By - Wendy Suto
<)))
Businesses can gain a competitive edge with Google and other significant search engines through relevant link building strategies. The search engines track links in ranking algorithms while crawling the Web. It is advantageous to grow the number of incoming links to your company’s site alongside effective search engine optimization techniques.
There are numerous link building solutions.
1. Free and paid link directories
Link directories all provide either one-way or reciprocal links. Some are free, while others are paid only. Link directories are beneficial because Websites that place your link on their site without requesting a link back to their site are considered more valuable than reciprocal or link exchanges, in the eyes of major search engines. There are many reputable directory sites that are well trafficked by potential buyers for your product. You will find one-way and reciprocal link directories by typing into any search engine search box, keywords like “submit a link”, “add a URL”, or “add link”.
Some small business owners will only link to sites that link back to their site. This creates reciprocal links pages and triangular link patterns. Reciprocal links do not improve a Website’s rankings, and should only be done to give value to site visitors. This is not a savvy SEO tactic or a wise link building practice. Stay clear of SEO companies who use these link exchange strategies; they are not considered real SEOs by other professionals in the field.
2. Corporate Blogging
This is an ever growing Internet trend gaining in popularity with businesses – corporate blogs. Blogging started as personal spaces for individuals to share their thoughts and the events around them, like an online diary. Corporate blogging is then defined as another way to publish business-related content and gain more visibility for your company on the Web. By offering information and sharing knowledge, a company can quickly establish itself as a leading industry expert, get information to customers quickly, increase sales, attract journalists seeking news releases, and attract new customers looking for relevant information.
3. Article Directory Submissions
Article directories are sites that house free reprint articles, allowing authors (people like you) to become known as experts in a field or industry. These sites help authors gain one-way link popularity because others seeking free articles to reprint on their newsletters, Websites, blogs and in print can find them here. Reprint articles can only be used elsewhere if providing a link back to the author’s Website. You also receive free advertising and promotion.
4. Press releases
Submit your company’s news releases to sites like PRWeb.com and PRNewswire.com to allow journalists and bloggers to find important information about your company, its products and services. These releases also build links coming to your site, and attract attention from prospective buyers.
5. MySpace.com
This is a tremendous opportunity for free publicity, through networking with prospects from around the world. Place your business profile, your company logo and business pictures, commercials and videos, write comments on other myspace.com profiles, receive email, instant message, and search for prospective clients. MySpace.com also has a business section that is cost effective and a great way to share your business with people searching for a certain product or service. This is another way to increase your link popularity.
6. Yahoo! Answers
This site is relatively new, and lets people in all industries become an expert in their fields. Answer questions in categories related to your expertise. Choose a subject from an extensive list of categories. Create a profile on Yahoo!, and you get to list up to 3 other one-way links. Yahoo! Geocities offers free a Website template and tools to build a simple Website. All these avenues add a host of easy ways to increase Internet visibility for your business.
7. One-Way Links on other Business Sites
Even with these link building strategies, having one-way links are considered much more valuable than link exchanges, also called reciprocal links. One way links from other related business sites or blogs with pertinent subject matter to the Website is an excellent way to drive traffic to your site. Although it is time consuming asking other sites to link to your site, these methods will assist in building stronger link popularity interest among the major search engines.
8. Business Networking Sites
FastPitchMedia.com and LinkedIn.com are two business networking sites that give professionals and business executives many resources under one place. These one-stop shops give professionals a lot of excellent exposure for free, by housing a database of business owners linked to each other’s online networks. Try something new! Create a profile through these sites, and you will reach other decision makers, stay in touch with others in your network, fill a key position, and keep contact information current.
About the Author
Wendy Suto is president and CEO of Search Circus, Inc., an ethical SEO firm specializing in website link popularity and organic search engine optimization, blog marketing, Web site copywriting and article marketing solutions. As a certified search engine optimization consultant, she teaches SEO seminars in Cleveland, Ohio.wendy@searchcircus.com
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Losing Money On PPC? Write Articles!
By - Teri Trantanella
<)))
There is another way to promote your business other than pay per click. I made the serious mistake of using PPC to get more traffic to my sites and almost went bankrupt over it! PPC is great if you are already making a fortune on the web, but most of us are still struggling and only wasting our money on PPC. Until you learn how to truly position yourself with PPC to the point of profitable conversions, my suggestion is to write articles about your Internet business. Doing this will increase your traffic remarkably. Plus, the articles provide many other benefits for the site.
Some of the benefits of article writing are higher ranking in search results of keywords pertaining to your site. Articles also increase confidence and trust of customers to our site. The best advantage of writing articles about your site is the linking to your site from the article site or newsletter you submit your article to. If readers enjoy your article they will tell their friends, co-workers, and family about it, providing an even larger volume of traffic.
Internet marketers know that articles are very important to a website. The larger volume of traffic, the greater the sales. Your traffic trusts and believes in you because your articles prove you know what you are doing or talking about and the better your sales will be.
So ok, we have established that articles are very important to a site and to business. Articles are crucial and to keep ahead in the game, a site must have an article, it is imperative. There is one dilemma though, not many people like writing articles.
Many website owners would rather spend their time on something else, and unless you’re a big time company, you don’t have the necessary resources to use on a pool of article writers. Plagiarism or copying of other articles is frowned upon and could easily get you into trouble, worst case scenario; a hefty fine and jail time.
So what are the other options?
Well, for starters if you hate writing articles and you can’t afford to hire people to write for you then don’t. Get free articles. The first place to look at for free articles is the public domain. Here you won’t have problems with copyright infringement and the following penalties and fines if you get caught for plagiarism.
Public domain articles are articles freely given to the public for public use. You can do whatever you want with it. You can place it on your site, name it as yours, put it in a newsletter, it’s your decision. Always remember though that you will have to choose articles that are very relevant to your site.
The downside to public domain articles is that since it is free for everybody, many of your competitors may have access to them as well. Since every site needs to be original and unique even though you have the same niche, this could be a predicament. You may also have to edit them a bit to place more keywords and keyword phrases to make them better.
Another way to get free articles is to allow other sites which have the same subject or topic as yours to submit articles to your site. This would be only to augment your existing content or else all your articles would be leading to other sites since these articles would have resource boxes with them that could link or direct the readers to their site. That’s why it is important to have your own articles; you could use them to link your site to other sites as well.
But, to truly feel the impact of what a good article means to you, go for original ones. There are many article writers who do part time and freelance article writing jobs that charges only minimal fees. You can get good articles that have all the keywords and keyword phrases you need and people are looking for.
The investment you made for these articles would be worthwhile because you could use them for all the benefits you could offer. You hold copyrights to them and you will be able to use them anyway you want. As your articles help you in building your business and your site, you will have more articles to write and maybe then you won’t be having second thoughts about articles.
Teri Trantanella is an Online Business owner, wife, mother and Grandmother of 8. She also works full-time as Controller for a manufacturing company, as well as part-time as Accounting Manager at a Smoky Mountain resort on the weekends. This 7 day a week workaholic spends her spare time in the evenings online, building and marketing her online businesses www.reflectionsofmedolls.com, www.gtcenterprise.com, www.toyoursuccessonline.com, www.itsallaboutsports.com, www.thebestbabysite.com, and others.
About The Author
Teri Trantanella is an Online Business owner, wife, mother and Grandmother of 8. She also works full-time as Controller for a manufacturing company, as well as part-time as Accounting Manager at a Smoky Mountain resort on the weekends. This 7 day a week workaholic spends her spare time in the evenings online, building and marketing her online businesses http://www.reflectionsofmedolls.com/, http://www.gtcenterprise.com/, http://www.toyoursuccessonline.com/, http://www.itsallaboutsports.com/, http://www.thebestbabysite.com/, and others.
<)))
There is another way to promote your business other than pay per click. I made the serious mistake of using PPC to get more traffic to my sites and almost went bankrupt over it! PPC is great if you are already making a fortune on the web, but most of us are still struggling and only wasting our money on PPC. Until you learn how to truly position yourself with PPC to the point of profitable conversions, my suggestion is to write articles about your Internet business. Doing this will increase your traffic remarkably. Plus, the articles provide many other benefits for the site.
Some of the benefits of article writing are higher ranking in search results of keywords pertaining to your site. Articles also increase confidence and trust of customers to our site. The best advantage of writing articles about your site is the linking to your site from the article site or newsletter you submit your article to. If readers enjoy your article they will tell their friends, co-workers, and family about it, providing an even larger volume of traffic.
Internet marketers know that articles are very important to a website. The larger volume of traffic, the greater the sales. Your traffic trusts and believes in you because your articles prove you know what you are doing or talking about and the better your sales will be.
So ok, we have established that articles are very important to a site and to business. Articles are crucial and to keep ahead in the game, a site must have an article, it is imperative. There is one dilemma though, not many people like writing articles.
Many website owners would rather spend their time on something else, and unless you’re a big time company, you don’t have the necessary resources to use on a pool of article writers. Plagiarism or copying of other articles is frowned upon and could easily get you into trouble, worst case scenario; a hefty fine and jail time.
So what are the other options?
Well, for starters if you hate writing articles and you can’t afford to hire people to write for you then don’t. Get free articles. The first place to look at for free articles is the public domain. Here you won’t have problems with copyright infringement and the following penalties and fines if you get caught for plagiarism.
Public domain articles are articles freely given to the public for public use. You can do whatever you want with it. You can place it on your site, name it as yours, put it in a newsletter, it’s your decision. Always remember though that you will have to choose articles that are very relevant to your site.
The downside to public domain articles is that since it is free for everybody, many of your competitors may have access to them as well. Since every site needs to be original and unique even though you have the same niche, this could be a predicament. You may also have to edit them a bit to place more keywords and keyword phrases to make them better.
Another way to get free articles is to allow other sites which have the same subject or topic as yours to submit articles to your site. This would be only to augment your existing content or else all your articles would be leading to other sites since these articles would have resource boxes with them that could link or direct the readers to their site. That’s why it is important to have your own articles; you could use them to link your site to other sites as well.
But, to truly feel the impact of what a good article means to you, go for original ones. There are many article writers who do part time and freelance article writing jobs that charges only minimal fees. You can get good articles that have all the keywords and keyword phrases you need and people are looking for.
The investment you made for these articles would be worthwhile because you could use them for all the benefits you could offer. You hold copyrights to them and you will be able to use them anyway you want. As your articles help you in building your business and your site, you will have more articles to write and maybe then you won’t be having second thoughts about articles.
Teri Trantanella is an Online Business owner, wife, mother and Grandmother of 8. She also works full-time as Controller for a manufacturing company, as well as part-time as Accounting Manager at a Smoky Mountain resort on the weekends. This 7 day a week workaholic spends her spare time in the evenings online, building and marketing her online businesses www.reflectionsofmedolls.com, www.gtcenterprise.com, www.toyoursuccessonline.com, www.itsallaboutsports.com, www.thebestbabysite.com, and others.
