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By Leo Emery in Featured

The biggest challenge every single website owner has (including me) is getting traffic to his/her web site. And bar none the best traffic you can obtain is Organic Search Engine traffic.

So what is Organic Search Engine traffic?

Simply put, when someone is searching for a product or service they type their query into the search engine (google, yahoo, MSN etc.) and then the results of that search are displayed. And you want your web site to come up in that search query.

You probably already know that the majority of people will not go past the first page of the search engine results and even less people will go past the top 30 results. Therefore, your challenge is getting your website listed on the first page of the search engines for the keywords relating to your site.

Now there are a ton of people that will tell you there is some mystical voodoo secret mojo to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). And if you’re not familiar with the term SEO. Simply put SEO is where you build your web site in such a way that the search engines like it and the result is getting better rankings on the search engines.

Well I’m here to tell you that it is not as mystical as everyone would lead you to believe. Just like anything, advertising, google ad words, article marketing it takes constant work to achieve the results you want and in this case, that would be to maintain a top search engine ranking.

I will admit there are many things you can do optimize your web site but I am going to touch on the basics. I have been doing this for some time now. I was taught from some of the best people in the business, so I am passing onto you what was taught to me.

What I am going to share with you is for google. Since it’s the big guy on the block that’s whom I optimize my sites for. There is a lot of info I want to share with you so I have broken this article into 2 parts.

First, just as important as learning What To Do. Is learning What Not To Do.

These are known as black hat techniques. Just stay away from them, if your caught your website will be penalized or even worse banned completely from google. Then you have to start all over and that’s just not worth it.

If you want even more information of the Do’s and Don’ts by Google, just type into Google:

Google Webmaster Guidelines

Ok here are the no, no’s of SEO.

1) Door Way Pages. A doorway page has been designed just for the search engines and not for human beings and is redirected to the goal page. The goal page is the page you ultimately want people to see. So what the webmaster does is makes minor changes to the page and resubmits it to the search engine over and over again.

So when someone finds that page he/she is redirected to the real page and this is usually done with a fast meta refresh command. Google no longer accepts pages using fast Meta refresh. Google see’s these page(s) as duplicates and exclude them from their listings.

Don’t confuse a doorway page with a landing page. Landing pages are ok as they provide a lot of information, have relevant links pointing to them and can be seen by both humans and the search engine spiders.

2) Hidden Text And Links. As the term suggests keywords and keyword phrases are hidden on the page. Usually this is done by having the text the same color as the page color.

Not only Google but the other search engines have the ability to recognize that white text is being displayed on a white background or black text on a black background and so on.

If you want to see if your webmaster has used hidden text, start by looking for large blank areas at the top, bottom or sides of your web page. Now simple scroll your cursor over the area any hidden text will appear. Or you can look at the source code.

You can also hide Hidden Text in your “ALT” tag. The “ALT” tag text will appear when you place your cursor over the image. It will also display the text if your image does not display.

If a few words or even a sentence appears that’s ok. If an entire paragraph appears or a lot of words that don’t read as a sentence appear, that’s bad. Your web master has tried to stuff too many keywords inside the image’s ALT tag. Get rid of them.

It is best to use 4 or 5 words or a sentence of 4 or 5 words long in your “ALT” tag.

3) Cloaking. This is where the content presented to the search engine spider is different to what is presented to the browser (you). By doing this a page that other wise would not be displayed is displayed.

So what happens is the information being delivered is based on the content on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of the user requesting the page. When a user is identified as a search engine spider, a server-side script delivers a different version of the web page, one that contains content not present on the visible page.

4) Link Farms. I’m sure you’ve heard of the term link farm. All a link farm is, is a system where all the members are linked to each other via a common set of link pages. The result is that all members have a links page with the other members’ web addresses on them.

Many of these link programs have several hundred or even thousands of members, so by joining you have almost instant access to hundreds of other web sites that point links to your site. This can lead to your site looking very “popular”.

The big problem with this is that you are artificially boosting the popularity of your site. You see when a spider from a search engine (Google) comes to your site it checks out your links. If it sees you have a lot of inbound links you can achieve a higher ranking because the more inbound links you have the better. However, it also checks out the quality and relativity of those links to your site.

