6. The "Tragic Story" Strategy
The "I'm going to tell you a personal, tragic story, that I've been
keeping a secret for awhile now..." strategy tells your prospects that you
are going to reveal something personal and bad about your life that
you've been hiding. People will want to see what kind of personal
problems that you've had and how it relates to your product. It could
be a story about past financial problems, relationship problems, health
problems, etc. People will see even business owners have problems and
see how your product got you through or solved those personal
problems.
7. The "Visual Bonus" Strategy
The "Bonus: you'll get the comic book version..." strategy tells your
prospects that they will have a little entertainment when reading your
information. Your information could be in the form of product
instructions, quick start guides, ebooks, follow along guides for
audio/video products, etc. Entertaining bonus pictures, drawings, photos
and/or graphics can visually attract people to purchase your main
product.
8. The "They Are Watching Me" Strategy
The "I can't reveal everything right now because my competition is
watching..." strategy tells your prospects that you will tell them more
about your new product when it's almost released and you don't want
your competition to copy you. You could also give them other reasons
such as they will try to rip you off and steal your profits, they will create
a cheap generic version that will fail to help them, etc. It shows how
evil your competition is or can be and most people won't want to buy
from those types of businesses.
9. The "First To Know" Strategy
The "Bonus: be on our priority notification list..." strategy tells your
prospects that if they purchase your product you will put them on an
alert list that will tell them about new products that come out that could
help them. Of course, it could be related, non competing products that
you could make commissions on. People like to be the first to know and
benefit from new products.
10. The "Cheat Sheet" Strategy
The "Bonus: get the cheat sheet version..." strategy tells your prospects
if they purchase your product you will show them a better way to gain
the desired benefit. It could be that the cheat sheet will show them how
to use your product to improve their life faster, reach their goals easier,
get over life's obstacles effortlessly, gain benefits while they are
sleeping, to find hidden shortcuts that will save them time and money,
etc.
DIFFERENT IM STRATEGIES PART 2
Different IM strategies Part 1
1. The "Money Offering" Strategy
The "(no.) people have already offered us money to reserve the
product..." strategy tells your prospects that your product must be hot if
people are trying to make sure that you hold their spot before it's
released. You can mention that you told the people they couldn't do
that and they will just have to be present when the product goes live so
it's fair for everyone.
2. The "URL Privilege" Strategy
The "don't share this link with anyone..." strategy tells your prospects
that they should be privileged to be on your list/web site because only
they know about the special URL. It could be that the web site has a
free product just for them, a discount to a particular product, a sign up
form to your affiliate program, etc. You can make the link sound extra
special by telling them it's against your terms of service if they share it
with anyone or make the sign/click on/agree to a nondisclosure contact
before they get to see the web site.
3. The "Electric Discount" Strategy
The "I'll take the amount off the physical version..." strategy tells your
prospect that you will be releasing a physical version of your product
that is related to the electronic version they already bought. You are
also saying that you will take the price they paid for the electric version
off the price of your upcoming physical product. So, non buyers of the
electric version will have to pay a higher price for the physical version
and they won't.
4. The "Future Warning" Strategy
The "this may be my only chance to warn you before..." strategy tells
your prospects that they may not face the future without reading your
advertisement. When you warn people about something it's usually bad
so people take notice. You could warn them about your competition's
product, about an upcoming price increase to one of your products, an
event in the world or your industry that could affect them from gaining
their desired benefit, etc.
5. The "Controversial Ending" Strategy
The "this will help end the controversy in your life..." strategy tells your
prospects that your product will relive the tension and frustration they
are personal having or with someone else in their life. People want to
heal mental and/or physical battles with themselves or
arguements/disagreements/bad relationships that they are having with
others. Usually people's controversy is related to a product benefit that
they aren't getting. You just need to show them how your product can
help end their specific controversy
TRAFFIC METHODS PART 20
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is when someone comes across a website and then bookmarks it
for future reference. In the world that we live in, people don’t just want to keep what
they like from others. In fact, the sooner a website is added as a bookmark, the better
it is because that means a lot more visitors will come to your website.
Digg and StumbleUpon are social bookmarking sites, but differences abound in both
of them. Digg is mainly for the general audience, who want o know about various
things. StumbleUpon helps to define niches so that a whirlpool of targeted traffic can
visit your Internet offering.
The world that we live in is the world of Web 2.0. People have got all the options
needed to find out about products on the Internet before they decide to purchase it.
This is where social bookmarking comes in handy. If people genuinely like a product,
they will surely recommend it to others.
TRAFFIC METHODS PART 19
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon (http://www.stumbleupon.com/) is one more in the league of social
bookmarking sites that intrepid Internet marketers cannot afford to ignore. This is a
site where you can make people stumble upon your blog, regardless of whether they
are consciously looking forward to it or not.
The way to begin with StumbleUpon is to first have a blog that is rich in content and
information. It is great if the blog is set within a particular niche. Once the blog is
ready, StumbleUpon is used on it. This is in the form of a toolbar that you download
and install from their website.
Once the StumbleUpon toolbar has been installed on the blog, people will begin
rating your blog on it. The higher the rating it gets, the better are your chances of
getting noticed on the Internet.
StumbleUpon is very close in outlook to Digg, but while Digg is broader in nature,
catering to all sectors of society, StumbleUpon is mainly used by niche marketers.