About The Author
Teri Trantanella is an Online Business owner, wife, mother and Grandmother of 8. She also works full-time as Controller for a manufacturing company, as well as part-time as Accounting Manager at a Smoky Mountain resort on the weekends. This 7 day a week workaholic spends her spare time in the evenings online, building and marketing her online businesses http://www.reflectionsofmedolls.com/, http://www.gtcenterprise.com/, http://www.toyoursuccessonline.com/, http://www.itsallaboutsports.com/, http://www.thebestbabysite.com/, and others.
Monday, June 18, 2007
How to Generate Free Traffic to Your Website!
By - Willem Steyn
<)))
If you put your mind to it and are prepared to work for long hours every day, you can make money. Are you going to do it the right way? This article is going to try and cover some of the requirements that are needed to generate, the traffic that you need to your website to become successful.
With any business, whether it is online or offline that business need to have a regular flow of traffic in order to convert the traffic into customers. It is common sense that without customers no business can survive. This is why in all forms of business it is imperative to find methods of how to generating traffic.
Promoting your business through the media is a method that many overlook or completely forget about when it comes to advertising their business. For many people, reading an advertisement in the newspaper or a magazine is a more trustworthy way to respond to an advert.
If your business is strictly online, there are some free paths that can be followed, that are more readily available than one may think. Some of these paths are traffic exchanges, forums, article writing and free classified ads that will make your website search engine friendly.
Traffic Exchanges
Traffic exchanges are systems where a business will advertise its URL with a short text ad throughout the system that other members will see therefore generating free traffic. The idea here is to make your ad compelling enough that other members will not just click on your link but will also take time to look at your site, sales page, blog, newsletter sign-up form and any other products that you are promoting.
Forums
Become involved in several forums that fit into the theme of your business model. These forums are communities that are made up of business people that exchange ideas and techniques that have made them successful and things that have not worked so well. When you join a forum make sure that your first action is that of reading and understanding the rules of the forum.
Article Marketing
Start writing informative articles in your field of expertise and post them on your blog, website and submit them to several high ranked article directories. Many of these respected article directories do not allow links in the body of an article; make sure that you understand the article submitting guidelines of the directories. Article writing is very useful way to generate traffic to your website.
Free Classified Ads
There are numerous sites that allow free classified text ads and some even allow graphics. These ads may be directly linked to a sales page, sign-up page or to your website which ever way you choose to advertise and which works best for your individual business.
There are a phenomenal amount of different ways of how to promote your business to generate free traffic that was not covered. Start to explore these different avenues of promoting your business.
To summarize this article you can generate huge amounts of traffic to your website, if you are prepared to learn and willing to work hard at it. Set some goals and follow them. Goal setting has given thousands of people all over the world a successful way to financial freedom.
About The Author
Willem Steyn is a retired asset manager, started a home business to still stay productive and motivated and plays an active part in his local society. For more information, on how you can start your own
internet home business opportunity and to find out how you can achieve this work from home business goal he invites you to visit www.profit-online247.com
<)))
If you put your mind to it and are prepared to work for long hours every day, you can make money. Are you going to do it the right way? This article is going to try and cover some of the requirements that are needed to generate, the traffic that you need to your website to become successful.
With any business, whether it is online or offline that business need to have a regular flow of traffic in order to convert the traffic into customers. It is common sense that without customers no business can survive. This is why in all forms of business it is imperative to find methods of how to generating traffic.
Promoting your business through the media is a method that many overlook or completely forget about when it comes to advertising their business. For many people, reading an advertisement in the newspaper or a magazine is a more trustworthy way to respond to an advert.
If your business is strictly online, there are some free paths that can be followed, that are more readily available than one may think. Some of these paths are traffic exchanges, forums, article writing and free classified ads that will make your website search engine friendly.
Traffic Exchanges
Traffic exchanges are systems where a business will advertise its URL with a short text ad throughout the system that other members will see therefore generating free traffic. The idea here is to make your ad compelling enough that other members will not just click on your link but will also take time to look at your site, sales page, blog, newsletter sign-up form and any other products that you are promoting.
Forums
Become involved in several forums that fit into the theme of your business model. These forums are communities that are made up of business people that exchange ideas and techniques that have made them successful and things that have not worked so well. When you join a forum make sure that your first action is that of reading and understanding the rules of the forum.
Article Marketing
Start writing informative articles in your field of expertise and post them on your blog, website and submit them to several high ranked article directories. Many of these respected article directories do not allow links in the body of an article; make sure that you understand the article submitting guidelines of the directories. Article writing is very useful way to generate traffic to your website.
Free Classified Ads
There are numerous sites that allow free classified text ads and some even allow graphics. These ads may be directly linked to a sales page, sign-up page or to your website which ever way you choose to advertise and which works best for your individual business.
There are a phenomenal amount of different ways of how to promote your business to generate free traffic that was not covered. Start to explore these different avenues of promoting your business.
To summarize this article you can generate huge amounts of traffic to your website, if you are prepared to learn and willing to work hard at it. Set some goals and follow them. Goal setting has given thousands of people all over the world a successful way to financial freedom.
About The Author
Willem Steyn is a retired asset manager, started a home business to still stay productive and motivated and plays an active part in his local society. For more information, on how you can start your own
internet home business opportunity and to find out how you can achieve this work from home business goal he invites you to visit www.profit-online247.com
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Keyword Tracking
By - Halstatt Pires
<)))
Keyword tracking is the name of the game. Identify the ads that work and get rid of those that don't!
Keyword tracking allows a site owner to know what keyword searches are resulting in sales. Search term information can be logged into a database and presented to web site owners in a meaningful format. This data can be used to see which keywords are producing the most sales per search and to determine where to focus web marketing.
What Search Engine or Web Site
Knowing what search engine a sale has originated from allows site owners and marketers to know where their efforts are paying off the most. Good tracking and analysis software will also show what web site referred visitors. Knowing what sites are sending the most visitors allows site owners to give special attention to ensuring this traffic continues and increases. Knowing what referrers are generating the most sales further allows a site owner to hone his or her marketing efforts toward site referrals that result in the most sales.
What Keyword Was Searched For
Knowing what keyword searches are resulting in sales on a site allows the owner to focus more on those words. Perhaps you are marketing your site for two main keywords, "air hook widgets" and "air hooks." Using keyword tracking that traces keywords down to the sale ensures that you will know if searches for "air hook widgets" convert into sales more often than visits resulting from searches for "air hooks."
Sales Conversion Ratio of Keywords and Return on Investment
Tracking keyword searches through to sales allows site owners to determine the return on investment. If a web master spends $100.00 on the pay-per-click keyword "air hook widgets" and sells $1000 worth of product, his or her return on investment is likely very good. If the same web site owner spends $100.00 on the keyword "air hooks" and sells $200 worth of product, it is likely that the return on investment was not as great. Of course, if the markup or profit on one product is greater than on another, this must be taken into account.
Cost of Keyword
If a web marketer is using pay-per-click engines, knowing exactly what has been spent on a keyword, and what the return was, allows money to be put where it will do the most. Keyword searches, unlike many advertising mediums, are targeted by the viewer. For this reason, in addition to the accurate return on investment feedback, keyword marketing can be very worth the cost.
Added Benefit of Branding
Marketing your site by keyword in pay-per-click engines means that you will only be charged if a person clicks through your ad to your site. Pay-per-click ads and organic search listings have the often overlooked added value of showing the ad or listing many times over in addition to the clicks the ad or listing receives. Only a small percentage of people are likely to click on a keyword ad or search result listing, yet your ad or listing will be visible time and time again to people searching for terms you have bid on or marketed, increasing your site branding. Nonetheless, care should be taken to generate a compelling key word ad or page description, since in most cases you will want to receive as many clicks as possible.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you are spending money on search engine marketing, it is often well worth the effort to track your keywords through to sales. Without tracking your keywords, you will not know where your efforts are paying off. By tracking your keywords, you are able to put your efforts where they are paying off the most.
About The Author
Halstatt Pires is an Internet marketing consultant with http://www.marketingtitan.com/ - an Internet marketing firm in San Diego offering automated web site systems through http://www.businesscreatorpro.com/.
<)))
Keyword tracking is the name of the game. Identify the ads that work and get rid of those that don't!
Keyword tracking allows a site owner to know what keyword searches are resulting in sales. Search term information can be logged into a database and presented to web site owners in a meaningful format. This data can be used to see which keywords are producing the most sales per search and to determine where to focus web marketing.
What Search Engine or Web Site
Knowing what search engine a sale has originated from allows site owners and marketers to know where their efforts are paying off the most. Good tracking and analysis software will also show what web site referred visitors. Knowing what sites are sending the most visitors allows site owners to give special attention to ensuring this traffic continues and increases. Knowing what referrers are generating the most sales further allows a site owner to hone his or her marketing efforts toward site referrals that result in the most sales.
What Keyword Was Searched For
Knowing what keyword searches are resulting in sales on a site allows the owner to focus more on those words. Perhaps you are marketing your site for two main keywords, "air hook widgets" and "air hooks." Using keyword tracking that traces keywords down to the sale ensures that you will know if searches for "air hook widgets" convert into sales more often than visits resulting from searches for "air hooks."
Sales Conversion Ratio of Keywords and Return on Investment
Tracking keyword searches through to sales allows site owners to determine the return on investment. If a web master spends $100.00 on the pay-per-click keyword "air hook widgets" and sells $1000 worth of product, his or her return on investment is likely very good. If the same web site owner spends $100.00 on the keyword "air hooks" and sells $200 worth of product, it is likely that the return on investment was not as great. Of course, if the markup or profit on one product is greater than on another, this must be taken into account.
Cost of Keyword
If a web marketer is using pay-per-click engines, knowing exactly what has been spent on a keyword, and what the return was, allows money to be put where it will do the most. Keyword searches, unlike many advertising mediums, are targeted by the viewer. For this reason, in addition to the accurate return on investment feedback, keyword marketing can be very worth the cost.
Added Benefit of Branding
Marketing your site by keyword in pay-per-click engines means that you will only be charged if a person clicks through your ad to your site. Pay-per-click ads and organic search listings have the often overlooked added value of showing the ad or listing many times over in addition to the clicks the ad or listing receives. Only a small percentage of people are likely to click on a keyword ad or search result listing, yet your ad or listing will be visible time and time again to people searching for terms you have bid on or marketed, increasing your site branding. Nonetheless, care should be taken to generate a compelling key word ad or page description, since in most cases you will want to receive as many clicks as possible.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you are spending money on search engine marketing, it is often well worth the effort to track your keywords through to sales. Without tracking your keywords, you will not know where your efforts are paying off. By tracking your keywords, you are able to put your efforts where they are paying off the most.
About The Author
Halstatt Pires is an Internet marketing consultant with http://www.marketingtitan.com/ - an Internet marketing firm in San Diego offering automated web site systems through http://www.businesscreatorpro.com/.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Press Release Power
By - Paul Bliss
I'm sure by now you've heard about how Press Releases can help your marketing campaigns on the Internet. But besides from people telling you, do you have any quantitative evidence that it's worth the time to craft a newsworthy release?