So if you have a site about “dog training” and most of your links have nothing to do with dog training you will not receive a better ranking. In fact anyone using this type of linking will be penalized. Either your site will get dropped down in the search engines listing or you will be banned all together.

5) Duplicate Content. The search engines only want to index original content. They don’t want to index the same content 1000 times. If duplicate content/site is detected only one will be indexed. The rest will end up as supplemental context and won’t even rank.

6) Keyword Stuffing. Yes you need to have your keywords on your site and in your meta tags, but there is a delicate balance. Sure, you want to rank for a specific keyword and the more times you use it on the page, the more likely you’ll rank for it. Just don’t go crazy.

I have about 25 keywords in my meta tags and all of these keywords are used in the content of my site. But they are used only when the content calls for it.

Keep your writing natural and use the keywords as you feel suitable. Using them too many times will make your site look spammy, which doesn’t sit well with either your human visitors or the spiders that crawl your site. Might not get you banned but you certainly won’t get a favorable ranking either.

Here’s an update many search engines Google for one, do not use Meta Tags as part of their ranking system any more. However, some still do so that’s why I mentioned it.

7) Duplicate Sites. This is when you clone your site under a bunch of different domain names with the same content and then you have the pages linked together so the can get a better ranking and get the top spots for your keywords. This is a really bad idea, and sure way to get banned. Short and sweet, never do this.

About the Author: Leo Emery has been earning a full time living online for over 5 years and is a member of one of the most respected Money Making Coaching Clubs on the Internet. If you’re eager to discover how simple it is to earn a six figure income online visit Net Wise Wealth.com

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

webmastersEven though theme density is not a well known term in search engine optimization, many will come to know this as SEO evolves. The root of this SEO model is based on semantic relationships, co-occurrence of synonyms, polynyms and thematic modifiers. The end result, multiple top 5 and top 10 rankings for broad match and exact match keywords and key phrases (which all add up over time).

This strategy is based on the premise of using multiple pages within a website to concentrate a particular ranking factor and then transfer that ranking factor to a singular or multiple target pages. Wikipedia is known best for this tactic, so, questioning the effectiveness of the method would be a moot point. Each keyword represents a virtual theme for Wikipedia, with its own H1, sub folder in a sub domain and a high concentration of internal and external links.

By Branko Rakic in Featured

How to create great headlines and titles to turn your prospects into buying customers using hypnotic words that will empower them to purchase your product or service, join your ezine.

First of all, you must learn how to get your prospects to trust you. This is true on every field. We trust those that are more like ourselves or one that we have been conditioned to believe.

“How many of you do not trust car salesman? This is because you have been repeatedly told over and over again, how they can not be trusted. Not every car salesman is going to give you a bad deal, just as every young man with long hair and holes in their jeans are not criminals.”

All of us resist people we do not trust, even though it starts in our subconscious mind. So, you must learn how to get your prospects to trust you with an unconscious connection.

This can be done by perceiving others behavior and mimicking or mirroring it so to speak. To rich this we must use “embedded commands”.

What are embedded commands? This is a term from NLP that stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP is founded on then idea that the language and behavior of a person is extremely ordered. These behaviors and language can be either functional or dysfunctional. This order or structure can be organized into a mimicking form.

This means that others can copy the language or behavior of another to produce the same results in order to improve there late comings. This in essence means that the way in which we act or feel is based on how we perceive the world instead of the real world.

An embedded command is a technique used in NLP, which will plant a thought in the mind of another person just beneath that person’s conscious awareness. Embedded commands utilize the use of commanding tone to be effective. The command generally formulates words into a question, with the tone however being in the form of a command.

The reason people use embed commands is to get their listener to do you wish them to do in a non-intrusive or demanding manner.

Example

Look at this sentence:

“You should buy this software.”

Now look at the same sentence only written a little differently. “You know, that some people find they really want to purchase this software.”

What happened in the second sentence is that you let the person know that other people want to purchase this software and like most people they believe in their own minds they are better than most people or at least want to know as much as everyone else put there.

You can also use the same sentence and use other hypnotic phrases such as:

I don’t know if you knew it, but some people find they really want to purchase this software.

And I’d like to have you discover… that some people find they really want to purchase this software.

Headlines that Control the Mind

You will need to learn how to write headlines that will control the mind of your prospects. Yes, this is possible.