TRAFFIC METHODS PART 18
Digg
Digg (http://www.digg.com/) is a social networking website with a difference. The
main hero here is the content, which are routine articles. Digg is a site where people
can find things that they like and then recommend them to other people. These
people generally promote things that they think their friends or contacts would like.
If you think about it, Digg can be exploited to the hilt if you have great content that
you are sure people will be talking about.
There is an internal ranking system on Digg. The higher the number of times your
content is dugg, the greater is its popularity and the better are the chances that it will
make the front page of Digg. The system is to put up your content and then wait for
24 hours to see how many votes it gets. This is the decider for it to be displayed on
the main page or not.
The amount of popularity that Digg can bring about for your website is astounding.
Getting a jump of about 10,000 to 15,000 visitors is quite natural, but there are
people who have got as many as 200,000 extra visitors through Digg.
The content that you put up on Digg is in the form of an article. The article should be
something that people like to read about. Some of the best things that you can put up
on Digg include:-
→ Breaking News
→ How-to Guides
→ Informative Lists
→ Stories
→ Facts and Figures
…and such.
You could write anything as long as it is relevant to your industry and
you are sure that people will like to read about it.
Once they do, you are in the reckoning. People will digg what you have written, which
will make it popular to others and you will gain better visibility.
TRAFFIC METHODS PART 17
Craigslist
Craigslist (http://www.craigslist.com/) is a highly reputed classified ads site which is
a formidable marketing tool because it can bring in a huge volume of traffic. Today,
Craigslist is widely known as the most popular advertising website known to humans.
It is a city specific classifieds search, but it has a huge approach – at current
standing, Craigslist ads are specific to more than 450 cities and new cities are
constantly added. There are about 7 billion page views on Craigslist every month and
about 20 million people visit the sites advertised on Craigslist every month. All this
makes it very easy to see why Craigslist is one the most favored marketing tools.
When you make a Craigslist ad, most of the same rules apply as they do for other ad
websites. You have to make sure that the headline is catchy, you have good meta tags
defined, words are few and to the point, etc. With Craigslist you can build a back link
to your main website and you can use a Do Follow tag. When you link the ad to your
main website, you have to provide an anchor text. The anchor text is selected after
careful consideration and is very much relevant to the ad website.
Google Analytics (http://analytics.google.com/) is an important tool that you can use
in conjunction with Craigslist. It helps you know where your traffic is coming from.
Once you know which your traffic hotspots are, you could exclude the ads that are
not bringing in a good amount of traffic and focus on those that do.
Posting ads on Craigslist does not just help in making your website visible on the
Internet; it also helps in improving its SEO. That is because as more people begin to
click on your ad, your popularity on the Internet increases.
Craigslist is one of the best things that a marketer can do; you must surely not miss
out on this one.
TRAFFIC METHODS PART 16
USFreeAds
A lot of Internet marketers speak very favorably about USFreeAds
(http://www.usfreeads.com/) and not without reason. This is a classified ads site
that marketers use to drive traffic to their website. The site is used for promoting
almost any kind of product. You create an HTML code for your ad and post it on the
site from where it gets promoted. This is where the site brings the visitors from.
You will need to become a member on USFreeAds; it is not a free service. In order to
become a member, there are three different methods. There is a gold membership
that costs $10 a year and a premium membership that costs that amount a month.
The third method is a free membership but that is very restrictive in the way you can
generate traffic through it.
The ad is no different from other ads that you create around the Internet. Even here
you make a headline and tag the ad so that the search engines find and rank it. There
is also a content part in the ad where you put the main body of the ad.
One of the reasons why USFreeAds is great for generating traffic is that the ads that
are created on this never expire. Also, the website is held in high esteem by Google,
often shooting the ads to number one position in a short time.
Traffic Methods Part 15
Squidoo
Though Squidoo marketing is a very new concept over the Internet, people have
warmed to it pretty quickly, because of the various benefits that it has. The novelty
factor is one of the prime benefits because not many marketers are using Squidoo yet
and hence competition through this method is low. There’s also the point that
Squidoo has got an amazing rank on Google already. If you have a Squidoo page, or a
Squidoo lens as they call it, the chances of it getting ranked well are high.
Squidoo (http://www.squidoo.com/) is basically a website where you can put your
own content and promote your product or service. The page you create is called as a
Squidoo lens. You post content here, with your website link and then wait for the
people to come to you.
Why does Squidoo work? For many reasons actually, but one of the reasons is that it
relies on content more than anything else. Various other methods have become
popular for traffic generation and then have fizzled out, but the novelty with Squidoo
is that it goes back to the past when content marketing was king. It still is, and that is
amply shown by the popularity of Squidoo in bringing traffic.
Of course, the general content rules apply. Write great informative content and
consolidate it by using great keywords.
TRAFFIC METHODS PART 14
Yahoo! Answers
Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/) is a place where people ask questions
and other people answer them. In return they get points. The points that they get can
be used for asking more questions; they have no real world value. However, this is an
amazing way to get your queries answered, because you are mostly asking experts to
help you out with things that you don’t know.
This is also a great place for marketers because they can flaunt their knowledge. If
someone asks a question pertaining to your line of business, you can answer them
and improve your credibility. You also get business exposure, which is the most
important thing, because you can post your business link in the answer you provide.