From a search marketing perspective, this is one of the best ways of killing two birds with one stone. Besides getting exposure for your site, you are also creating web saturation. By having the possibility of your release getting picked up by multiple media outlets, you quickly and cheaply get eyeballs looking at your product or service, and ultimately, traffic to your site.
Being that the Internet has grown to being a social environment with the ultimate goal of personalization for each user, how can anyone get their message out?
With blogs, RSS readers and news aggregators becoming more popular, the user is becoming more selective to what they want to see. This is something every marketer should embrace.
Now, instead of spending thousands to blast an add that may only be relevant to 10 percent of your audience, you can now selectively target your audience and deliver your message.
Since the majority of us do not have Google's bankroll, we are left to find less expensive ways to drive visitors to your site. This is where one can get onto a level playing field with the big spenders.
To demonstrate the power of the press release, take a moment to review some stats on a campaign that was conducted in early December.
PR Service: PRWeb.com
Price: $80.00 USD
(Note: - you can submit free press releases, but you won't have access to any tracking stats, and you lose some services.)
For the above mentioned fee, the $80.00 includes:
Properly Optimized, RSS/XML Feed, Next Day Distribution, ability to attach files, featured, listing appears on: Google News, Overture, eMediaWire, Yahoo News, Excite News, DogPile, MetaCrawler, Inktomi, MSN News, Lycos News, AskJeeves News, Feedster and Topix News
Quite the bang for your buck, eh?
The Press Release in question was for a free service, and it was geared for Christmas use, so keep that in mind as you review the information.
Reads: 88,380
(This number indicates how many times the press release was accessed from the PRWeb site and other distribution points where they have the ability to measure a click through. This number does not include the number of journalists that have received the release through email.)
Estimated Pickup: 3,908
(This number estimates the number of times the press release was picked up by a media outlet. This does not indicate how many times the story appeared in the media. It simply attempts to estimate media interest in the release.)
Now how many places on the Internet can give you those type of numbers for getting traffic to your site?
To try and get an accurate number for a "typical" Press Release, another release was submitted in March of 2005, for a new paid-for service.
Reads: 80,375
Estimated Pickup: 1,362
Still pretty impressive, even if it's just to get some traffic, or brand name exposure.
If you're serious about your business, $80.00 is easily worth the investment for this type of return.
-To your online success!
About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.SEOforGoogle.com
I'm sure by now you've heard about how Press Releases can help your marketing campaigns on the Internet. But besides from people telling you, do you have any quantitative evidence that it's worth the time to craft a newsworthy release?
From a search marketing perspective, this is one of the best ways of killing two birds with one stone. Besides getting exposure for your site, you are also creating web saturation. By having the possibility of your release getting picked up by multiple media outlets, you quickly and cheaply get eyeballs looking at your product or service, and ultimately, traffic to your site.
Being that the Internet has grown to being a social environment with the ultimate goal of personalization for each user, how can anyone get their message out?
With blogs, RSS readers and news aggregators becoming more popular, the user is becoming more selective to what they want to see. This is something every marketer should embrace.
Now, instead of spending thousands to blast an add that may only be relevant to 10 percent of your audience, you can now selectively target your audience and deliver your message.
Since the majority of us do not have Google's bankroll, we are left to find less expensive ways to drive visitors to your site. This is where one can get onto a level playing field with the big spenders.
To demonstrate the power of the press release, take a moment to review some stats on a campaign that was conducted in early December.
PR Service: PRWeb.com
Price: $80.00 USD
(Note: - you can submit free press releases, but you won't have access to any tracking stats, and you lose some services.)
For the above mentioned fee, the $80.00 includes:
Properly Optimized, RSS/XML Feed, Next Day Distribution, ability to attach files, featured, listing appears on: Google News, Overture, eMediaWire, Yahoo News, Excite News, DogPile, MetaCrawler, Inktomi, MSN News, Lycos News, AskJeeves News, Feedster and Topix News
Quite the bang for your buck, eh?
The Press Release in question was for a free service, and it was geared for Christmas use, so keep that in mind as you review the information.
Reads: 88,380
(This number indicates how many times the press release was accessed from the PRWeb site and other distribution points where they have the ability to measure a click through. This number does not include the number of journalists that have received the release through email.)
Estimated Pickup: 3,908
(This number estimates the number of times the press release was picked up by a media outlet. This does not indicate how many times the story appeared in the media. It simply attempts to estimate media interest in the release.)
Now how many places on the Internet can give you those type of numbers for getting traffic to your site?
To try and get an accurate number for a "typical" Press Release, another release was submitted in March of 2005, for a new paid-for service.
Reads: 80,375
Estimated Pickup: 1,362
Still pretty impressive, even if it's just to get some traffic, or brand name exposure.
If you're serious about your business, $80.00 is easily worth the investment for this type of return.
-To your online success!
About The Author
Paul Bliss
www.SEOforGoogle.com
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
The Art of Effective Copywriting
By - Shelley Lowery
<)))
If you're selling a product or service on the Internet, your words are the most important factor in determining your success. High-tech web sites with fancy images won't make sales; however, many Internet entrepreneurs spend much more time designing a professional looking web site than writing effective sales copy. A professional looking web site is a very important part of making sales; however, without effective sales copy your web site will be useless.
The art of effective copywriting is simply learning how to write persuasive words specifically written for your targeted customer. You must feel your customers needs and write your copy with passion, excitement and benefit.
If you've ever developed a new product then you know that there is a certain time when your emotions are riding high and you're full of excitement and anticipation. This is the best time to do your copywriting. Your excitement will flow through your words. Take this time to sit down and write an outline for your sales message.
Creating A Headline
The first part of your outline will be your headline. This is the most important part of your entire sales copy. You must write a headline that demands attention and forces your visitor to read on. Most of your visitors will only read your headline. If it doesn't instantly grab their attention, they'll move on and never return.
Writing an Introduction
Once you've captured your visitor's attention, you'll now need to direct their attention to your introduction. Keep your introduction brief and to the point. Let them know exactly what you have to offer them.
Use Plenty of Subheadings
Your next step in creating your outline is to add subheadings. Subheadings are basically just smaller headlines used to break up your text blocks. They also provide your readers with important highlights of your paragraphs. Use plenty of subheadings throughout your copy, as not all of your visitors will read your copy word for word. They'll simply scan it and only read what catches their attention.
Remove the Risk
You must provide a solid, no risk, money back guarantee. Provide a limited time free trial or download that will completely remove the risk. This will build your potential customers confidence and put their mind at ease. Display your guarantee in bold text and even mention it in your sales message and on your order page.
Call for Action
Ask for the order and provide an easy ordering process. Continue to reassure your potential customer and lead them to your order page.
Use a P.S.
When your visitor scans your sales message, chances are they'll read your headline, subheadlines and your PostScript message. Place your most important benefits within your P.S. message. It will get read.
Writing Your Copy
Now, you're ready to begin filling in the spaces. When you begin writing your paragraphs, get straight to the point, avoid negativity and hype, and write in small sections. Vary the paragraph sizes and limit each paragraph to four or five lines max. If you feel that your paragraph will be longer than four or five lines, try to use bullets to display important points. Write in an everyday language that everyone can understand.
Make sure you use plenty of white space. White space is the empty space between your paragraphs and around your text. You don't want to overwhelm your visitors with a solid page of black text. Nothing will make them click away any faster.
Pack your sales copy with benefits from your headline straight through to your order form. Make sure you don't confuse features with benefits. Features don't sell... Benefits sell. Your visitor wants to know exactly what your product or service can do for them.
Provide Testimonials
Testimonials provide another great way to reassure your visitors. Blend your testimonials in with your sales message. Avoid making your visitors have to click to another page to view your testimonials; chances are, they won't. By blending your testimonials in with your sales message you can ensure they will be read.
Selecting Fonts
Avoid using fancy fonts. Fancy fonts make text difficult to read. In addition, your visitor may not have that font on their computer. Select a font that is easy to read and use black text on a light background.
Long Copy Vs. Short Copy
It is a proven fact that long sales copy out-sells short sales copy, but some visitors do prefer a short sales letter. You can give your visitors both. For those who prefer a short sales letter you can provide opportunities to click through to your order page prior to ending your sales letter.
Try to keep your sales letter all on one page. Your visitor would much rather have to scroll through your letter than click through and load another page. With each additional click, you'll lose a percentage of your potential customers.
Your words should seamlessly flow together from your headline through to your order page. Keep it simple, to the point and pack it with all of the benefits your product has to offer.
Learning the art of effective copywriting can mean the difference between success and failure. The simple, well-designed web sites with killer sales copy make the sales.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery
About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com/ And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net/
<)))
If you're selling a product or service on the Internet, your words are the most important factor in determining your success. High-tech web sites with fancy images won't make sales; however, many Internet entrepreneurs spend much more time designing a professional looking web site than writing effective sales copy. A professional looking web site is a very important part of making sales; however, without effective sales copy your web site will be useless.
The art of effective copywriting is simply learning how to write persuasive words specifically written for your targeted customer. You must feel your customers needs and write your copy with passion, excitement and benefit.
If you've ever developed a new product then you know that there is a certain time when your emotions are riding high and you're full of excitement and anticipation. This is the best time to do your copywriting. Your excitement will flow through your words. Take this time to sit down and write an outline for your sales message.
Creating A Headline
The first part of your outline will be your headline. This is the most important part of your entire sales copy. You must write a headline that demands attention and forces your visitor to read on. Most of your visitors will only read your headline. If it doesn't instantly grab their attention, they'll move on and never return.
Writing an Introduction
Once you've captured your visitor's attention, you'll now need to direct their attention to your introduction. Keep your introduction brief and to the point. Let them know exactly what you have to offer them.
Use Plenty of Subheadings
Your next step in creating your outline is to add subheadings. Subheadings are basically just smaller headlines used to break up your text blocks. They also provide your readers with important highlights of your paragraphs. Use plenty of subheadings throughout your copy, as not all of your visitors will read your copy word for word. They'll simply scan it and only read what catches their attention.
Remove the Risk
You must provide a solid, no risk, money back guarantee. Provide a limited time free trial or download that will completely remove the risk. This will build your potential customers confidence and put their mind at ease. Display your guarantee in bold text and even mention it in your sales message and on your order page.
Call for Action
Ask for the order and provide an easy ordering process. Continue to reassure your potential customer and lead them to your order page.
Use a P.S.
When your visitor scans your sales message, chances are they'll read your headline, subheadlines and your PostScript message. Place your most important benefits within your P.S. message. It will get read.
Writing Your Copy
Now, you're ready to begin filling in the spaces. When you begin writing your paragraphs, get straight to the point, avoid negativity and hype, and write in small sections. Vary the paragraph sizes and limit each paragraph to four or five lines max. If you feel that your paragraph will be longer than four or five lines, try to use bullets to display important points. Write in an everyday language that everyone can understand.
Make sure you use plenty of white space. White space is the empty space between your paragraphs and around your text. You don't want to overwhelm your visitors with a solid page of black text. Nothing will make them click away any faster.