Three elements you must have in your headline to control the mind include:

Engagement: The easiest way to engage thought is by asking an open-ended question.

Curiosity: Mother nature has endowed each of us to be curious creatures, appeal to a person’s curiosity and you can hypnotize almost everyone.

Short and Sweet: In general, most people want to know at glance what the letter is all about. Use a headline that is short. You can always use a longer headline as a secondary headline or sub headline. The first short headline should lead into the longer headline, which can be more hypnotic than the first one. You need to create cravings if you want prospects.

In reality, people do not purchase products; they purchase altered states of emotion. You must convince your prospects that the products will give them something they desire or crave.

You must have a product that is in area of human desire. Remember everyone wants to look and feel younger, thinner, have more energy, and of course have more stamina.

Let us see some examples of good headlines.

For Health fitness products:

Eat Right, Stay Fit, Feel Young, Gain Energy, Enjoy Less Pain

Headlines for relationships:

Attract the opposite sex, Find True Love, Improve Communication with your kids, Be noticed by your Boss, Be admired by coworkers

Headlines for finance and employment:
Be successful, Gain more knowledge, Scale the ladder of success, Get the promotion you deserve, Fire your boss

These examples are here to show you how to create your own effective headlines. Your headlines must convince your prospects that they really need you product or service. People usually buy what they want, not what they need.

About The Author:

Branko Rakic:
Millions Through Mind Control http://masscontrol.tosobiz.com/
Web Traffic Pro:
Free internet marketing videos and lessons.http://www.web-traffic-pro.com/

By Kevin Kielty in Featured

Eventually every small-business owner realizes that they will need a website for their business, but figuring out where to start can be a challenge. Just understanding the technical lingo and all the options can be confusing, but with the right preparation you can have an impressive and easy to maintain website for your small business in no time.

Check The Competition

The first place to start on your website project is to look at some competitor websites in your industry. You will want to know what your potential customers will comparing you to. You will also want to find out what the standard is for your industry in terms of the number of pages, the type of information and the general look and feel. If for example, your competitors have large sites and many interactive features then you will want your site be comparable, but if your competitors have small simple sites, then you know that you won’t need lots of bells and whistles.

Prepare Your Information

Before you meet with your web designer, gather some examples of competitor websites that you like. List what it is that you like and dislike about those sites. If you have any pamphlets or brochures for your business, have those ready for your designer as well. Choose some colors or have an idea of some color schemes that you like and if you have won any professional awards or have any important professional affiliations, put that information together because you will probably want to feature that on your website.

Do You Need A Content Management System?

One important decision that you need to make about your website is whether or not you are going to need a content management system. Content management systems are typically used on larger sites, to control text, video, pictures etc. A content management system allows you to easily change and update the information on your site. This is useful for a website on which, for example staff photos and bios are added often or a newsletter archive is maintained.

If you anticipate making many changes on your website, a content management system can save you time and money. With a content management system, the owner of the site can make the changes as needed, without having to wait for a web designer or webmaster to make the changes for them. This can be a very important feature because it allows you to keep your website current at all times so you’re making the best possible presentation to your customer. It can save you money because you will not have to pay your web designer to make the updates for you.

Typically, a website that is more than 15 pages would be a good candidate for a content management system. The more information you have on your website the greater the chances are that you are going to need to keep that information updated. If your website is less than 15 pages, you probably will not need a content management system.

WordPress As A Content Management System For Small Business

WordPress is popular as a content management system for small businesses for several reasons. One it is that it is relatively easy to use. You do not need to be versed in HTML or any other programming language to handle WordPress. There are also many training videos and materials available on the Internet and also a number of plug-ins so that you can customize the software for your needs. WordPress is also useful for blogging which can help to keep your website information up to date. If you would like to show up higher in the search results, then WordPress is a good choice for that as well. Google has stated that WordPress is one of the easiest systems to crawl so it can help you come up higher in the search engine results.

When you begin planning for your small business web site, start by checking competitor websites in your industry. This will give you an idea of approximately how many pages you will need as well as what type of features you will want on your site. Your goal will be to have your website look as good as, or better than your competitor’s.

By planning ahead and knowing what your potential customers will be comparing you with, deciding how large you want your site to be, and what type of features you will need, you will be equipped to get the best possible website for your small business.