If you have a Yahoo! account already, you can use the same for your Yahoo! Answers
campaign. You have to merely search for questions (which you can do with
keywords) and then post your replies on them.
Make sure that your replies sound like an expert’s view on the subject. This is a great
way of convincing people about your expertise; don’t let it pass by.
Traffic Methods Part 13
Giving Away
Give, and you shall receive. Now, where have we heard this before?
Whether this adage works in all aspects of life or not is a matter of personal opinion,
but on the Internet it always works. When you give something away, it helps in
bringing in better prospects to your online business.
But, what can you give away? It is highly important that your giveaway is something
or value. It should be something that a receiver would cherish, because this is what
adds to your credibility as a service provider.
You might be having a question in your mind right now – how does a giveaway help
in bringing traffic or business to your website?
This happens through lead capture methods. When you give something away, you
put a link where people can download the product from. This link takes them
through a lead capture page, also known as a squeeze page. Here they are asked to
opt in with their email id so that they can get more such freebies in future.
Assurances are made to the effect that their email id won’t be sold over to anyone
else and that spam won’t be sent to them. People usually give their links because they
know they will be getting something valuable for free. When you get these leads, you
can market them through other ways such as email marketing.
So, what are the things that you can give away? Even giveaways undergo surges and
ebbs in their popularity on the Internet. Currently, the best things to give away
include the following:-
→ eBooks
→ Newsletter Subscriptions
→ Free Offers on Products from Partner Sites
→ Informative Listings
Traffic Methods Part 12
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is not just an Internet-based concept; it applies to the real world
also. Fundamentally, viral marketing happens when someone who has used a
product speaks about it favorably to another person. If you watch a movie and
recommend it to your friend, you are virally marketing the movie. On the Internet, if
you post a favorable comment about a product or a service, you are virally marketing
it. In fact, on the Internet even if you criticize a product, you are virally marketing it.
There’s a reason behind that. Whatever your comment is, positive or negative, it does
one thing – it increases the recall value of the product. People begin to identify the
brand better. The product becomes more searchable over the Internet. Hence, viral
marketing always works.
All social networking sites are avenues for virally marketing products. Your blogs are
places where your product gets virally marketed. This also happens on forums and
video and photo sharing sites. Your articles are tools of viral marketing too. So, you
see that viral marketing is not an isolated method. It is, in fact, an umbrella term for
the various marketing practices you employ.
Viral marketing works because it tells potential buyers about the product so that they
begin thinking seriously about buying the product. It improves the recall value of a
product and makes it more visible. On the Internet, a product that is visible is a hit.
Traffic Methods Part 11
Podcasting
Despite the fact that podcasting has been around for some time now, not many
marketers are using it yet. Due to that reason, there is still the newness factor
associated with it, which works to your advantage actually. This is still a new age
technology which can bring a lot of targeted traffic to your door if you would let them
in. Here is a brief look into how podcasting works.
Basically, podcasting is like having a radio channel of your own on the Internet. You
do not have to bow down to any rules and regulations because none apply. You
simply have your audio content which you are beaming to a lot of people on the
Internet. These people are your audience. They have, in fact, asked to be marketed.
They want to know about your products. When you podcast to them, there is a very
high chance that these people will convert to being your visitors.
So why are these people hot traffic for you? The reason behind that is that podcasting
works only for people who have subscribed to your RSS feeds. When you put up an
audio segment, those audio files automatically get downloaded to the audio devices
of the people who have subscribed to the feeds.
You need special software to create a podcast. This software is simply known as
podcasting software or a podcasting mixer. Basically it is a tool that converts an
audio file into a file into a digital file that can be downloaded over the Internet. The
following is a list of two of the most popular podcasting software:-
Feed for All (http://www.feedforall.com/)
Podcast Studio (http://thepodcaststudio.com/)
Using podcasting sets you apart from the usual breed of Internet marketers. This is
certainly a method that you need to seriously consider to improve your prospects.
Traffic Methods Part 10
Video Sharing
Video sharing has becomes a much formidable method of traffic generation
especially after the unbelievable popularity of YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/).
Today, there are several other wannabes that are in the YouTube mould, but for a
marketer, video sharing has become synonymous with YouTube marketing.
The concept is simple again. You make an interesting video about some interesting
aspect about your product and then post it on YouTube. With its millions of viewers
per month, you can be sure that your video will be watched several times. If your
video is good, you can draw visitors from your video to your website directly.
YouTube is built for marketers. It has a unique feature in which you can insert a
website link into the video itself and make it clickable. Since the viewer doesn’t have
to undergo the hassle of seeing and typing the email address, you can be assured to
getting more visitors. Also, you can improve the prospects of your video through
content. YouTube allows meta tag descriptions, which means great SEO and also has
content such as headlines which again you can spruce up for SEO. You must also
note that YouTube is a Google subsidiary and hence it uses the amazing Google
search engine.
Another thing that you must note is that YouTube is also a social networking site.
You can make your account there and comment on videos and stuff. This means
people get to talking about your video and the product shown therein. This leads to
another awesome aspect of traffic generation, known as viral marketing.
Traffic Methods Part 9
Social Networking Sites
Social networking has become immensely popular in today’s times. Everyone from
freckle-faced teenagers to octogenarians is using these sites and, in fact, they are
spending a lot of time on them. As a marketer, you just cannot avoid the potential of
these websites in making your site highly-trafficked.