Pack your sales copy with benefits from your headline straight through to your order form. Make sure you don't confuse features with benefits. Features don't sell... Benefits sell. Your visitor wants to know exactly what your product or service can do for them.
Provide Testimonials
Testimonials provide another great way to reassure your visitors. Blend your testimonials in with your sales message. Avoid making your visitors have to click to another page to view your testimonials; chances are, they won't. By blending your testimonials in with your sales message you can ensure they will be read.
Selecting Fonts
Avoid using fancy fonts. Fancy fonts make text difficult to read. In addition, your visitor may not have that font on their computer. Select a font that is easy to read and use black text on a light background.
Long Copy Vs. Short Copy
It is a proven fact that long sales copy out-sells short sales copy, but some visitors do prefer a short sales letter. You can give your visitors both. For those who prefer a short sales letter you can provide opportunities to click through to your order page prior to ending your sales letter.
Try to keep your sales letter all on one page. Your visitor would much rather have to scroll through your letter than click through and load another page. With each additional click, you'll lose a percentage of your potential customers.
Your words should seamlessly flow together from your headline through to your order page. Keep it simple, to the point and pack it with all of the benefits your product has to offer.
Learning the art of effective copywriting can mean the difference between success and failure. The simple, well-designed web sites with killer sales copy make the sales.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery
About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com/ And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net/
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
How to Create, Sell and Distribute Your Own Ebook
By - Shelley Lowery
<)))
With the rising popularity of the Internet, there is absolutely no better time than right now to create your own ebook. Not only is there no better time, but it has never been any easier for anyone to develop and sell their own products.
Information is the number one best-selling product on the Internet. There are literally hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs quietly making a fortune simply by selling information.
The first step in creating your product is to decide upon a subject. Select a subject in which you have a great deal of knowledge. The knowledge you have within your own mind is extremely valuable. Simply write about what you know and teach others how to do the same thing. It's that simple.
Creating an Outline
The easiest way to begin writing is to create an outline. Begin your outline with an opening statement or Introduction followed by a Foreword. Your opening statement might tell your readers a little bit about what they are going to learn or may be a statement in regard to the subject matter. Your Foreword might include information in regard to who you are, your credentials, copyrights, and what you want your readers to learn.
Your next step will be to either create a Table of Contents or go directly into creating your Chapter Titles. If you're writing your information in the form of a how-to manual, you may want to use a Table of Contents. This will enable your readers to quickly locate important information. If you're writing your information in the form of a book, then you can leave out the Table of Contents and simply use Chapter Titles.
Whether you're using a Table of Contents or Chapter Titles, write your titles so that when they're read, they tell the story. In other words, when you scan your titles they will give you a step by step description of what your information is all about.
Finally, at the bottom of your outline, wrap everything up by including a closing statement.
Once you've completed your outline you can begin filling in the spaces. Write your text in small blocks and leave a space between your paragraphs. Select a font that is easy to read and use black text on a white background. In addition, write in an everyday language that everyone can understand.
Delivering Your Information
In order to deliver your information to your customers, you'll need to compress it into a downloadable file, better known as an ebook. There are different types of compilation methods however, for this example we will focus on HTML compiled ebooks.
Ebooks or electronic books are self-contained "executable" files of HTML. This HTML may be a web site you've created or HTML you've specifically prepared to be compiled into a downloadable .exe file for distribution. When downloaded, this file will self install on your clients desktop.
Your first step in creating your ebook will be to turn your text into HTML. Simply divide your text into sections such as, Introduction, Table of Contents, Chapters, etc., and create a web page for each. Make sure you include good navigational links to and from each page you create.
You can include graphics, live links, and almost everything that HTML 4.0 supports.
Once you've created your ebook and you're ready to upload it to your server, simply create a new directory where you store your HTML files. You can name the directory "Ebooks" or whatever you'd like. Upload your ebook in binary mode.
To create a download link on your website, most servers will allow you to simply link to the address:
http://www.yourdomain.com/ebooks/ebook.exe
If this method of linking doesn't work for you, contact your server administrator for assistance.
Taking Orders
In order for you to begin taking orders for your ebook, you'll need to have the ability to accept credit cards. Unless you'd like to get your own merchant account, the best way to accept credit cards is to use an online service. The best service I've found is ClickBank. This company will enable you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, and Visa-Debit, MasterCard-Debit, and Novus cards.
They charge a one-time $49.95 activation fee, and a $1 + 7.5% fee per sale. There are no monthly fees. The great thing about this company is that over 60,000 affiliates can choose to sell your products for you. ClickBank enables any web seller to automatically pay sales commissions to affiliates. Clickbank will bill your customers, pay you, and pay your affiliates a commission. In other words, they'll run your entire affiliate program for you.
http://hop.clickbank.net/?wsnet
There is absolutely no reason why you can't create your own ebook. Think about it... Think about some special talent you may have or knowledge you could share and write about. Creating your own product will be one of the best business decisions you'll ever make.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery
About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com/ And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com/click.php?lid=1&af=order7 Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net/
<)))
With the rising popularity of the Internet, there is absolutely no better time than right now to create your own ebook. Not only is there no better time, but it has never been any easier for anyone to develop and sell their own products.
Information is the number one best-selling product on the Internet. There are literally hundreds of Internet entrepreneurs quietly making a fortune simply by selling information.
The first step in creating your product is to decide upon a subject. Select a subject in which you have a great deal of knowledge. The knowledge you have within your own mind is extremely valuable. Simply write about what you know and teach others how to do the same thing. It's that simple.
Creating an Outline
The easiest way to begin writing is to create an outline. Begin your outline with an opening statement or Introduction followed by a Foreword. Your opening statement might tell your readers a little bit about what they are going to learn or may be a statement in regard to the subject matter. Your Foreword might include information in regard to who you are, your credentials, copyrights, and what you want your readers to learn.
Your next step will be to either create a Table of Contents or go directly into creating your Chapter Titles. If you're writing your information in the form of a how-to manual, you may want to use a Table of Contents. This will enable your readers to quickly locate important information. If you're writing your information in the form of a book, then you can leave out the Table of Contents and simply use Chapter Titles.
Whether you're using a Table of Contents or Chapter Titles, write your titles so that when they're read, they tell the story. In other words, when you scan your titles they will give you a step by step description of what your information is all about.
Finally, at the bottom of your outline, wrap everything up by including a closing statement.
Once you've completed your outline you can begin filling in the spaces. Write your text in small blocks and leave a space between your paragraphs. Select a font that is easy to read and use black text on a white background. In addition, write in an everyday language that everyone can understand.
Delivering Your Information
In order to deliver your information to your customers, you'll need to compress it into a downloadable file, better known as an ebook. There are different types of compilation methods however, for this example we will focus on HTML compiled ebooks.
Ebooks or electronic books are self-contained "executable" files of HTML. This HTML may be a web site you've created or HTML you've specifically prepared to be compiled into a downloadable .exe file for distribution. When downloaded, this file will self install on your clients desktop.
Your first step in creating your ebook will be to turn your text into HTML. Simply divide your text into sections such as, Introduction, Table of Contents, Chapters, etc., and create a web page for each. Make sure you include good navigational links to and from each page you create.
You can include graphics, live links, and almost everything that HTML 4.0 supports.
Once you've created your ebook and you're ready to upload it to your server, simply create a new directory where you store your HTML files. You can name the directory "Ebooks" or whatever you'd like. Upload your ebook in binary mode.
To create a download link on your website, most servers will allow you to simply link to the address:
http://www.yourdomain.com/ebooks/ebook.exe
If this method of linking doesn't work for you, contact your server administrator for assistance.
Taking Orders
In order for you to begin taking orders for your ebook, you'll need to have the ability to accept credit cards. Unless you'd like to get your own merchant account, the best way to accept credit cards is to use an online service. The best service I've found is ClickBank. This company will enable you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, and Visa-Debit, MasterCard-Debit, and Novus cards.
They charge a one-time $49.95 activation fee, and a $1 + 7.5% fee per sale. There are no monthly fees. The great thing about this company is that over 60,000 affiliates can choose to sell your products for you. ClickBank enables any web seller to automatically pay sales commissions to affiliates. Clickbank will bill your customers, pay you, and pay your affiliates a commission. In other words, they'll run your entire affiliate program for you.
http://hop.clickbank.net/?wsnet
There is absolutely no reason why you can't create your own ebook. Think about it... Think about some special talent you may have or knowledge you could share and write about. Creating your own product will be one of the best business decisions you'll ever make.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery
About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com/ And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com/click.php?lid=1&af=order7 Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net/
Monday, June 4, 2007
Promote Your Site Every Day
By - Steve Nash
You want traffic at your site, but with so many new websites added every day it isn't easy. The only solution is to promote your site, each and every day...
Here are 7 promotion methods for you to try, one for each day of the week:
Day 1 - Submit Your Site To A Search Engine
No big surprises with this promotion method. Just submit your site to a new search engine, or blast your website address to hundreds of directories and Free For All (FFA) sites. (Take care with your e-mail address with the FFA sites!) Try to keep a log of just when and where you submit your site.
Link: http://jimtools.com/submit.html
Day 2 - Post A Newsgroup Discussion
There are newsgroups, bulletin boards or forums on just about every subject imaginable. A good place to start is http://www.deja.com/usenet which allows you to search all of the Usenet newsgroups for a particular term or phrase.
Post a message online, via Deja.com, or offline using Outlook Express (or similar). Follow the forum or newsgroup guidelines, when you start a discussion or answer someone's query. It *is* okay to mention your website in a 2-line signature, though.
Day 3 - Swap Links With Other Sites
Links make the World Wide Web go around; they also improve your search-engine ranking! One way of achieving lots of links to your site is to swap links with other sites. There is an excellent article on link-swapping at http://www.bannertips.com/howto.shtml but basically:
Identify sites with similar content to yours
Request a reciprocal link (be polite, and use webmaster's name)
Create a "Links" section on your site and put the links there.
Day 4 - Write A Testimonial
Writing favourable comments, testimonials, about another website could make you an instant online friend (we all respond well to flattery after all!). This could lead to a link-swap or even a possible joint venture (see Day 6).
Just review their website (or product), and write about the benefits you gain from the site in specific terms (so it sounds like you're actually talking about *their* site). Just be honest and tell them what you like.
Day 5 - Be An Expert, Have An Opinion
Believe it or not people are interested in what you have to say! Several websites are even willing to pay you for your opinion! And we all have an opinion, don't we! Remember, it's good to talk (especially if your listeners then visit your website!).
If you *really know your stuff*, you can become an 'expert' at several sites. You may have to write articles on your subject of expertise, or just answer questions from site-visitors. Either way *you* gain more exposure, and your site gains more exposure too.
Opinion site: http://www.epinions.com
Expert site: http://www.askanexpert.com/
Day 6 - Start A Joint Venture
A joint venture can be as simple as joining an affiliate program. But basically you sponsor another's product and take a share in the profits. Joint ventures can also improve 'site-stickiness'.
You need to:
CONTACT webmasters who market similar products/services and ask them if they would be interested in offering yours. Share the profits, and it's a win-win situation.