About The Author:

Kevin Kielty writes for Internet Marketing Advantage in Raleigh. Web design is his area of expertise. Internet Marketing Advantage specializes in Raleigh website design at: http://www.raleighseocompany.net/

By Scott Buresh in Featured

se-optimization“I want to be number one on Google for (insert hyper-competitive keyphrase here).”

It’s usually the first thing we hear in terms of search engine optimization – a company wants to be in that coveted top spot on Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN. No matter the industry or specialty, when companies approach us with their desired goals for an SEO campaign, it’s usually all about improving their rankings and positions…and often nothing else. Yes, achieving first page rankings or top spots on the search engines is an incredibly desirable accomplishment to many companies who want immediate and noticeable results. But with such a considerable investment in an SEO campaign, you’d think companies in need of search engine optimization services would also be concerned with their overall ROI, especially in light of the current economy.

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

The following is a live blogging post of the session by Greg Grothaus, Senior Software Engineer for Google on Unraveling URLs and Demystifying Domains.

Greg says he is a geek who has been a software engineer at Google for 4 years. He works closely with Matt Cutts and his crack anti-spam taskforce.

Greg starts his presentation by breaking down the anatomy of an URL:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps/mm?q=sydney#SMX

Google.com.au: is the Domain

maps.google.com.au:  is the Host

/maps/mm: is the Path

q=sydney: is the Query

#SMX: is the Fragment

Google doesn’t index fragments.

Google’s Guidelines for Site Structure:

General tips:

1) Use a tree-like organization

2) Use similar topics in the same part of the tree

3 ) Sub-domains vs sub-directories? Don’t fret but often directories are easier

4) Multiple domains :

- won’t get tabbed over UI

- more results from google.com

- harder to build reputation

- still can be the best option

5) Link everthing together in an organized way

Google’s Guidelines for URLs

Keep URLs:

- organized

- sharable beteween users (each item reference-able among friends)

- Linked within several hops (no orphan pages)

- Largely unique content per URL (avoid serving different languages on same URLs)

Duplicate Content

Some URLs are all different but others are seen as the same by Google. So how to fix duplicate content issues?

Canonical means reduced to the simplest and most significant for, possible without loss of generality. Therefore:

- pick one canonical URL for each page and ensure you link consistently within your site

- make all the non-canonical urls throw a permanent 301

- on Google’s Webmaster Tools, specify www vs. non-www in the console

Google’s Guidelines for Proper use of Response Codes

Use 301s for permanent redirects. That signals to a search engine to transfer properties.

Aypical duplicate content issue is the Printer Friendly version of your page. Another dupe content issue is the navigation paths when shown in the URL of dynamic sites that offer several ways to reach the same page i.e. tents/bags/red/tent_bag.html vs bags/tents/red/tent_bag.html

New Option for Duplicate Content

Use the Canonical Link Element added at page level e.g.

http://www.example.com.au/page.html?sid=asdf314159 becomes

<head>

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://example.com.au/page.html”>

</head>

For more information, search Google for “specify your canonical” to find canonical tag to use.

Use this only on the same domain. It works across sub-domains and hosts. You can use it instead of a 301 to resolve canonical issues. But it should only be used for pages that are identical or very similar.

Absolute vs Relative URLs

Google suggests that you use absolute URLs when structuring your site. Better for Googlebot, plus, they leave less room for error. Google CAN follow a chain of canonicals but don’t count on it. Point directly to the final URL.

Make your Site Accessible Without Forms

- most often, search engine crawlers don’t complete pull-down menus within forms

- very rarely can search engines follow JavaScript links

- don’t count on Flash content being indexed the way you want

Rich Media with HTML Content and Navigation

- use image tags

- use text descriptions

- Consider slFR for Flash

- Google can index Flash directly but it’s not perfect, therefore consider using slFR

- JavaScript detects if Flash is installed and Google has trouble indexing JavaScript

For more information, do a Google search for “best uses in Flash” for more info on slFR

Eliminate Soft 404s

- 404s confuse users

- 404s can cause duplicate content for search engines and crawlers may not discovere new pages

- tell Google what pages are real and which aren’t so they don’t strike soft 404s. Use Google Webmaster Tools to find and eliminate 404s.

Submit a General Web Sitemap

Sitemaps can influence Google’s understanding of your site.

