Lesson Objective:
Today you will:
· Make at least 3 forum / discussion board postings in response to other people’s
questions
· “Run your numbers” so far
· Catch up on any items you’ve overlooked or put off until now
Skills Needed:
· Basic Word Processing
· Basic Surfing
Part 1 – Make at least 3 forum / discussion board postings
Yesterday you picked out 10 to 30 active discussion boards or forums and today you are
going to post answers to people’s questions.
Today you will post at least three responses to demonstrate your knowledge as “the
expert” and you will do it in such a way that it will entice other people to come to your
site as a result.
Whenever you're answering a question you should use a compelling title for your post to
pull readers into your posting.
Most other posters will simply reply to the post so the original post's title appears as "Re:
Original Title" – not very exciting :-(
Take a look at a few examples and see which one of the posts you would read if you were
in a hurry:
· Ad Tracking Software
Mike xxxx - Saturday, 14 October 2003, at 5:41 p.m.
o Here's A Great Way...
Yanik Silver - Tuesday, 17 October 2003, at 9:14 p.m.
· What ONE book would you recommend
Donna - Friday, 20 October 2003, at 3:06 p.m.
o I've Read This One 7 Times...
Yanik Silver - Saturday, 21 October 2003, at 8:35 p.m.
$ Re: I've Read This One 7 Times...
Don - Sunday, 22 October 2003, at 4:56 p.m.
o Re: What ONE book would you recommend
Willie xxxx - Saturday, 21 October 2003, at 6:52 a.m.
o Re: What ONE book would you recommend
Tom xxxx - Friday, 20 October 2003, at 11:45 p.m.
Important Dos and Don’ts To Posting
I believe there are a few points you should keep in mind:
1. Obviously you shouldn’t ‘spam’ a board with your blatant advertisement. You
can’t just post to the board announcing your new product (unless you have
explicit permission from the board owner).
2. Don’t put your URL unless you’ve got something to contribute. I always like to
contribute something before I list my link. I won’t simply say something like “I
agree” and then give people my link. I don’t think that makes you look very good
to visitors of the board.
3. Also, whenever I post a question I will not put my link because that really isn’t a
contribution I’m making.
Using Your ‘Sig’ File
On some boards they don’t have an automatic way to add your URL or text link – in that
case you simply add your ‘sig’ file (or signature) at the bottom.
This is a simple way of promoting yourself ethically on the web. A sig file is just 4 or 5
lines that appears after your name on every email message you send out. This is VERY
similar to your resource box at the end of your ezine article.
Part 2 – Understanding and Analyzing your “critical numbers”
Your website stats are also referred to as your “critical numbers”.
Here’s why your stats are so important:
The Hidden Fortune in Your Website “Stats”
Most people never bother to look at the statistics program that comes with virtually every
website because few realize the gold mine of information it contains.
Your website statistics hold a key for understanding your traffic, improving sales and
increasing the overall effectiveness of your online selling.
Whether you realize it or not, your website has “critical numbers” that enable you to
measure the overall success of your Internet presence.
Any serious website operator should understand the four most important numbers:
· Hits
· Unique, Targeted Visitors
· Leads
· Sales
Hits - Hits are typically page views, whether by the same or different visitors, and they
indicate overall activity on the site.
A lot of hits shows activity (usually a good thing), but doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve
had a high number of actual visitors.
Search engine “spiders” snooping your pages and website surfers hitting their back
buttons also increase the hit count.
Research has shown that, depending on the size of your site, the ratio of hits to visitors
will range anywhere from 2 to 1 all the way up to 12 to 1.
Unique, Targeted Visitors - people surfing to your site who have not been there before
within a certain period of time.
Depending on the statistics program you use, a unique visitor may be someone who
hasn’t been to your site in a day or a week, while in other programs a visitor remains
unique until you reset the stats.
You must understand how your stats program classifies unique visitors so you don’t
mistakenly believe your site is getting 30 unique visitors a day only to find out it is the
same 30 people coming back day after day!
A “targeted” visitor means that the visitor has an interest in what you are selling or
promoting. This interest is usually demonstrated by keyword searches at a search engine
or by clicking targeted advertisements in ezines.
It does you no good to attract general traffic to your site – you want unique, targeted
visitors with a high level of interest your product or service.
Leads - a valid email address usually makes the best “lead” since people can and do give
fake names and phone numbers online.
If someone won’t give you a valid email address, chances are they won’t give you their
credit card to make a purchase either.
Email leads enable you to measure interest and to follow up with prospects.