One reason why social networking works as a method of traffic generation is that you
can find people with various interests here, and most of them make their interests
known through their profiles. Many social networking websites are searchable
through meta tags, which are nothing but specialized keywords. Hence, if you have a
business of selling a gardening product, you could easily put ‘gardening’ in the search
bar of a social networking site and very soon a list of all the people who have listed
gardening as a hobby in their public profiles will show up. Then you can send a bulk
email to all these people speaking about your product and can even give them your
business link to visit.
Do you realize what is happening here? You are marketing directly to people who are
interested in gardening, which increases your traffic conversion rate manifold.
The best thing about social networking is that you don’t have to go anywhere to build
your list. You have it right there on the site. However, this also brings in competition.
But, if your product does spell good quality and people are impressed by the content
you provide them, you will stand out eventually.
Social marketing is a fast – almost instantaneous – method of getting traffic. People
usually constantly monitor their social networking profiles. As soon as they get the
email verification from you, they will want to visit the site and check out. This is your
‘make or break’ moment. You have to make sure your emails are right.
The following are three of the most popular social networking sites that Internet
marketers use. Do you have profiles on them already?
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/)
MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/)
Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/)
This is not the end. There are various niches here such as video sharing sites, photo
sharing sites and several others like that which belong to a special niche of services.
We will speak about them later in this eBook.
Traffic Methods Part 8
Email Marketing
Email marketing is based on lead generation. Leads are people who have done some
activity on your website or on an affiliate website – such as downloading an eBook or
adding themselves to an opt-in list or subscribing to a newsletter, etc. – and have
given their email id in the process. The email id is called as the lead. The collection of
all these people is known as the list.
The actual process of email marketing involves sending informative content through
email to these people on your list. The emails have to be content-rich, providing them
something of value and very subtly nudging them to perform some further action,
such as visit your website for an offer or a free gift. Though the eventual intention is
selling the product, it is not done blatantly in email marketing.
Email marketing brings in a lesser flow of traffic than other methods generate.
Despite that, marketers use this method prominently. The main reason for that lies
in the fact that the low traffic brought by this method is all targeted traffic. The
people who have opted in to become part of your list are people who are interested in
your list. It is very easy to get them to convert. This is the method they refer to when
they say – “Get the customers to come to you; don’t go to them yourself.”
But, the success of this method lies in your email. You have to take care that you
provide something of immense value that these people can use. These can be:-
→ Some latest news about the industry
→ An easier way to do ordinary things related to the niche
→ A set of tips, pointers or guidelines
→ A short but effective how-to guide
→ Directions for getting freebies and discounted offers within the niche
→ Success stories of other people
→ Motivational material
… and so on.
People are looking for such information on the Internet anyway. When
you send this directly to them in their inbox, your credibility increases. Not only do
you get traffic, but you also get repeated traffic and conversions.
Traffic Methods Part 7
Link Exchange Programs
Link exchange programs are just what their names indicate. Website owners promote
each other’s links on their sites. These are similar to traffic exchange programs in
that many people come together to promote each other’s businesses. But the
difference lies in the way this promotion is done. In traffic exchange programs, the
link promotion is done on a separate website directory. However, in link exchange
programs, the promotion is done on the websites of the participants themselves.
Link exchange is done through text as well as banners. The people who want to
promote their sites make their links available in the form of HTML codes or banners.
These are then picked up by other webmasters and promoted on their own sites.
The main intention is, of course, to get as much visibility as possible. When more
people begin clicking on the ads, the SEO of the link automatically increases and still
more people come in. Like many other SEO methods, implementing a suitable link
exchange program helps you to get more eyeballs on your website.
But there is a distaff side of link exchange that you have to think of. You need to
promote your website link only on websites that are equal to or greater in popularity
than yours. Submitting to a low ranking website will do nothing to your PageRank.
Similarly, you should not accept sites that are very low in status than yours. This will
adversely affect your own PageRank.
You can get free websites for link submission as well. For this you will need to contact
the website owner directly. Use a service such as WhoIS to know who the owner of a
particular website is and their email contact so that you can communicate with them
directly. You can find details about any webmaster of any website using WhoIS which
you can obtain from http://ping.eu.
Link exchange is a very good method of bringing in traffic to your website; however,
if you are looking for targeted traffic – i.e. traffic that will be really interested in
buying your products – you will need to look harder and use some other methods in
conjunction with this.
Traffic Methods Part 6
Directory Submission
Directory submission is another SEO method that holds a promise of good traffic. It
is very similar to the previously mentioned traffic exchange programs and in fact
most marketers consider them to be exactly the same. But there are differences here
in which marketers can submit their websites. The website links are not randomly
accepted by the directories, but they have to fulfill certain qualifications, which might
be following a particular niche. The websites are ranked by the directory on the basis
of the value that they can provide to a potential visitor.
The rest of the concept is the same. As more and more people visit these links, the
website begins ranking better. We say that the website gets better search engine
optimized. Hence, this is a method that you should not avoid for generating traffic.
The task that takes the highest amount of time here is the submission itself. Though
there are automatic submission services available, most marketers still use the
manual submission route because that spells quality. Freelancers are employed most
times for getting these submissions done so that the marketers can focus on their
other more important tasks.