Declare your sitemap URL in robots.txt You can also upload several specific XML sitemaps for your rich media e.g. news, video etc

Indexing Stats Include Sitemap Submissions

Your sitemap statistics in Google Webmaster Tools can give you all sorts of information about your site’s health and the status of your sitemaps and how they are being indexed by Google.

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Live blogging SEO session by Aidan Beanland from Yahoo7 at SMX Sydney 2009.

Design and SEO are NOT mutually exclusive, Aidan says. Nobody likes ugly pages, but will people find your pretty ones?  To ensure this, you should:

1) Specify SEO requirements before design plans. Use:

- unique page titles / URLs

- H1, H2 headings

- reasonable amount of body copy

- spiderable links

2) Treat Flash like images, wrap text around it or create a HTML only version*

3) Use image alt attributes and keywords in file paths*

4) Apply CSS image replacement to replicate text embedded in an image*

5) Use CSS layers to position text

* no cloaking or hidden text. That’s naughty.

Would you drive a car built purely for aesthetics?

Next Aidan showed search engine unfriendly design examples, including:

http://www.johncoltrane.com

http://www.playgroundweekender.com.au

These sites have no text at all on the page, only Flash content. Therefore these sites won’t rank well in Google.

SEO vs Technonlogy

1) AJAX and other client-side processes CAN affect SEO, so:

- weigh cost vs benefit

- check default page load state on AJAX pages

- use as enhancement, not for core content/links

- view pages with a text-only browser

2) Use technology to:

- rewrite URLs

- link to relatd pages

- enable “progressive enhancement”

SEO vs Accessibility

An accessible site is good for:

- disabled users

- low bandwith users

- mobile browsing

- old hardware/software

- legal compliance

- search engines!

W3C Web Accessibility Tips:

- images and animations

- multimedia

- hypertext links

- page organization

- graphs and charts

- scripts applets and plugins

- if using frames, use the no-frames element

- make table content sensible

These are all SEO tips too – it’s no coincidence.

SEO vs Cost effectiveness

- almost always delivers highest ROI of any online marketing channel

- first 80% of SEO benefits come from 20% effort

- medium upfront investment, low ongoing cost

- you’re already: writing content and adding images, getting links, doding pages, so do it right the first time

- consider the cost of : NOT optimizing (handing users to your competitors)

- equivalent PPC traffic

- Optimizing your site AFTER it’s launched

- offline advertising

Become a web analytics expert to prove your value

Final advice:  “The most important single ingredient in the forumla of success is knowing how to get along with people” (Theodore Roosevelt).  In other words, communication is key.

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Live blogging SEO session by Bruce Clay of Bruce Clay Inc. at SMX Sydney 2009.

Bruce started by posing a quick question to the audience about their SEO budgets. Most attendees at this session have a USD 4,000 or less budget for SEO this year. [That's shocking!]

There are things you can consistently do that will help you perform well in the search engines, says Bruce. The basics are the same as always but redefined. The data points are moving constantly.  Bruce sees a lot more competition every week for SEO. Google has changed their algorithm 450 times in a year [I noticed that this nugget prompted mass tweets including one from me]. Google Universal Search has changed everything, Bruce says.

Bruce showed the Search Engine Relationship Chart from around 2003 and then today’s version of the same chart. It showed interdependencies between engines and paid results. The chart is now a LOT simpler. Bruce made the point that the chart has been excellent link bait for his company over the years.

SEO has evolved. Before Google, links weren’t important, now they’re a vital part of the algorithm. If Google finds link spam, it automatically downplays the links. This is the type of thing that can’t be reverse engineered. The spam filter is highly intelligent. Bruce is a big believer in knowledge transfer.

SEO knowledge is paramount. Bruce says web forums are the biggest source of misinformation on the web [another mass Tweetathon follows this comment]. The TV show HOUSE is SEO, he says. Patient is dying at the start of the show, the staff experiment until they are healed. That’s SEO says Bruce.

Key factors of SEO:

1) On-Page Factors – tags (title description, keyword, headings, body copy) along with a clear subject matter focus.

2) Expertness – inbound links, outbound links, inernal links. Focus on controlling PageRank movement.

3) Copywriting- this is structural content (sentences versus bulleted lists), Kincaid levels (complexity), clarification words.