Once you know the number of unique visitors to your site, you can calculate the
percentage of leads you develop and concentrate on ways to improve your sales
conversion by testing different offers and headlines.
Sales - the number of sales as compared to unique visitors represents your most critical
statistic because it tells you whether or not you’ve made a profit.
For every hundred visitors to your site, how many sales do you make and how much
money do you net?
Most failed dot-com’s in the late 1990’s never bothered to answer this simple question.
Selling on the web is a “numbers game” – learn how to make the numbers work for you!
Any potential JV partner who knows what they’re doing is going to want to know your
“numbers” so they can reasonably figure out how much money they’ll make if they work
with you.
Knowing your numbers ahead of time will make you look much more professional!
I keep track of my critical numbers every single day in a basic spreadsheet… that way I
can see how I’m doing day to day at a glance.
So right now go to your stats and figure out the following:
(If you need to, consult the help file for your stats or email your ISP if you have any
trouble reading your stats and understanding exactly what they mean.)
How many “hits” have you had in the last week?
Look in your stats program to see exactly what are “hits”. Are they individual
page views or something else?
This total number of “hits” helps you gauge overall activity on your site.
How many leads have you developed with your autoresponder in the last week?
Besides sales, adding targeted people to build your mailing list is the best thing
you can do online!
How many unique visitors have you had in the last week?
Let’s say for example you had 100 unique visitors in the last week.
How many sales did you make in the last week?
Let’s say for example you made 3 sales and you net $23 on each sale after hard
costs of producing and delivering the product.
Divide your number of sales by your number of unique visitors and this will give
your “sales conversion rate”.
3 sales / 100 unique visitors = 3% conversion rate
What this means is that for every 100 targeted visitors showing up to your site,
you sell 3 of them. A JV partner would be very interested in those types of
numbers!
Divide your net profits by the total number of unique visitors you’ve had in the
last week and this will give your “Visitor value”.
Let’s say your net profit on those three sales is $69 (3 sales x $23).
$69 net profit / 100 visitors = 69 cent visitor value.
What this means is that you can spend up to 69 cents to bring a targeted visitor to
your site and still make money.
Part 3 – Here’s what to do if your numbers are low
Since we’ve only been at this for a little over 2 weeks now and your Yahoo, Dmoz and
search engine listings haven’t even kicked in yet, your numbers probably aren’t very
high. However you could get numbers from your pay-per-click campaigns and some of
the others action items you’ve been doing.
Don’t get discouraged!
Our purpose today is more to get you used to looking at your “critical numbers” as it is to
actually start tracking results!
If your total number of visitors is low, here’s what you can do at this point:
· Increase your bid amounts at Overture.com and the other pay-per-click search
engines.
· Increase the total number of terms you’re bidding on with pay-per-click search
engines.
· Run another round of ezine ads (if the ones you placed on Day 15 have already
run)
If your total visitors seem fine, but your sales or your opt-in subscriber numbers are
low, here’s what you can do at this point:
Note: It’s best to run each of these changes in front of the same number of unique
visitors. Doing so allows you to compare your results and see what effect a specific
change has on your results.
Do NOT try all of these at the same time! Only make one change at a time to your sales
letter or you’ll never know what does and doesn’t work!
1. Test a different headline on your sales letter – you came up with 50 or more…
maybe it is time to try a different one.
2. Adjust your offer to include more benefits for the consumer. Do you focus on
their needs or is your sales letter all about you?
3. Add more bonuses. Sweeten the pot even further until no sane person could say
no.
4. Change your price up or down. Sometimes a different price point can get people
off the mark and make a purchase decision.
Summary of today’s assignments:
1. Post at least three responses to messages on active discussion boards.
2. Thoroughly analyze your “critical numbers” so you start getting in the habit of
looking at them daily.
3. Make adjustments to improve your “numbers” and your sales results.
Today’s Resources:
Forum Profits – This step-by-step guide will teach exactly how to bring in more traffic
and more subscribers using free forums (without getting flamed).
Showing posts with label google adsense tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google adsense tips. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Day 14 (Sunday) - Ezine Marketing
Lesson Objective:
To start researching ezines targeting your niche market, identify 50 you can submit
articles to and 5 ezines where you can run an advertisement.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
NOTE: To save as much time as possible you should buy an email merge product
such as Group Mail.
Today’s Lesson:
Today, we’re going to start researching ezines for free publicity (you’ll be submitting
articles to them in a few days) and for buying advertising.
Ezines are those email newsletters you get in your inbox. At last count, I heard there were
something like 100,000 of them on all different topics.