PROMOTE another webmasters' product or service (something you believe in) to your subscribers or customers.
Day 7 - Follow Up!
No new websites to visit here. No new methods of promotion. Just an opportunity to measure the success (or otherwise) of the previous 6-days' efforts. This is a time to follow-up and perhaps plan for the next 6-days.
And If All Goes Well...
If all goes well then just take a break, but if you're really keen, however, you *could* take a look at some of these other promotion methods too:
Encourage visitors to bookmark your site
Join a banner-exchange program
Write a press release
Run a competition
Create great content, and allow others to use it
Create an online community
Good luck!
About The Author
This article is a summary; the full-length article(s) can be viewed online at http://www.shoptour.co.uk/promote_your_site/ Steve Nash is webmaster of Shop Tour UK: "A unique, fun way tobrowse over 900 secure UK shopping sites" http://shoptour.co.uk
You want traffic at your site, but with so many new websites added every day it isn't easy. The only solution is to promote your site, each and every day...
Here are 7 promotion methods for you to try, one for each day of the week:
Day 1 - Submit Your Site To A Search Engine
No big surprises with this promotion method. Just submit your site to a new search engine, or blast your website address to hundreds of directories and Free For All (FFA) sites. (Take care with your e-mail address with the FFA sites!) Try to keep a log of just when and where you submit your site.
Link: http://jimtools.com/submit.html
Day 2 - Post A Newsgroup Discussion
There are newsgroups, bulletin boards or forums on just about every subject imaginable. A good place to start is http://www.deja.com/usenet which allows you to search all of the Usenet newsgroups for a particular term or phrase.
Post a message online, via Deja.com, or offline using Outlook Express (or similar). Follow the forum or newsgroup guidelines, when you start a discussion or answer someone's query. It *is* okay to mention your website in a 2-line signature, though.
Day 3 - Swap Links With Other Sites
Links make the World Wide Web go around; they also improve your search-engine ranking! One way of achieving lots of links to your site is to swap links with other sites. There is an excellent article on link-swapping at http://www.bannertips.com/howto.shtml but basically:
Identify sites with similar content to yours
Request a reciprocal link (be polite, and use webmaster's name)
Create a "Links" section on your site and put the links there.
Day 4 - Write A Testimonial
Writing favourable comments, testimonials, about another website could make you an instant online friend (we all respond well to flattery after all!). This could lead to a link-swap or even a possible joint venture (see Day 6).
Just review their website (or product), and write about the benefits you gain from the site in specific terms (so it sounds like you're actually talking about *their* site). Just be honest and tell them what you like.
Day 5 - Be An Expert, Have An Opinion
Believe it or not people are interested in what you have to say! Several websites are even willing to pay you for your opinion! And we all have an opinion, don't we! Remember, it's good to talk (especially if your listeners then visit your website!).
If you *really know your stuff*, you can become an 'expert' at several sites. You may have to write articles on your subject of expertise, or just answer questions from site-visitors. Either way *you* gain more exposure, and your site gains more exposure too.
Opinion site: http://www.epinions.com
Expert site: http://www.askanexpert.com/
Day 6 - Start A Joint Venture
A joint venture can be as simple as joining an affiliate program. But basically you sponsor another's product and take a share in the profits. Joint ventures can also improve 'site-stickiness'.
You need to:
CONTACT webmasters who market similar products/services and ask them if they would be interested in offering yours. Share the profits, and it's a win-win situation.
PROMOTE another webmasters' product or service (something you believe in) to your subscribers or customers.
Day 7 - Follow Up!
No new websites to visit here. No new methods of promotion. Just an opportunity to measure the success (or otherwise) of the previous 6-days' efforts. This is a time to follow-up and perhaps plan for the next 6-days.
And If All Goes Well...
If all goes well then just take a break, but if you're really keen, however, you *could* take a look at some of these other promotion methods too:
Encourage visitors to bookmark your site
Join a banner-exchange program
Write a press release
Run a competition
Create great content, and allow others to use it
Create an online community
Good luck!
About The Author
This article is a summary; the full-length article(s) can be viewed online at http://www.shoptour.co.uk/promote_your_site/ Steve Nash is webmaster of Shop Tour UK: "A unique, fun way tobrowse over 900 secure UK shopping sites" http://shoptour.co.uk
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
4 Ways to Get Your Prospect's Attention Fast
By - Bob Leduc
<)))
Can you remember the last dozen advertising messages beamed at you today? Can you remember even one of them? Most people can't.
This illustrates the biggest obstacle you need to overcome to successfully promote YOUR product or service. You must capture your prospect's attention in the first few seconds or your sales message will be ignored. This is especially important on the Internet where a visitor can simply click away from your website -- forever.
Here are 4 proven techniques you can use to quickly capture a prospect's attention. They apply to all media including the Internet.
1. MAKE A DRAMATIC STATEMENT
Did you ever write a headline for an ad, web page or other sales message? You probably used a dramatic statement. It’s the most obvious way to get someone’s attention. For example:
"Lose 8 Pounds In The Next 2 Weeks Without Dieting"
"My Doctor Uses These Nutritional Products"
"Double Your Sales And Reduce Your Advertising Expenses
TIP: Your dramatic statement will be most effective when it describes a major benefit for your prospect.
2. SURPRISE THEM WITH SOMETHING UNEXPECTED
Unexpected surprises always attract attention. It’s often negative attention caused by something going wrong. But you can also use an unexpected surprise to attract positive attention. It happened to me last week.
The office supply company I use sent me a letter announcing an automatic $50 deduction off my total bill for this month. I immediately placed an order for items I wasn’t planning to buy for another month or two. I even stocked up on several items I normally buy elsewhere. Their unexpected surprise got my attention and generated a large order during a month I hadn’t planned to order anything.
3. ASK A PROVOCATIVE QUESTION
I once saw a direct mail letter that began with the question, "If you’re such a smart executive why aren’t you making a six figure income?" Not many executives could resist reading that letter, especially if they weren’t making a six figure income.
Provocative questions startle your prospects and compel them to find out more. Here are 2 more examples of provocative questions:
"Why are you paying so much for your health insurance?"
"Do you really expect to get rich working for somebody else?"
4. GET PERSONAL
Personalization also attracts immediate attention. Your personalization can be individualized or group oriented.
Use INDIVIDUALIZED PERSONALIZATION when you’re communicating directly with one person by email, postal mail, telephone, etc. Use your prospect’s name. It’s the number one attention grabber. Merge it into the subject line and the opening line of your email message. Do the same in your postal mail. Include other personal information you know about them. But be careful not to overdo it.
You can personalize with a name when you’re communicating directly with one prospect. But how can you get personal with a prospect visiting your web site, reading your ad or listening to your radio commercial?
Use GROUP ORIENTED PERSONALIZATION when you’re NOT communicating directly with one person. You can get personal by referring to known characteristics of prospects in your targeted market. For example, use phrases like:
"When you started your business..." for business owners.
"Your favorite NFL team..." for sports fans.
"Every mother knows..." for women with children.
Group Oriented Personalization isn’t as effective as using a person’s name. But it still attracts attention because your prospect can react with, "that’s me".
Take some time today to plan how you can use these four proven techniques to attract more attention to your sales messages. The results will probably surprise you. So will the increase in your sales and profits.
About The Author
Bob Leduc retired from a 30 year career of recruiting sales personnel and developing sales leads. He is now a Sales Consultant. Bob recently wrote a manual for small business owners titled "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards" and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information... Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: "Postcards". Phone: (702) 658-1707 (After 10 AM Pacific time) Or write: Bob Leduc, PO Box 33628, Las Vegas, NV 89133
<)))
Can you remember the last dozen advertising messages beamed at you today? Can you remember even one of them? Most people can't.
This illustrates the biggest obstacle you need to overcome to successfully promote YOUR product or service. You must capture your prospect's attention in the first few seconds or your sales message will be ignored. This is especially important on the Internet where a visitor can simply click away from your website -- forever.
Here are 4 proven techniques you can use to quickly capture a prospect's attention. They apply to all media including the Internet.
1. MAKE A DRAMATIC STATEMENT
Did you ever write a headline for an ad, web page or other sales message? You probably used a dramatic statement. It’s the most obvious way to get someone’s attention. For example:
"Lose 8 Pounds In The Next 2 Weeks Without Dieting"
"My Doctor Uses These Nutritional Products"
"Double Your Sales And Reduce Your Advertising Expenses
TIP: Your dramatic statement will be most effective when it describes a major benefit for your prospect.
2. SURPRISE THEM WITH SOMETHING UNEXPECTED
Unexpected surprises always attract attention. It’s often negative attention caused by something going wrong. But you can also use an unexpected surprise to attract positive attention. It happened to me last week.
The office supply company I use sent me a letter announcing an automatic $50 deduction off my total bill for this month. I immediately placed an order for items I wasn’t planning to buy for another month or two. I even stocked up on several items I normally buy elsewhere. Their unexpected surprise got my attention and generated a large order during a month I hadn’t planned to order anything.
3. ASK A PROVOCATIVE QUESTION
I once saw a direct mail letter that began with the question, "If you’re such a smart executive why aren’t you making a six figure income?" Not many executives could resist reading that letter, especially if they weren’t making a six figure income.
Provocative questions startle your prospects and compel them to find out more. Here are 2 more examples of provocative questions:
"Why are you paying so much for your health insurance?"
"Do you really expect to get rich working for somebody else?"
4. GET PERSONAL
Personalization also attracts immediate attention. Your personalization can be individualized or group oriented.
Use INDIVIDUALIZED PERSONALIZATION when you’re communicating directly with one person by email, postal mail, telephone, etc. Use your prospect’s name. It’s the number one attention grabber. Merge it into the subject line and the opening line of your email message. Do the same in your postal mail. Include other personal information you know about them. But be careful not to overdo it.
You can personalize with a name when you’re communicating directly with one prospect. But how can you get personal with a prospect visiting your web site, reading your ad or listening to your radio commercial?
Use GROUP ORIENTED PERSONALIZATION when you’re NOT communicating directly with one person. You can get personal by referring to known characteristics of prospects in your targeted market. For example, use phrases like:
"When you started your business..." for business owners.
"Your favorite NFL team..." for sports fans.
"Every mother knows..." for women with children.
Group Oriented Personalization isn’t as effective as using a person’s name. But it still attracts attention because your prospect can react with, "that’s me".
Take some time today to plan how you can use these four proven techniques to attract more attention to your sales messages. The results will probably surprise you. So will the increase in your sales and profits.
About The Author
Bob Leduc retired from a 30 year career of recruiting sales personnel and developing sales leads. He is now a Sales Consultant. Bob recently wrote a manual for small business owners titled "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards" and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information... Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: "Postcards". Phone: (702) 658-1707 (After 10 AM Pacific time) Or write: Bob Leduc, PO Box 33628, Las Vegas, NV 89133
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Selling to the Bottom Line
By - C.J. Hayden
<)))
"Every person who has ever started a business, I imagine, thought he had a good idea. It's the smart person, and the rare person, who tries to find out the most important thing: do other people think it's a good idea?"