4) Engagement Objects – video, MP3, images, maps, books, news, blogs, etc. Everything in Google universal results except on your pages

5) Architecture / Siloing – you need to theme laign your content and internal link structures by the search query used. If your alignment matches, then your’e seen as more of an expert for that query. Take the content on your web site and rework it to adapt to the way people search. That’s siloing.

6) Spidering – a slow server discourages spiders, crawlable sitemap and XML files. You can have 500 XML site maps and daisy chain them but you also need HTML spider friendly sitemaps for crawling purposes.

Google has been spidering pages for Universal Search for some time, so add video, add images and name them to make them indexable. If Google has 200 variables in the algorithm and has tweaked it since Universal Search, that’s an important connection. Alter your SEO tactics accordingly.

Expertness via PageRank

PageRank is a representation of your site’s reputation on the internet. It does NOT guarantee rankings.

(1-d) + d (PRe/Le + … + PRi/Li +…)

Google Toolbar

Scale goes from 0 to 10

Means very little = bad idea to depend on

Lower PageRank pages may have more value to you if they have fewer outbound links on them. YOU can control the PageRank of your site using internal linking strategy, provided you understand how PageRank works.

PageRank

Points accumulated for your site determines your PR on a 0-10 scale

Points are by theme and even by anchor text.

If the top number (points allocated to higher ranking sites) changes, your toolbar PageRank will change. And it means nothing.

Competitive in Algorithm

If you have 500 points but 180 points are for links pointing to your using your target keyword, your true point value is 180 points and the rest are meaningless. Your competitor might have 360 points in total but 200 points for keyword links, therefore, they’re point value is higher and more meaningful. They have better PageRank. Therefore you want fewer sites with a higher PageRank to link to you rather than many sites with a lower PageRank. The goal is that the quality of links matter, NOT the number of links.

If you wish to rank well for search queries related to academic research, you need to build using architecture suited to that (e.g. search results are biased depending on search query). Research type queries generally result in a different set of SERPs than say people typing in shopping-related terms. Use this information to lead your site architecture and design decisions.

The overall themes of your site will also impact your position in the SERPs, based on clustering technology.

Behavior and Intent Results

When you conduct a search on Google you’ll often see different results at different times. This is because search results are now biased based on your search history. See “more results” for a better understanding. So for example, coffee drinkers and programmers would be shown different results for the search query “java”. They are also looking at the intent of the query and the geographical location (IP) of the searcher. So rankings are no longer an accurate representation of your SEO performance.

Useful Tools:

GsiteCrawler for creating sitemaps

SEODigger is a tool to research competitor’s SEO terms

Compete.com is a site overview tool

iSpionage is a tool to research competitor’s PPC terms

PixelSilk is a SEO friendly Content Management System (CMS)

Enquisite provide search analytics

Altruik provide repetitive instrumentation for automated SEO tactics

SEOToolSet is Bruce Clay’s own set of SEO tools developed in-house

By Trey Pennewell in Featured

Coop Advertising Enables Advertisers To Get More Promotion With Fewer Dollars

Co-op advertising has been around for as long as there has been print advertising, and it continues strong even in today’s digital world of television and online advertising. Read this article to learn more about cooperative advertising and how you can use it to accelerate the growth of your offline or online business.

Examples Of Modern Coop Advertising

Co-op advertising is a standard advertising practice utilized by manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers or distributors to get their products highlighted in regional and local advertising.

Probably the most common form of Coop Advertising that you will be personally familiar is with amusement park advertising. Nearly every amusement park across the country does a lot of coop advertising campaigns with the soft drink companies or snack food companies.

If you think about the local amusement park in your part of the country, you will realize that the amusement park in your area frequently suggests that you can save $5 on the ticket price of the park – IF you bring in a Coca-Cola or Pepsi can.

The soft drink companies enjoy the endorsement of their products by the amusement park companies and the amusement companies get extra special pricing on product purchases. But more importantly, since the advertising specifically mentions both the amusement park and the soft drink product, the soft drink company will help offset the cost of the advertising campaign by jointly paying for the advertising with the amusement park company.

Grocery Store ads are another great example of co-op advertising at work. Whenever you open the grocery store ad in your local newspaper and see specific name-brand products featured in the ad, chances are very good that the manufacturer paid part of the cost of the newspaper advertisement or insert to have its product featured in the ad by name.