There are two main types of directory submission services provided. One of these is
specific to the kinds of keywords that are used. Keyword optimization becomes
important so that the website link gets accepted by the directory. The other method is
a normal directory submission. Here back links are provided so that the websites can
be visited. Both kinds of directories are very popular with Internet marketers.
The following are some directory submission services that you can use:-
Best Web Directories (http://www.best-web-directories.com/)
AboutUs.org (http://www.aboutus.org/)
Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/)
The following are some special niche directories:-
For the business niche – Business.com (http://www.business.com/)
For the biography niche – Biographicon (http://www.biographicon.com/)
Traffic Methods Part 5
Traffic Exchange Programs
Traffic exchange programs are places where you can submit your website link. This is
a membership place. All members will submit their own links. The idea is to get
together and promote each other’s links as though this is a giant affiliate program,
where every website owner is an affiliate of the other.
The direct benefit is that there is a whole army of people promoting your website and
not just you, which means that you get some stupendous publicity. Your website link
jumps up several notches on the search engine ranking and the Alexa rankings
because of the great publicity that this generates. In other words, you get a
breathtaking amount of traffic.
There are free traffic exchange programs where you can submit the link of your
website for free, only in exchange for promoting other website links. However, there
is another mode at work here too. You can click on the links of other websites,
becoming traffic for them, which gives you points. When you get a particular number
of points, you can submit your website link too.
You might ask how this is beneficial to the website submitters since you have clicked
on the links without any intention of buying anything. Actually, it still works, because
you are trafficking the site. This makes the search engine think that the website is
popular and it gives the website a better rank. Your clicks have propelled the website
to a higher position on the search engine results.
The following are some popular traffic exchange sites:-
Traffic G (http://www.trafficg.com/)
Web Traffic Genie (http://www.webtrafficgenie.com/)
Easy Hits 4 U (http://www.easyhits4u.com/)
Click Thru (http://www.clickthru.com/)
Traffic Swarm (http://www.trafficswarm.com/)
Link Referral (http://www.linkreferral.com/)
Traffic Methods Part 4
Article Submissions
Submitting articles for traffic generation is a method that has been around since the
beginning of the concept of Internet marketing and it is still going great guns. The
fact that websites like Google rank content-rich websites better is what consolidates
its position. Article submission is definitely one of the best methods of SEO available
in today’s times.
The concept is simple – you write a keyword rich article and then you submit it on
various article directories. You are given a bio box at the bottom of the article where
you can put in your and your business’ name, with the link of the website that you
want to promote. You can also put in a brief description about yourself in this box.
When a person stumbles upon on your website – the chances of which are high
because you will be keyword optimizing your article – there is a likelihood that they
will like your article and will then click on the link to get more information. This is
how you get your traffic through article marketing.
Marketers use various article directories, most of which are free. The following is a
list of some very good article marketing directories:-
Ezine Articles (http://www.ezinearticles.com/)
iSnare (http://www.isnare.com/)
Go Articles (http://www.goarticles.com/)
Articles Base (http://www.articlesbase.com/)
Article City (http://www.articlecity.com/)
Article Alley (http://www.articlealley.com/)
Buzzle (http://www.buzzle.com/)
By saying good we mean article directories that are ranked well by the search
engines. You can even submit the same article on several of these directories, which
is what many marketers do. However, you must make sure that you keep the same
author name, or it could count as plagiarism. The best way, of course, is to make a
little variation in the articles when submitting to each directory so that it looks
different. You could even do that with software known as content spinning software.
This software can produce variations of an article so that they are not rapped on the
knuckles by search engines for duplication. However, since the quality of spun
articles is not good, you will need to do some manual editing once they are spun.
The following are two popular content spinning software applications that some top
Internet marketers use:-
Content Spinner (http://www.contentspinner.com/)
Content Spooler (http://www.contentspooler.com/)
Traffic Methods Part 3
Blogging and Forum Posting
You surely know what blogs and forums are. Though blogs and forums are different
from each other, there’s one thing that’s common between them. Both of them allow
visitors to post comments on them. That is the reason why they become interactive
tools for the marketers of today.
Many marketers are known to start blogs of their own and make a post about their
industry or even about their own product. They then put the link of their business
website in the post or below it (below is considered more dignified). Visitors read the
post and may probably visit the link mentioned. Thus, blogging is a good method of
traffic generation.
Now, it is not necessary for you to have your own blog to market through them.
(Incidentally if you want to make your own blog, software such as Blogger, available
at http://www.blogger.com/, and Wordpress, available at
http://www.wordpress.com/ can help you.) You could even visit blogs and forums of
other people that are active on the Internet and make your comment on them. Even
these have the same result; you get people coming in through the promoted link.
Forums follow a similar principle, but here you have to follow threads. Check out
Digital Point Forums (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/) to see how the system works.
Here you can initiate a thread. Forums have a better approach than blogs because
here you will find only people who are very serious in the industry. Thus, both blogs
and forums can improve the amount of traffic that your website is getting if you do
them correctly.
Traffic Methods Part 2
SEO
Search engine optimization, abbreviated as SEO, has been a buzzword in the Internet
marketing world for several years now. Basically it means making a website better
searchable by the search engines. Marketers who are looking at optimizing their
websites work with regards to one of three major search engines – Google, Yahoo! Or
MSN – because all these three have different parameters for organizing their links.