As you are beginning your research, I suggest starting a simple spreadsheet with fields
like this:
Ezine name, editor’s name, editor’s email, circulations, advertising cost, accept articles
(Yes or No), comments
Now, here are some places you start your search for ezines – you’ll find most of these
directories are grouped by categories. (Though the paid ones are more extensive and
would be my recommendation if you can afford it):
Ezine Directory List:
John Labovitz's Ezine List (this one is good but it has not been updated past March 2000)
Top Ezine Ads (this one is really good but it costs a few bucks)
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines (this one is also really good but it costs a few bucks)
Directory of Ezines
Ezine-Universe
eZINESearch
Best Ezines
Today’s Assignment:
1. Find 20 – 50 Ezines that accept articles. You may need to email some of the ezine
editors asking if they accept articles. The paid directories will give you this
invaluable information.
2. Find 5 potential ezines you’d like to advertise in. Contact the editors for their
requirements. (Once again the paid ezine directories usually give you this
information.)
Today’s Resources:
Ezine Directories
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines
These are 2 important ezine directories that I use whenever I am looking for editors that
accept ezine articles or places to advertise in.
Email Merge Programs:
You’ll need to get some kind of email merge software so you can submit articles to ezine
editors or you can do it all yourself manually (if you have more time than money).
Group Mail - Group-mail is a mail merge software that works very well. I use it
personally and I’ve heard good things about it. It has both a free and paid version.
“Budget Cruncher”!
Email merge programs
Go to www.Downloads.com and look for free versions or free trials
of email merge software. Try searching for “email merge” first.
One that I found (which may or may not still be there as you check
this) is called G-Lock Easy Mail 4.0 – it is free to try and lets you do email merge. Plus
other nice features.
Submitting to Ezines
Your option here is simply to submit to each ezine by hand – there’s no way around it.
Almost “Halfway Point”
Summary
Lesson Objective:
As we head into what is approximately the second “half” of the “33 Days” program, lets
catch up on any assignments that have been overlooked or not quite finished.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Part 1 – Review
Before we move into the area of “surfing for ideas” and catching up on any unfinished
tasks, let’s review what we’ve done so far and put it all into perspective.
I think you’ll agree that we’ve covered a lot of ground quickly and you should feel proud
of yourself for making it this far! Give yourself a pat on the back!
Days 1 - 3
· You came up with your initial list of keywords, picked our Yahoo and Dmoz
categories and chose a domain name.
· You physically “set up shop” and obtained the tools for conducting business
online.
· You started the process of building our site by deciding on the “look and feel”
and designing a template page.
Day 4 - 6
· You began to write your sales letter and brainstormed headlines.
· You wrote out sales copy.
· You pulled the whole sales letter together into a powerful sales tool.
Day 7
· You added “meta-tags” and posted our site to our web hosting account.
· You created a folder in your web browser called “Possible JV Partners”.
· You found a number of sites to potentially partner with later.
Day 8-9
· You created your autoresponder sequence and installed it on our website.
Day 10
· You started laying the groundwork for getting traffic to your site with pay-
per-click search engines.
· You also focused and refined your list of keywords.
Day 11
· You finalized your sales letter and wrote better titles and descriptions for your
pay-per-click search engine links.
Day 12
· You submitted your site to Yahoo, Dmoz and the major search engines.
Day 13
· You identified 50 ezines to submit articles and 5 ezines to buy advertising.
You also obtained an email merge product such as Mail King.
And here we are on Day 14… see how much you have accomplished!
You should feel really good right now that you have come so far so fast.
Let’s keep the momentum going!
Part 2 – Surf for Ideas
“Surfing for ideas” is a technique I got from Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla
Marketing series of books.
A simple yet powerful technique, surfing for ideas means you start out in the search
engines, ezines, links pages, classified ads or anywhere else searching for your most
popular keyword phrases and click on other people’s sites.
Your purpose is to stay on top of what other people are doing online so you don’t miss
any trends on generating traffic, converting site visitors to leads, sales and more.
When you surf for ideas you should:
· Look for new and exciting ways other site owners are using technology –
especially readily available technology such as auto-responders, popup
windows and simple java scripts.
· Look for offers that get you excited and could get your customers excited too
– then sign up for their affiliate program. These items usually make for
excellent endorsed mailings to your list.
· Watch for offers you could use to “up-sell” to your customers right at the
point of purchase.
· See who your competitors link to – and who links to them! This can open a
whole new world for you in terms of finding potential joint venture partners
and uncovering new sources of targeted traffic to your site.