Extend Your Advertising Reach

As a small business owner, one of the most important keys to success will be the advertising put forward to promote your business. But when looking at the real cost of some advertising, it might seem that your business does not have enough money available to bring the advertisements to life.

But, if you take the time and make the effort to discover the scope of available coop advertising, you will soon realize that you can frequently get up to half of your advertising bill paid by third-party companies.

Honestly – manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers and distributors set aside billions of dollars every year to help promote their products through coop advertising programs. In fact, depending on the coop advertiser, funds are available for television, radio, print, and online advertising, up to and including display listings in phone directories.

Think about your local tire store. Often times, the tire store will highlight a specific “brand” of tires in its advertising, such as Firestone, Michelin or another brand. The tire company benefits handsomely in brand recognition and overall sales of their product line, when the local tire shops highlight its brand over another in its local advertising.

If you want to explore the multitude of available opportunities in coop advertising, we recommend “The Co-op Advertising Programs Sourcebook ™”, which is the definitive source of (4,000+) companies that have co-op advertising programs available. At $619, the cost is a bit on the high side, but a single advertising co-op deal could easily compensate you for the cost of this book, which can be found at: http://www.co-opsourcebook.com

How Co-op Advertising Works

As with any type of advertising, there are always advantages and disadvantages in using it.

The advantages of coop advertising include:

  • You can use the coop money to either reduce the cost of your advertising or to extend the amount of advertising you can employ for the promotion of your business.
  • You can use the coop money to improve the quality or design of your advertising – for example, full-color ads or inserts in your local newspaper.
  • You can extend your reach and advertise in mediums that you may never have considered previously, such as telephone directories or television ads.

The disadvantages of coop advertising include:

  • Often, the co-op advertiser will have certain restrictions that must be met in order for you to qualify for the co-op money. For example, you might have to restrict your advertisement to their product only, or you might have to use their creative copy in your display advertising.
  • You may find time restrictions in relation to the advertising window in which the co-op advertiser might be willing to pay. For example, the coop advertiser may only support ads in the Sunday newspaper, but not mid-week advertising.
  • Often, you will need to pay for the advertising in advance and be reimbursed by the co-op advertiser for their portion of the advertising cost at a later date. Many advertising co-op programs require that you send them a copy of the print advertising for verification, before they will issue a check for their portion of your advertising bill.

Even with the disadvantages associated with co-op advertising, the disadvantages are usually so small as to make them non-consequential in your decision to use co-op advertising. After all, if the other guy is paying up to half of your advertising bill, then the other guy’s restrictions seem a small price to pay to have him help you advertise your business.

Online Co-op Advertising

Offline businesses have been slow to adopt many online advertising methods, simply because it is more difficult for them to measure the direct impact of their advertising dollars.

One could speculate that perhaps I should be able to get some co-op advertising dollars for having written this article, since I mentioned Firestone and Michelin tires, and Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola by name. But the truth is that co-op advertising has not been available on scale in the article marketing industry until just recently.

With the recent launch of http://www.SponsorArticles.com a system that provides a method to join advertisers in co-op article marketing has been made possible.

The system put forward by Sponsor Articles is unique in that it permits article writers to submit articles for free, and then it permits Sponsors to bid for the right to sponsor the cost of article distribution through several article distribution companies, in exchange for shared advertising within the articles’ resource box.

To put this in perspective, a small business owner who writes articles for the promotion of his or her website will submit articles to the system, knowing full well that a sponsor can add a link to the resource box, in exchange for paying the costs associated with the mass distribution of the article.

As with any co-op advertising system, costs are shared between two advertisers. In the case of the Sponsor Articles system, the small business owner will cover the time or cost investment of creating an article to promote his or her small business. And then the Article Sponsor will cover the costs of distributing the article through a number of article distribution services.

Both parties will benefit from the expanded reach of the article, with links in the resource box that point to their respective websites.

In Conclusion

Co-op advertising is alive and well for Main Street businesses, and there are programs available online that brings the power of co-op advertising to the online marketing environment as well.

For those who participate in co-op advertising, the process offers a powerful win for both parties. Both parties are able to double their advertising exposure with the same amount of advertising budget.

If you have never participated in a co-op advertising campaign before, you at least owe it to your business to explore the possibility. Some of the most successful businesses on the planet have a co-op advertising budget in place, and that available money could help accelerate the growth of your business as well.