-- Bernard Kamoroff, author of "Small-Time Operator"
If you've ever wondered why more people don't respond to your sales attempts and marketing messages, here's the first place to look -- are you selling something that people are willing to spend money on?
It can be hard enough to get your marketing message heard and work your way toward closing a sale when you're offering a product or service that prospects already know will help them. But if you also have to educate prospective customers about why it's worth their while to buy what you are selling in the first place, you are fighting an uphill battle.
A student in one of my classes proposed an idea to sell financial counseling services to college students. He reasoned that more and more young people were incurring massive amounts of debt and declaring bankruptcy. Obviously, the need in the marketplace was there, right? But when I asked him if students thought they needed financial counseling, his immediate answer was no. They had other concerns and ignored their finances, which was why he thought they needed him.
Right there is the catch. He thought they needed him; they didn't think so. The vast majority of buyers -- whether they are individual consumers or buying on behalf of a business -- only purchase products and services that solve a problem they have already defined. If you are the one who has to tell them that they have a problem in the first place, you have a pretty tough sale ahead of you.
In fact, your customers not only have to know they have a problem, they have to be willing to spend money to solve it.
A client of mine was marketing her services to companies to help them build community partnerships. She knew that many corporate donors were choosing to sponsor one nonprofit instead of spreading their donations around. But finding the right fit for a sponsorship was hard. She tried to sell companies on her ability to locate appropriate nonprofits and help establish relations. But they weren't buying. They knew they had a problem, but weren't willing to pay to fix it.
So it's not enough that people want what you offer, it has to be something they will spend money to get. And very importantly, they must also be able to justify that purchase to themselves and others. This is where you can provide exactly what your prospective clients need to make a buying decision.
Let's take as an example a life coach who tells clients he can help them find more passion in life. The prospect tells a friend: "I'm thinking about hiring a life coach to help me discover more passion in my work." The friend is skeptical, and says: "Sounds a little vague to me. If I were you, I'd spend my money on taking those art classes you keep talking about." The client has been unable to justify the purchase and she is now having second thoughts.
But what if the same coach told the prospect he could help her find a new job? When the friend asks for details, the prospect, briefed by the coach, responds: "He says he can partner with me to help me seek out the opportunities that match what I'm really looking for, and stay motivated while I'm looking." A much more likely response from the friend now is: "Sounds like it could be helpful. What's the coach's name?"
What the coach has done in the second case is sold to the client's bottom line. He has offered a result that not only the client, but her friend, seem willing to spend money on. He has also given her the language to explain his solution and justify the purchase to both her friend and herself. In fact, the nature of the work he ends up doing with this client may be exactly the same as it would have been when he offered her "passion." The difference is that the sale just got much easier.
The more concrete you can be about the results clients can expect, the more likely they are to buy. And the closer your offer is to a result that is already in their budget, the easier your sale becomes. When selling to organizations, these factors become even more critical. Every purchase has to be justified to a boss or a board, and if it's not in the budget, your sale may have to wait for next year.
One of my clients was marketing herself as a facilitator. In her sales pitch to corporate clients, she talked about her experience and produced glowing testimonials. But all her hard work produced only a few contracts. Then she began marketing her facilitation in the form of team-building retreats. All of a sudden, organizations that had no need for "facilitation" were eager for "team-building," and in some cases already had that need defined in their training budget.
The key to selling to your client's bottom line is knowing what that is. Ask the people in your target market not just what their problems and goals are, but where they have spent money in the past. A client who has worked with a massage therapist is a likely prospect for chiropractic. A company that has hired graphic designers is probably a good target for communications consulting. Get to know your market's spending habits and you will know better how to sell to them.
In every communication, talk about the specific results you deliver and the amount of value you provide. When you can assign an economic benefit to making a purchase, you increase the likelihood of a sale. This is why finding a new job sells better than finding passion, and helping a company make teams more productive attracts more buyers than helping them run a meeting. If clients believe you can either help them make money or save it, working with you can pay for itself.
When you are selling a product or service with no definable value -- for example, you can help to improve a person's quality of life or a company's work environment -- be aware that you may have a tougher sale than when your offer can be translated into currency. Look for how you can describe your value in the most tangible terms possible, and be prepared to spend some time educating your customers before they will become willing to buy.
Selling to the bottom line may require no changes at all to what you do, just a change to how you talk about it. "Nice-to-have" products and services may generate interest, but "got-to-have" ones generate sales.
About The Author
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now! Thousands of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You'll Ever Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com
<)))
"Every person who has ever started a business, I imagine, thought he had a good idea. It's the smart person, and the rare person, who tries to find out the most important thing: do other people think it's a good idea?"
-- Bernard Kamoroff, author of "Small-Time Operator"
If you've ever wondered why more people don't respond to your sales attempts and marketing messages, here's the first place to look -- are you selling something that people are willing to spend money on?
It can be hard enough to get your marketing message heard and work your way toward closing a sale when you're offering a product or service that prospects already know will help them. But if you also have to educate prospective customers about why it's worth their while to buy what you are selling in the first place, you are fighting an uphill battle.
A student in one of my classes proposed an idea to sell financial counseling services to college students. He reasoned that more and more young people were incurring massive amounts of debt and declaring bankruptcy. Obviously, the need in the marketplace was there, right? But when I asked him if students thought they needed financial counseling, his immediate answer was no. They had other concerns and ignored their finances, which was why he thought they needed him.
Right there is the catch. He thought they needed him; they didn't think so. The vast majority of buyers -- whether they are individual consumers or buying on behalf of a business -- only purchase products and services that solve a problem they have already defined. If you are the one who has to tell them that they have a problem in the first place, you have a pretty tough sale ahead of you.
In fact, your customers not only have to know they have a problem, they have to be willing to spend money to solve it.
A client of mine was marketing her services to companies to help them build community partnerships. She knew that many corporate donors were choosing to sponsor one nonprofit instead of spreading their donations around. But finding the right fit for a sponsorship was hard. She tried to sell companies on her ability to locate appropriate nonprofits and help establish relations. But they weren't buying. They knew they had a problem, but weren't willing to pay to fix it.
So it's not enough that people want what you offer, it has to be something they will spend money to get. And very importantly, they must also be able to justify that purchase to themselves and others. This is where you can provide exactly what your prospective clients need to make a buying decision.
Let's take as an example a life coach who tells clients he can help them find more passion in life. The prospect tells a friend: "I'm thinking about hiring a life coach to help me discover more passion in my work." The friend is skeptical, and says: "Sounds a little vague to me. If I were you, I'd spend my money on taking those art classes you keep talking about." The client has been unable to justify the purchase and she is now having second thoughts.
But what if the same coach told the prospect he could help her find a new job? When the friend asks for details, the prospect, briefed by the coach, responds: "He says he can partner with me to help me seek out the opportunities that match what I'm really looking for, and stay motivated while I'm looking." A much more likely response from the friend now is: "Sounds like it could be helpful. What's the coach's name?"
What the coach has done in the second case is sold to the client's bottom line. He has offered a result that not only the client, but her friend, seem willing to spend money on. He has also given her the language to explain his solution and justify the purchase to both her friend and herself. In fact, the nature of the work he ends up doing with this client may be exactly the same as it would have been when he offered her "passion." The difference is that the sale just got much easier.
The more concrete you can be about the results clients can expect, the more likely they are to buy. And the closer your offer is to a result that is already in their budget, the easier your sale becomes. When selling to organizations, these factors become even more critical. Every purchase has to be justified to a boss or a board, and if it's not in the budget, your sale may have to wait for next year.
One of my clients was marketing herself as a facilitator. In her sales pitch to corporate clients, she talked about her experience and produced glowing testimonials. But all her hard work produced only a few contracts. Then she began marketing her facilitation in the form of team-building retreats. All of a sudden, organizations that had no need for "facilitation" were eager for "team-building," and in some cases already had that need defined in their training budget.
The key to selling to your client's bottom line is knowing what that is. Ask the people in your target market not just what their problems and goals are, but where they have spent money in the past. A client who has worked with a massage therapist is a likely prospect for chiropractic. A company that has hired graphic designers is probably a good target for communications consulting. Get to know your market's spending habits and you will know better how to sell to them.
In every communication, talk about the specific results you deliver and the amount of value you provide. When you can assign an economic benefit to making a purchase, you increase the likelihood of a sale. This is why finding a new job sells better than finding passion, and helping a company make teams more productive attracts more buyers than helping them run a meeting. If clients believe you can either help them make money or save it, working with you can pay for itself.
When you are selling a product or service with no definable value -- for example, you can help to improve a person's quality of life or a company's work environment -- be aware that you may have a tougher sale than when your offer can be translated into currency. Look for how you can describe your value in the most tangible terms possible, and be prepared to spend some time educating your customers before they will become willing to buy.
Selling to the bottom line may require no changes at all to what you do, just a change to how you talk about it. "Nice-to-have" products and services may generate interest, but "got-to-have" ones generate sales.
About The Author
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now! Thousands of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You'll Ever Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Lost in Translation: It Takes More Than a Currency Converter to Sell Successfully Overseas
By - Julia Hyde
<)))
Given the ease in which technology handles fulfillment and currency conversion between countries, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all it takes is the virtual press of a button and you're able to sell your products or services overseas.
But nothing's ever that simple.
As Nike discovered when it launched its "Air" line of shoes back in 1996, marketing your products to a foreign market, is not only complicated but can land you in big (and potentially expensive) trouble.
The Nike shoes in question sported a logo that was meant to suggest a flame. But, what Muslim consumers saw was a shape that suggested the Arabic-script spelling of Allah. To add insult to injury, the shape was close to the sole of the foot - an area of the body considered unclean in Arabic culture.
Of course, after a brief boycott by Muslims, Nike made amends -- apart from removing the offending logo and apologizing profusely, they donated $50,000 for a playground at an Islamic school. Nike learned the hard way that before you market products or services abroad, you first need to brush up on your knowledge of local customs and cultures.
This is especially true if you're planning to open a website in a foreign market where the temptation may be to duplicate your successful U.S. site and set it up abroad. But a marketing campaign style that works well in the U.S. may be lost in translation overseas and could even cause considerable offense to your intended customers.
So while the Internet may appear to make it easier to tap into international markets, launching a website in a foreign country is fraught with difficulties.
But let's suppose you get it all figured out - culture, logistics, delivery, each country's individual business rules, customs and on...and on...and on.
And let's suppose you're ready to press that button and venture into foreign territory when you start to wonder how consumers will find your website in the search engine results of the geographic area you are targeting?
Huh?
OK. Let's put that another way.
If your company is based in the U.S. and you have a website with a .com domain extension, how can you make sure your website pages show up for relevant keyword searches in the geo-specific search engine results in, say, the U.K, (google.co.uk) Ireland (google.ie) or Canada (google.ca)?
Hmm...
Of course, the logical solution would be to have three different sites with three different country specific domain extensions each targeted to the market they're trying to serve. For example, you'd have your original .mysite.com, then a separate mysite.co.uk, mysite.ie, and mysite.ca.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Ur...well not necessarily. Remember we're dealing with search engines here!
