way for readers to submit posts they enjoy to bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.) right from your blog. This is a nice way to drive traffic to your site when others come across your bookmarked site.

7) Feed your blog posts to sites automatically. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have tools that will post your latest blog posts on their sites as soon as they are published. This keeps you consistently on others radars.

Be helpful and participate often. The best advice I can give for spending time on social sites is to give, give, give. You do not have to spend exorbitant amounts of time there, but when you do use them, offer suggestions, advice and tips. Create conversation as well as join it. People will get to know you this way and want to seek out more information about you.

Take action on several of these tips as soon as you can. It has never been simpler and more fun to build your list online than it is now!

About the Author:

Christine Gallagher, MLS, MSIS, founder of CommunicateValue.com, teaches solopreneurs and small business how to boost their business and their profits by using online marketing and social media tools to communicate effectively and authentically. For F.R.E.E. tips on how to build profitable relationships, leverage technology and create your own successful online business, visit http://CommunicateValue.com

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