Author’s Note: This article originally published here: http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/coop-advertising/2009/03/31/

About The Author:

Trey Pennewell has been involved in the SEO and article marketing industries since 2005. You can learn more about pay for performance SEO at http://www.linksandtraffic.com/ or article marketing at http://www.thephantomwriters.com/

By Tracey Lawton in Featured

As a solopreneur being able to follow-up with your clients and potential clients is crucial in growing and sustaining your business, and keeping a steady flow of new clients coming on board. However the downside is the time it takes to follow-up with each and every one of your contacts – after all spending all day following up with clients isn’t a good use of your time; you also need to spend your time on income generating activities and generating cash flow for your business.

So what is a time-starved solopreneur to do in order to maintain follow-up with customers and clients?

Autoresponders are perfect for automating your follow-up and freeing up some of your time. If set up correctly they will follow up with EVERY SINGLE customer who has ever purchased a product from you; or EVERY SINGLE subscriber to your ezine list! Would you be able to undertake that task yourself? The answer is no, you couldn’t, it would be impossible.

This is where you need to get smart and take advantage of technology to automate your follow-up. Create the systems and let them run on autopilot.

What is an autoresponder?

Put simply an autoresponder is a piece of software that will allow you to send email messages to people on your list. Don’t confuse this with spam or unsolicited mail though. These messages are sent to people who have already confirmed that they want to receive email from you; they have either signed up to your ezine list or they have bought a product from you. They have given you permission to email them as they have confirmed their subscription to your list.

The autoresponder is an email that is sent out automatically in response to an action taken by your customer/subscriber, and it can either be just one message or a series of follow-up messages that you set up to go out at certain intervals – you choose what those intervals are.

For example, you could set the first message up so that it goes out immediately someone confirms their subscription to your list, the next message could go out seven days later, and the final one two weeks after that. The beauty of using this system is that you decide how often and what messages are sent out.

The autoresponder doesn’t write the messages for you, you have to do that yourself, but the opportunities using an autoresponder opens are invaluable.

Once you’ve taken the time to set up the autoresponder it all runs on autopilot!

How can you use autoresponders in your day-to-day business?

There are many ways you can use an autoresponder in your day-to-day business, but just to give you a couple of examples:

Ezine Signup. When someone signs up for your ezine you will generally create an autoresponder that immediately gets sent out to them welcoming them to your list – once they’ve confirmed their subscription, of course! Add a second message to go out a few days later, and ask them how they found your free taste, what their biggest challenge is, or if there is a particular topic that they would like to find out more about.

Product Purchase. When someone buys one of your products create an autoresponder and a series of follow-up messages to ask them how they are getting on with your product, are they working through it okay, send them a ‘surprise’ bonus, or ask for a testimonial. Span these messages so that they go out over the course of a few weeks. If you offer a home study system set the final message to check in with them about six/eight weeks after they’ve bought your product to see if they were able to implement the steps, or if there’s anything they need help with.

The secret to autoresponder success

Even though your autoresponder may be going out to several hundred customers (or even thousands), don’t let that deter you from making your messages personal – let your personality come through in your messages, encourage feedback from your recipient, give them a call to action in your messages.

When putting your autoresponder and follow-up messages together write them as though you are writing to just ONE person. Think about the tone you use. Do you keep it informal? Chatty? Light? If you find this task hard pick a contact/client you know really well and imagine you’re writing an email to them. What tone do you use when writing to this person?

Go one better, and actually send your messages to this contact/client and ask for feedback from them. Chances are if they really like the way you’ve written your messages your other customers and clients will too!

I rely on my autoresponders to follow up with my customers, clients, and ezine subscribers – without them I’d find it impossible to follow-up and may end up losing valuable relationships.

I know that many of my relationships with my clients/customers have been established as a result of them replying to one of my autoresponder messages. I would find it impossible to make contact with each and every one of these people personally; the autoresponder does that for me, but then I am able to create a relationship with those customers who do reply to my messages.

Office organization expert, Tracey Lawton, teaches professional speakers, coaches, and authors how to operate an efficient, organized, and profitable business. Learn how to create an efficient and organized office in 7 EASY steps, and receive free how-to articles at http://www.OfficeOrganizationSuccess.com

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