Out of this Google is the most popular and most marketers wish that their rank –
called as PageRank in Google parlance – improves. Since Google is a context based
search engine (which means it ranks content-rich websites higher than others),
marketers use the following methods for improving their PageRank on Google:-
→ They research on keywords and use them in their content. Google ranks
websites based on the number of currently popular keywords that it contains.
→ Apart from keyword optimization, the overall content matters too. There must
at least a 250 word content on a webpage for it to be considered by Google.
→ The content needs to be regularly updated too. Google is looking for content
that provides value to the reader. Content that keeps changing is looked upon
as dynamic content that the visitor would like.
Speaking in a broader sense, all methods of traffic generation are SEO methods.
There’s a reason behind this. Search engines like Google keep a watch on the
popularity of websites. According to them, if a website is visited more, it contains
good value. Hence, websites that generate traffic automatically end up with better
stakes on the search engines.
Traffic Methods Part 1
Pay Per Click Services
Pay per click or PPC is a model in which you pay advertisers according to the number
of clicks they can generate for your website. The concept is very simple. You use
Google AdWords (http://adwords.google.com/) or another PPC software and
become a member. Then you submit your URL to them which you want to promote.
The PPC service will then find other website owners on the Internet that are
interested in promoting your website URL. These are your affiliates. They will place
your URL on their sites in the form of an advertisement and whenever any person
clicks on them, you pay them.
There are other methods to pay out; PPC is not the only one. Many services also
provide a Pay Per Sale model (PPS) where you pay out only when a sale has been
done. There is also a Pay Per Lead model (PPL) where you pay out when the visitor
takes some particular action such as providing their email id, which becomes a lead.
If you haven’t tried out PPC yet, you are surely missing the number 1 traffic
generation method which every Internet marketer worth their salt is using. It isn’t
quite difficult to get into this medium of promotion – you must start researching on
it pronto.
The following is a list of some other PPC software applications that you can use
instead of Google AdWords.
Yahoo! Campaign Optimization (http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/)
MSN AdCenter (http://adcenter.microsoft.com/)
Omniture (http://www.omniture.com/)
Apex Reach (http://www.apexreach.com/)
Atlas Search (http://www.atlassolutions.com/services_search.aspx/)
KeywordMax (http://www.keywordmax.com/)
SearchRev (http://www.searchrev.com/)
SearchFeed (http://www.searchfeed.com/)
SearchIgnite (http://about.searchignite.com/)
Montly PLR's
Why Monthly Public Label Right (PLR)?
Most of the time, people are afraid of monthly commitments, that is why they are afraid to join monthly PLR sites.
That is NOT the right way to think!
The advantages of joining a monthly PLR membership site are as follows:
-It can be a lot cheaper compared to buying from other sources because monthly subscriptions are usually a lot cheaper than one time purchases.
-You get consistent content every month!
-You get to monetize the LATEST, hottest, new niches! With new monthly content, you can be sure you will not be using OLD, outdated content.
-You get to create multiple streams of incomes when you really push yourselves to work hard every month.
-Explode Your Monthly Income Through Monthly PLR Sites!
-You get the privileges of exclusivity. Because monthly content are not easily available to the public, you do not compete with tons of other Internet marketers (or niche marketers) that are recycling the SAME, overused content over and over again! The only people you are ‘competing’ against are the people who has membership access and there is usually a membership cap to a PLR membership site.
-You also get to enjoy first mover’s advantage! You will know exactly when the content will be released and you can start loading up the content on your sites as quickly as possible. After all, the early bird get’s the word, right?
Now that we are very clear why PLR memberships are one of the best investments one can make, we will have to choose the right membership site!
Google’s AdSense
Blogging Tips for Freelancer
Blogging is one of the best ways to start a Freelancer business because it is so easy to get going. However, that does not mean that it is easy to make money from your blog. Don’t start a blog and expect to see money rolling in immediately. Blogging is an activity that will take time to build up to a profit level. It’s a good thing to start while you are working on other Freelancer opportunities to let it build to a profitability level. With time and attention, your blog (or blogs) will grow into a business.
When you are blogging for profit, you’ll want to pay close attention to how you present yourself in your blog. There are literally hundreds of thousands of blogs out there, and there may be several hundred blogs that are related to your topic. If your readers can’t understand your blog and have trouble reading it, they’ll just move on to the next one. The following tips can make your blog more user-friendly and help you gain consistent readers.
First, pay close attention to the format of your blog. Readers want to understand how your blog works right from the start. Most blogging platforms have similar formats, with links and tags on the left or right margin, and the most recent post on top. Make sure to use the links wisely. Only put links up for blogs or content that is truly related to your blog’s topic. The point is to give your readers additional information on your topic. Keep the list short and sweet. There is no reason to overwhelm them with links to other sites.
Also, take careful consideration when choosing your blog’s background and font color. Although there are a lot of color choices that blogging programs offer, its best to stick with a light background and dark text. Studies have shown that the human brain can process this type of format better than light text on a dark background. Think about this before you commit to a black background and white text. It might look striking, but readers might not want to stay there for long. Also, use a solid background color instead of trying to use a pattern or design.