Putting aside the additional costs you'll incur by having three or more websites selling the same products or services, country-specific domain names may not work well for you for the following reasons:
1. IP Address Location.
Google uses the hosting IP address and not the domain extension to determine a website's location (don't ask!) So, unless you host your .co.uk website in the U.K., your .ca website in Canada and your .ie website in Ireland, you don't stand a chance of ranking in Google's country-specific search results.
Google is the only search engine to use IP address location in this way. As far as I know, it is possible to get a .com domain extension associated with a different country in Yahoo and MSN as long as the site has country-specific links pointing to it.
2. Non-country specific .com
Most international companies want a .com domain -- .com domains, along with .org and .net are non-country-specific and stand for commercial, organization and network in that order.
3. Geo-specific domain extensions
It can be difficult to purchase a domain name with a country-specific extension unless your company is incorporated in that country or you are a citizen there. For example, Canada's .ca extension can only be assigned to Canadian companies or Canadian citizens.
4. Duplicate content
And then there's the duplicate content issue. Will your sites be penalized (or filtered) if you have three sites, in three countries, each with identical content? Probably.
So, what do you do?
I'd love to be able to tell you there's some magical workaround that will achieve success in the country-specific search results, (especially Google) but that's not the case.
And while there are things you can do that will help, the only real solution -- until the search engines address the problem -- is to bite the bullet, purchase country-specific domain name extensions if possible, (remember some countries only allow you to purchase their country-specific domain if you are a citizen of that country or your company is incorporated there) and build each site with different content on each targeting cultural and language differences associated with each country. Then host each domain in the country it belongs to and build country-specific incoming links to each site.
That's it.
So given all the difficulties you'll encounter is it really worth trying to market your products and services overseas?
If you have the time (and the money) to manage and develop an international website or two, then the answer is most definitely yes. Just don't expect to press a virtual button, sit back and watch the sales roll in!
About the Author
Julia Hyde is an advertising copywriter and consultant specializing in search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and traditional advertising. She's the founder of Creative Search Media, a full-service advertising and search engine marketing agency. You can contact Julia via her website at http://www.juliahyde.com/
<)))
Given the ease in which technology handles fulfillment and currency conversion between countries, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all it takes is the virtual press of a button and you're able to sell your products or services overseas.
But nothing's ever that simple.
As Nike discovered when it launched its "Air" line of shoes back in 1996, marketing your products to a foreign market, is not only complicated but can land you in big (and potentially expensive) trouble.
The Nike shoes in question sported a logo that was meant to suggest a flame. But, what Muslim consumers saw was a shape that suggested the Arabic-script spelling of Allah. To add insult to injury, the shape was close to the sole of the foot - an area of the body considered unclean in Arabic culture.
Of course, after a brief boycott by Muslims, Nike made amends -- apart from removing the offending logo and apologizing profusely, they donated $50,000 for a playground at an Islamic school. Nike learned the hard way that before you market products or services abroad, you first need to brush up on your knowledge of local customs and cultures.
This is especially true if you're planning to open a website in a foreign market where the temptation may be to duplicate your successful U.S. site and set it up abroad. But a marketing campaign style that works well in the U.S. may be lost in translation overseas and could even cause considerable offense to your intended customers.
So while the Internet may appear to make it easier to tap into international markets, launching a website in a foreign country is fraught with difficulties.
But let's suppose you get it all figured out - culture, logistics, delivery, each country's individual business rules, customs and on...and on...and on.
And let's suppose you're ready to press that button and venture into foreign territory when you start to wonder how consumers will find your website in the search engine results of the geographic area you are targeting?
Huh?
OK. Let's put that another way.
If your company is based in the U.S. and you have a website with a .com domain extension, how can you make sure your website pages show up for relevant keyword searches in the geo-specific search engine results in, say, the U.K, (google.co.uk) Ireland (google.ie) or Canada (google.ca)?
Hmm...
Of course, the logical solution would be to have three different sites with three different country specific domain extensions each targeted to the market they're trying to serve. For example, you'd have your original .mysite.com, then a separate mysite.co.uk, mysite.ie, and mysite.ca.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Ur...well not necessarily. Remember we're dealing with search engines here!
Putting aside the additional costs you'll incur by having three or more websites selling the same products or services, country-specific domain names may not work well for you for the following reasons:
1. IP Address Location.
Google uses the hosting IP address and not the domain extension to determine a website's location (don't ask!) So, unless you host your .co.uk website in the U.K., your .ca website in Canada and your .ie website in Ireland, you don't stand a chance of ranking in Google's country-specific search results.
Google is the only search engine to use IP address location in this way. As far as I know, it is possible to get a .com domain extension associated with a different country in Yahoo and MSN as long as the site has country-specific links pointing to it.
2. Non-country specific .com
Most international companies want a .com domain -- .com domains, along with .org and .net are non-country-specific and stand for commercial, organization and network in that order.
3. Geo-specific domain extensions
It can be difficult to purchase a domain name with a country-specific extension unless your company is incorporated in that country or you are a citizen there. For example, Canada's .ca extension can only be assigned to Canadian companies or Canadian citizens.
4. Duplicate content
And then there's the duplicate content issue. Will your sites be penalized (or filtered) if you have three sites, in three countries, each with identical content? Probably.
So, what do you do?
I'd love to be able to tell you there's some magical workaround that will achieve success in the country-specific search results, (especially Google) but that's not the case.
And while there are things you can do that will help, the only real solution -- until the search engines address the problem -- is to bite the bullet, purchase country-specific domain name extensions if possible, (remember some countries only allow you to purchase their country-specific domain if you are a citizen of that country or your company is incorporated there) and build each site with different content on each targeting cultural and language differences associated with each country. Then host each domain in the country it belongs to and build country-specific incoming links to each site.
That's it.
So given all the difficulties you'll encounter is it really worth trying to market your products and services overseas?
If you have the time (and the money) to manage and develop an international website or two, then the answer is most definitely yes. Just don't expect to press a virtual button, sit back and watch the sales roll in!
About the Author
Julia Hyde is an advertising copywriter and consultant specializing in search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and traditional advertising. She's the founder of Creative Search Media, a full-service advertising and search engine marketing agency. You can contact Julia via her website at http://www.juliahyde.com/
Friday, May 18, 2007
How to Setup a Wireless Merchant Account
By - Caitlina Fuller
<)))
A wireless merchant account can really help your business run as smoothly as possible. While this wasn't an option in the past, you can now accept payments wirelessly to make payments as convenient as possible for both you and your clients. Setting up your merchant service can be very simple if you follow just a few simple tips. Going wireless will open a whole new world of opportunities for your ecommerce business because you can accept credit cards online any time including online, at a trade show, or even out of your car or home office. You will have no limits as to how and where you can make money, which can supplement the money you make online.
One of the most important things to think about when looking for an Internet merchant account is the relevancy of the product or service that you are buying. As you probably know, computers and many other devices are extinct by the time they hit the market. You may want to avoid wireless credit card process known as CDPD as this is going the way of the dinosaurs and will not provide you with the service that you need for very long. Going with an older service or extinct service provider will limit what you can do as when, and may also limit the success of your clients transactions. When purchasing a wireless merchant account credit card service you want the most mobility possible.
When setting up your Internet merchant account you will first want to choose a company that will provide you with the coverage that you need. Generally all companies provide good coverage, but you want to work with a company that favors your area. Companies can provide you with maps so you are sure to choose the one that benefits you most. When you do this remember that most banks actually outsource their merchant accounts, so you can save time by bypassing the bank and simply going to the merchant account service provider.
The most important thing you can do when setting up an Internet merchant account is to plan ahead for the setup. If you need the merchant service up and running by a certain date you won't want to wait until the last minute. Sometimes it takes awhile to get these accounts set up do to fraud that often takes place on the service, so give yourself plenty of time to get the account set up to avoid the stress. You should also be prepared to pay deposits and meet the demands of the merchant account service that may require a lot of proof about who you are and what your business is.
About the Author
Caitlina Fuller is a freelance writer.
<)))
A wireless merchant account can really help your business run as smoothly as possible. While this wasn't an option in the past, you can now accept payments wirelessly to make payments as convenient as possible for both you and your clients. Setting up your merchant service can be very simple if you follow just a few simple tips. Going wireless will open a whole new world of opportunities for your ecommerce business because you can accept credit cards online any time including online, at a trade show, or even out of your car or home office. You will have no limits as to how and where you can make money, which can supplement the money you make online.
One of the most important things to think about when looking for an Internet merchant account is the relevancy of the product or service that you are buying. As you probably know, computers and many other devices are extinct by the time they hit the market. You may want to avoid wireless credit card process known as CDPD as this is going the way of the dinosaurs and will not provide you with the service that you need for very long. Going with an older service or extinct service provider will limit what you can do as when, and may also limit the success of your clients transactions. When purchasing a wireless merchant account credit card service you want the most mobility possible.
When setting up your Internet merchant account you will first want to choose a company that will provide you with the coverage that you need. Generally all companies provide good coverage, but you want to work with a company that favors your area. Companies can provide you with maps so you are sure to choose the one that benefits you most. When you do this remember that most banks actually outsource their merchant accounts, so you can save time by bypassing the bank and simply going to the merchant account service provider.
The most important thing you can do when setting up an Internet merchant account is to plan ahead for the setup. If you need the merchant service up and running by a certain date you won't want to wait until the last minute. Sometimes it takes awhile to get these accounts set up do to fraud that often takes place on the service, so give yourself plenty of time to get the account set up to avoid the stress. You should also be prepared to pay deposits and meet the demands of the merchant account service that may require a lot of proof about who you are and what your business is.
About the Author
Caitlina Fuller is a freelance writer.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Learn How Viral Marketing Could Be The Most Powerful Traffic Generation Tool In Your Arsenal!
By - Cedric Licuanan
<)))
What is 'Viral Marketing'?
Well Viral Marketing is a buzz phrase that refers to the promotion of a company's message by promoting their products or services 'like a virus'.
When you think of the term 'viral' it probably disturbs you somewhat. Personally when I first heard the term 'Viral Marketing', I literally thought it was some new piece of 'software' that blasts your offer to a million people. I automatically judged it as a 'risky' strategy from which no one would ever benefit.
Boy was I wrong!
What I did not realize back then was that I was already a prime example of viral marketing - and I didn't even know it.
I didn't even realize that I was ALREADY using viral marketing as I was first introduced to a 'free email service' called Hotmail by a college buddy back in 1996. As I started using it, my other internet colleagues took notice and started utilizing the service themselves as well!
What's more, it kept growing and growing and growing.
So by late 1997 I noticed that almost ALL of my colleagues, friends, family, even co-workers were 'buzzing' about 'free Hotmail email'. Subsequently this was happening all over the entire country, and all over the world in the months ahead.
And we didn't even realize it was happening.....
There were no TV commercials, radio spots, or newspaper articles I can remember about Hotmail or free email.