Proofread your entries before you post them to your blog. There is nothing that reduces your authority in the eyes of your readers’ more than bad spelling and grammar. The online world is a world of text, so take some time to learn commonly misspelled words and grammatical errors.
Keep your blog fresh and interesting by posting at least once per day. With so much information available on the Internet, your readers may go elsewhere if you aren’t supplying daily content. If you aren’t sure what to write about, try posting a poll, a link to another blog, comment on a news story or post of list of helpful tips. Not every post has to be long and complicated, but you do need to post something everyday.
These tips will help keep your blog readable and interesting to your visitors. The more visitors you get, the more your blog will grow in profitability and importance. Just make sure to present yourself in a professional way and keep your readers coming back for more new content each day. In no time, you’ll have a profitable blog and then you can move on to create two or three.
Become An Ebay Top Seller Part 4
Excellent Customer Service
One of the mainstays of being a top seller on eBay is learning to respond to
your customers in a timely manner.
When you receive an email, answer it promptly. This will help make you a
sale. If you don’t respond, then a buyer may lose interest in your item and
move on to something else.
Learn from your experiences with sales clerks and businesses. If you’re not
responded to, then you’re not happy with your buying experience. Simply
because you don’t have to see your customers face to face or speak to them
on the phone doesn’t mean that you should ignore them. Email your
customers, send them a thank-you email, ask them questions to see how
you could improve their buying experience.
Give your customers excellent service and they will become repeat
customers AND leave you good feedback responses, which will also increase
your overall sales.
Open an eBay Store
If you sell one thing that’s great, but how about selling a LOT of things?
Even better! If you open an eBay store you will enjoy some special perks
given out by eBay that other regular sellers don’t get. You’ll have the option
to add search inventory along with your listings which can lead buyers to
other auctions that you’re holding.
Having an eBay store allows you a central location to sell your items and a
place to send your customers.
EBay stores can net you a tidy sum if handled correctly. EBay makes it easy
for you and will give you tools that include the following:
Extra Marketing features
Allows you to design and customize your eBay store—and gives you
the tools to do it!
Easier listing management tools
Toll-free customer support
Access to a store listing format to make listing your many items easier
Three subscription levels of differing prices, Basic, Premium and
Anchor. Each has different benefits and tools, with the Anchor store
the priciest option.
Buy It Now!
Another great way to become a top eBay seller is to become a seller that is
allowed to offer a fixed-price Buy-it-now price.
This enables you to set a fixed price that you will sell at which a buyer can
then meet and the auction is over! The plus side to this is that you get your
money sooner, rather than waiting for the end of the auction cycle and your
buyers get their items faster.
If you have a lot of merchandise this is a good way to get it moving and if
you have a product that’s in high demand it boosts your chances of making
more sales in a shorter period of time.
Upgrade and Multiple List
If you want to make more sales on eBay, then you have to take advantage
of their multiple listing categories. This puts your merchandise in front of
more buyers, rather than just setting it up under one category.
It’s also a good idea to use eBay’s feature upgrades, like putting your text in
bold, highlighting your words and even putting up extra pictures to catch the
eyes of potential buyers. Again, use the search options to see what
successful sellers are using to attract more customers. This will increase
your chances of getting a sale, and that’s a good thing.
Use a Shorter Auction Cycle and Offer
Guarantees
The last two tips I have for you to become a top eBay seller is to use a
shorter auction cycle and offer money back guarantees.
Using a shorter cycle, three days instead of five, means that you’ll get your
money faster, potentially make more sales and perhaps reach a larger
customer base. Offering a guarantee will ease a potential buyer’s mind about
whether or not they should make the purchase. They know that if the item
isn’t to their liking, they can return it.
Find YOUR Pot of Gold on eBay!
It’s a matter of record that eBay has revolutionized the online buying
experiences. Some say it’s the world’s biggest garage sale—and on some
level that might be true. But eBay has also become synonymous with
selling, buying, making money and much, much more.
If you’ve ever considered becoming a seller on eBay you should spend some
time visiting there and reading up on their rules and then search for things
that you might wish to sell. Start out part time and build up over time as
you learn from the See what other sellers are doing and how successful they
are at what they do. Take advantage of eBay’s tutorials, you can even
purchase DVD’s to help increase your knowledge and therefore your ability
to become a Top Seller on eBay.
As I said before, knowledge is power and power translates into success as a
Top eBay Seller.
Become An Ebay Top Seller Part 3
Say Cheese!
In order to be a successful seller on eBay, you’re going to have to be able to
take excellent pictures of what you’re selling. Try to get into the minds of
your potential buyers and see what they want to see.
A buyer wants to see the item that they’re purchasing, and so would you.
Make certain that your pictures are clean and close up to the items. Blurry is
bad, clear is good. Crystal is better.
Natural or ambient lighting works best to show the piece that you’re going to
sell.
If you’re selling a digital product, make sure you have a picture that depicts
what the item is. There are programs that can create graphics of eBooks or
CD’s that you can then post next to the item you’re selling. If you’re not a
gifted photographer or graphics artist there are photographers you can hire,
or graphic artists that can add a great deal to your ad.
Remember that most people are impressed by clear, crisp visual depictions
and will be more likely to purchase your items if the picture is compelling.
Make Your Written Description Soar
In order to become a great seller on eBay you’ll have to write a description
of what you’re selling. Browse the categories and see what other sellers
have written. You’ll find some that are brief and to the point, some are dry
and boring and then sometimes you’ll come across a very creative
description that stands out from the crowd. Some will even make you laugh.
Perhaps you’ve gotten emails from friends that have been forwarded a
million times about a certain item for auction on eBay. The reason this
particular ad is getting so much attention is because the seller has gotten
creative in wording the ad. Some ads that get all this attention are selling
unique one-of-a-kind items (like a husband) but that doesn’t mean you can’t
jazz up your copy, even if you’re not selling off your significant other.
Make the description of your item compelling. Describe any and all
characteristics, including any defects it may have. A seller has an obligation
to honestly report on the condition of the item they’re putting up for auction.
Try to anticipate the questions a potential buyer may have about your item
and answer them in the description that you’re going to write.
It’s also a good idea to have someone proof what you’ve written. If there
are grammatical or spelling errors in your copy it will appear less than
professional and may put off those who might have been interested in
purchasing your item.
Most of all be creative. Stand out from the crowd and you’ll do better than
you might think.
Don’t Know What to Sell?
EBay gives you ideas on what to sell! Just check out the WANT IT NOW
tab on eBay’s homepage to see what eBay buyers want but can’t find! If
you can fill that niche you’re in for a selling frenzy!
Got Feedback?
One of the things that a potential buyer will look at, besides your item, is
your feedback rating.
A feedback rating is what others have said about you as a buyer and as a
purchaser. You want the best possible rating because this tells buyers that
you are a person that can be trusted to sell and purchase in an honest
manner.
One way to get a fast feedback rating is to purchase penny items from eBay
sellers. There are a great number of low-priced items on eBay, from eBooks
to toys. Even if you don’t particularly need the item, you DO need a good
feedback rating to instill trust in your potential clients.
Make sure you treat your customers right and hopefully they will reciprocate
by leaving you an excellent feedback rating. In this way you’ll be building a
solid reputation in the eBay community and word of mouth (feedback)
means a great deal there.
Naturally you cannot please all the people all the time, but do your best and
soon you’ll have a reputation as someone that can be purchased from with
peace of mind.
So put potential buyer’s minds at ease by keeping your feedback rating high
and you’ll make a lot more sales.
Become An Ebay Top Seller Part 2
Do Your Homework
According to eBay, 90% of top sellers online do some form of market
research before they list their items. Doing a Completed Listing Search will
only give you two week’s worth of data. If you want to go more in depth,
and if you want to become a top seller on eBay, then you’re going to have to
engage in some homework. You remember homework, right? It’s what
helped you get good grades in school. Now it’s going to help you earn a
lucrative income on eBay.
EBay offers a paid service which allows you to do the following:
Access 90 days of Completed Items information
View and analyze everything from top search data, starting prices,
average starting prices and average selling prices
You can track items that you want more information on and see what
the sale price was
View graphs with average buying and selling trends
This service comes in three flavors, FastPass, Basic and Pro. You’ll be
charged a graduated fee for each one. Since the best sellers are using this
method of market research you may want to jump into it as well. But only if
you want to become a Top eBay Seller!
Use Seller’s Central
EBay makes it easy for those who wish to become top sellers—because it’s a
win-win for them in fees. Seller Central is an excellent resource. Just click
on the SELL tab located at the bottom of the SELL page. This will send you
to a page that offers you search tools and the following:
What’s Hot tab will show you what items are selling well and are in
high demand on eBay right now so you can get in on that trend.
Merchandising Calendar will give you advance notice of which items
eBay is going to be spotlighting on their home page and their
promotions.
Category Tips will give you an edge when you’re working on your ads
because eBay will show you exactly which keywords are in demand in
your category. By using the most in-demand keywords buyers will be
more likely to find your auction and click on it. If they click on it,
they’re more likely to buy it.
Click on the What’s Hot to find the link to eBay Pulse. That
will show you what items are red hot and selling fast! Use the category
selector and that will give you the Pulse report for any category you are
researching. This will also allow you to delve deep into subcategories, give
you the top ten searches for a category and will give you a list of the five top
stores in that niche. This will help you see how successful these sellers are
and give you an idea on how you can do what they do. Make money!
Use any of the searches to take you right to the search results and then you
can click on store names to check out the stores, and see sellers’ profiles or
feedback scores.
Another search option offered by eBay are from third party vendors that
offer research services. These third-party vendors can tell you when the best
time is to list your auction and they’ll instruct you on the features that the
Top Sellers are using. Click on the Sell tab, go to Sell Hub and click on Third
Party Services located towards the bottom of the page, then click on eBay
Solutions Directory and go to the Marketplace Research link located under
Other Solutions.
Labels
Blog Archive
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2010 (41)
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10/17 - 10/24 (12)
- DIFFERENT IM STRATEGIES PART 2
- Different IM strategies Part 1
- TRAFFIC METHODS PART 20
- TRAFFIC METHODS PART 19
- TRAFFIC METHODS PART 18
- TRAFFIC METHODS PART 17
- TRAFFIC METHODS PART 16
- Traffic Methods Part 15
- TRAFFIC METHODS PART 14
- Traffic Methods Part 13
- Traffic Methods Part 12
- Traffic Methods Part 11
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