No advertising whatsoever other than the FREE viral 'word-of-mouth' that subsequently created a MASSIVE EXPLOSION of Hotmail's business and services.
So the bottom line is this:
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE POWER OF VIRAL MARKETING!!
Just to let you know, if you are not currently using viral marketing in your business, just be aware that you are leaving an incredible amount of sales and profit on the table untouched. Remember, Viral Marketing is POWERFUL!!! Take full advantage of the power of viral marketing!
If you are curious as to an example of the sheer power of viral marketing, read on about 'The Power Of 2'.
The Power of 2!
With regard to Viral Marketing, I did the math....
If you had a website to promote and you gave that site to just 2 people at lunch time around Noon, and subsequently those people gave the site to 2 people each an hour later, and so on - by 4pm about 30 people would have seen the site, not too bad.
Assuming that each person decides to take just 1 hour to refer only 2 of their colleagues to your website - by 8pm about 510 people would see your site, and by midnight a whopping 8000 people would theoreticially see your site! This was accomplished WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME!
I know this only occurs in a perfect world, but these numbers are achieved by everybody only forwarding the site to just 2 people each. Not too shabby.
Also imagine that the people who visited your site were targeted visitors - in other words, they were not just visitors from the general populace, but instead they were visitors that fit the exact profile of a person that would want what your website has to offer.
The simple prospect of having 8000 targeted visitors to your site in a 12-hour time frame usually excites most webmasters - and this is all accomplished with the 'power of 2'!
Let's try to analyze this together: The numbers are staggering for a complete 24-hour time frame, but for the sake of simplicity let's just stick with the 8000 targeted visitors in the 12-hour time frame scenario.
Imagine if out of those 8000 targeted visitors, your website system was able to convert 1% of those targeted visitors to actual sales.
1% of 8000 is 80 sales that day.
Let's say that whatever it is you're selling costs $37.
80 sales at $37 each comes out to a whopping $2960!! Pretty nice for one day!!
But let's get a little bit more realistic.
Let's say that you really did not get 8000 targeted visitors that day, instead we'll cut that figure in half - to 4000 targeted visitors.
In addition, let's also cut down the sales conversion percentage in half - we'll go from 1% to 0.5%.
And finally let's cut down the price of your product from $37 to $17.
That means that a 0.5% conversion of 4000 targeted visitors equals 20 sales.
At $17 each, 20 sales would equal $340 that day. Still not too shabby for not spending a penny on advertising!
Don't forget that the average U.S. employee makes $50,000 a year in annual salary - after working for 12 months at 40-hrs a week, this boils down to a gross daily income of about $208!
So as you can see as an Internet Marketer, it is in your best interest to learn to do everything you can to take full advantage of the power of viral marketing.
Learn How To Maximize The Power of Your Warm Market!
One amazing way to create an avalanche of free traffic to your website involves the creation of a website that your warm market would visit frequently.
The common theme amongst most family, social and coworker groups involves entertainment. Most 'outside of work' topics of conversation at work involve fun, leisure, comedy, humor, live entertainment, movies, music concerts, sporting events, etc.
When you create a small fun website for your peers, family and friends (preferably a blog as mentioned above) that is full of content that would compel them to visit time and time again, you are realizing the EASE and FUN of one of the greatest business skills in this century - driving targeted traffic to a website!
For example you can create a website that showcases funny jokes or pictures that make your friends and family laugh and smile.
Why would you want to do this?
As your friends and family start forwarding your website or emails to others, maybe people who you don't even personally know (as described by the power of Viral Marketing above), a good portion of these people may click on your link that directs them to your website showcasing what you have to offer by way of your products or services!
If you're looking for a FUN way to promote your products and services, this is it!
The New Social Network Trend!
Here's ANOTHER fun viral marketing idea: Did you know that social networking websites like MySpace.com and Ryze.com are one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web? Did you also know that MySpace offers a section where members trade-swap and cross-promote their products and services to each other?
MySpace offers you a way to actually promote your products and services through your website link on your MySpace profile. This way your WHOLE LIST of MySpace contacts or 'friends' are able to be exposed to your offer!
Why not give it a shot? If by chance you make that ONE contact that you meet on MySpace that helps you revolutionize your internet business, wouldn't it be COMPLETELY worth it?
Click below to enter the MySpace world, drive traffic to your website, and have fun!
http://www.MySpace.com
Your Action Step for driving massive amounts of targeted traffic to your website using viral marketing TODAY! Brainstorm and create your first viral marketing campaign - even if it's simply sending out a fun and informative email to your closest colleagues, or simply forwarding jokes with your new Forum/Marketing signature on the bottom, to maybe even creating your own fun entertainment website for all your colleagues to enjoy! (Don't forget to include your product or service website link as well!!)
About the Author
Cedric Licuanan is a thriving Chicago-Based Internet Marketer. He has focused on helping people achieve what they want out of life and currently maintains several success-driven websites.
Learn How to Drive Massive Amounts of Targeted Traffic to Your Website! http://www.DynamicOnlineSuccess.com
http://www.dynamic-wealth.info/
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What is 'Viral Marketing'?
Well Viral Marketing is a buzz phrase that refers to the promotion of a company's message by promoting their products or services 'like a virus'.
When you think of the term 'viral' it probably disturbs you somewhat. Personally when I first heard the term 'Viral Marketing', I literally thought it was some new piece of 'software' that blasts your offer to a million people. I automatically judged it as a 'risky' strategy from which no one would ever benefit.
Boy was I wrong!
What I did not realize back then was that I was already a prime example of viral marketing - and I didn't even know it.
I didn't even realize that I was ALREADY using viral marketing as I was first introduced to a 'free email service' called Hotmail by a college buddy back in 1996. As I started using it, my other internet colleagues took notice and started utilizing the service themselves as well!
What's more, it kept growing and growing and growing.
So by late 1997 I noticed that almost ALL of my colleagues, friends, family, even co-workers were 'buzzing' about 'free Hotmail email'. Subsequently this was happening all over the entire country, and all over the world in the months ahead.
And we didn't even realize it was happening.....
There were no TV commercials, radio spots, or newspaper articles I can remember about Hotmail or free email.
No advertising whatsoever other than the FREE viral 'word-of-mouth' that subsequently created a MASSIVE EXPLOSION of Hotmail's business and services.
So the bottom line is this:
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE POWER OF VIRAL MARKETING!!
Just to let you know, if you are not currently using viral marketing in your business, just be aware that you are leaving an incredible amount of sales and profit on the table untouched. Remember, Viral Marketing is POWERFUL!!! Take full advantage of the power of viral marketing!
If you are curious as to an example of the sheer power of viral marketing, read on about 'The Power Of 2'.
The Power of 2!
With regard to Viral Marketing, I did the math....
If you had a website to promote and you gave that site to just 2 people at lunch time around Noon, and subsequently those people gave the site to 2 people each an hour later, and so on - by 4pm about 30 people would have seen the site, not too bad.
Assuming that each person decides to take just 1 hour to refer only 2 of their colleagues to your website - by 8pm about 510 people would see your site, and by midnight a whopping 8000 people would theoreticially see your site! This was accomplished WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME!
I know this only occurs in a perfect world, but these numbers are achieved by everybody only forwarding the site to just 2 people each. Not too shabby.
Also imagine that the people who visited your site were targeted visitors - in other words, they were not just visitors from the general populace, but instead they were visitors that fit the exact profile of a person that would want what your website has to offer.
The simple prospect of having 8000 targeted visitors to your site in a 12-hour time frame usually excites most webmasters - and this is all accomplished with the 'power of 2'!
Let's try to analyze this together: The numbers are staggering for a complete 24-hour time frame, but for the sake of simplicity let's just stick with the 8000 targeted visitors in the 12-hour time frame scenario.
Imagine if out of those 8000 targeted visitors, your website system was able to convert 1% of those targeted visitors to actual sales.
1% of 8000 is 80 sales that day.
Let's say that whatever it is you're selling costs $37.
80 sales at $37 each comes out to a whopping $2960!! Pretty nice for one day!!
But let's get a little bit more realistic.
Let's say that you really did not get 8000 targeted visitors that day, instead we'll cut that figure in half - to 4000 targeted visitors.
In addition, let's also cut down the sales conversion percentage in half - we'll go from 1% to 0.5%.
And finally let's cut down the price of your product from $37 to $17.
That means that a 0.5% conversion of 4000 targeted visitors equals 20 sales.
At $17 each, 20 sales would equal $340 that day. Still not too shabby for not spending a penny on advertising!
Don't forget that the average U.S. employee makes $50,000 a year in annual salary - after working for 12 months at 40-hrs a week, this boils down to a gross daily income of about $208!
So as you can see as an Internet Marketer, it is in your best interest to learn to do everything you can to take full advantage of the power of viral marketing.
Learn How To Maximize The Power of Your Warm Market!
One amazing way to create an avalanche of free traffic to your website involves the creation of a website that your warm market would visit frequently.
The common theme amongst most family, social and coworker groups involves entertainment. Most 'outside of work' topics of conversation at work involve fun, leisure, comedy, humor, live entertainment, movies, music concerts, sporting events, etc.
When you create a small fun website for your peers, family and friends (preferably a blog as mentioned above) that is full of content that would compel them to visit time and time again, you are realizing the EASE and FUN of one of the greatest business skills in this century - driving targeted traffic to a website!
For example you can create a website that showcases funny jokes or pictures that make your friends and family laugh and smile.
Why would you want to do this?
As your friends and family start forwarding your website or emails to others, maybe people who you don't even personally know (as described by the power of Viral Marketing above), a good portion of these people may click on your link that directs them to your website showcasing what you have to offer by way of your products or services!
If you're looking for a FUN way to promote your products and services, this is it!
The New Social Network Trend!
Here's ANOTHER fun viral marketing idea: Did you know that social networking websites like MySpace.com and Ryze.com are one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web? Did you also know that MySpace offers a section where members trade-swap and cross-promote their products and services to each other?
MySpace offers you a way to actually promote your products and services through your website link on your MySpace profile. This way your WHOLE LIST of MySpace contacts or 'friends' are able to be exposed to your offer!
Why not give it a shot? If by chance you make that ONE contact that you meet on MySpace that helps you revolutionize your internet business, wouldn't it be COMPLETELY worth it?
Click below to enter the MySpace world, drive traffic to your website, and have fun!
http://www.MySpace.com
Your Action Step for driving massive amounts of targeted traffic to your website using viral marketing TODAY! Brainstorm and create your first viral marketing campaign - even if it's simply sending out a fun and informative email to your closest colleagues, or simply forwarding jokes with your new Forum/Marketing signature on the bottom, to maybe even creating your own fun entertainment website for all your colleagues to enjoy! (Don't forget to include your product or service website link as well!!)
About the Author
Cedric Licuanan is a thriving Chicago-Based Internet Marketer. He has focused on helping people achieve what they want out of life and currently maintains several success-driven websites.
Learn How to Drive Massive Amounts of Targeted Traffic to Your Website! http://www.DynamicOnlineSuccess.com
http://www.dynamic-wealth.info/
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