· Anywhere you see a competitor with a productive link, you should try to get a
link too – especially if you can get the link for free or on a per-sale basis.
· Open your mind to how other people are doing things and ask yourself how
what you see could help you improve your site and business.
Immediately implement any worthwhile ideas you pick up.
DO NOT WAIT! ACT on what you see immediately!
Part 3 – Catch Up
The last assignment for today is to look back over the last couple of weeks and fill in any
gaps in your activities.
Do you need to write something?
Do you need to tweak something?
Do you need to totally re-do something?
Today is the day to catch up so you can start fresh tomorrow.
Summary of “Halfway Point” Assignments:
1. “Surf for ideas”
2. Implement what you learn from your idea surfing session.
3. Catch up on any tasks or items you may not have finished yet.
Today’s Resources:
See the Resource Article “3 Secrets to ‘Striking it Rich’ in Cyberspace” on
the next page.
3 Secrets to “Striking it Rich” in Cyberspace
In the few seconds it takes you to read this sentence, another domain name gets registered at
www.NetworkSolutions.com, the Internet’s oldest and largest domain name registrar.
Everyone from industrial giants to corner flower shops currently wants to stake a profitable
claim in cyberspace.
The lure of low startup costs compared to brick-and-mortar operations and the promise of
high rewards draws an ever-swelling crowd of merchants to the online marketplace.
People from all over the country ask me what it takes to succeed in the e-commerce world
once they’ve completed the basic steps for getting online.
The following three keys virtually guarantee success for any online enterprise.
The First Key:
A Quality product or service with highly evident and readily understood benefits for
consumers.
If your product or service does not represent the highest quality and value possible, and if
consumers don’t understand exactly why they should buy from you, the speed of the Internet
will just expose your shortcomings to the marketplace that much quicker.
In the offline world a product's benefits, not the features, cause consumers to make buying
decisions.
A man doesn't buy a car with a 5-liter engine because of the horsepower, he buys it for the
feeling of supremacy and control he thinks it will give him.
Kids don't want a fast computer for the computing power in doing homework, they want to
play the latest games.
The Internet magnifies this "what's in it for me" benefits-driven evaluation by consumers.
Products or services presented with readily understood, self-serving benefits for consumers
sell best online (and off).
The Second Key:
An excellent website that loads fast, provides pertinent information to targeted consumers,
and allows them to make online purchases quickly and securely.
Your website should:
· Load fast by making conservative use of graphics. (Go to yahoo.com for an excellent
example of a site that uses very few graphics.)
· Provide exactly the information your potential customers want and need.
· Make it extremely easy for surfers to navigate your site and find exactly what they
want.
· Look good on both the Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers at various
screen resolutions (640x480, 800x600, etc.).
The Third Key:
Consistent, targeted website traffic by consumers capable of buying your product or
service.
Imagine buying a 50-foot billboard and, instead of putting it out by the highway, you hid it in
your basement. Nobody would see it!
The same thing happens if you don’t actively and continuously promote your website to
attract visitors.
With its incredible speed and communications power, the Internet acts as a magnifying glass
for any organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
E-commerce, e-mail, and a website by themselves -- without intelligent input from
you -- won't do the job of marketing, selling, and customer service for any company.
When used properly, however, they will help every organization perform all of those
business functions better, faster, and less expensively with the real and tangible result of
“striking it rich” in cyberspace!
Source: www.thenetreporter.com
To start researching ezines targeting your niche market, identify 50 you can submit
articles to and 5 ezines where you can run an advertisement.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
NOTE: To save as much time as possible you should buy an email merge product
such as Group Mail.
Today’s Lesson:
Today, we’re going to start researching ezines for free publicity (you’ll be submitting
articles to them in a few days) and for buying advertising.
Ezines are those email newsletters you get in your inbox. At last count, I heard there were
something like 100,000 of them on all different topics.
As you are beginning your research, I suggest starting a simple spreadsheet with fields
like this:
Ezine name, editor’s name, editor’s email, circulations, advertising cost, accept articles
(Yes or No), comments
Now, here are some places you start your search for ezines – you’ll find most of these
directories are grouped by categories. (Though the paid ones are more extensive and
would be my recommendation if you can afford it):
Ezine Directory List:
John Labovitz's Ezine List (this one is good but it has not been updated past March 2000)
Top Ezine Ads (this one is really good but it costs a few bucks)
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines (this one is also really good but it costs a few bucks)
Directory of Ezines
Ezine-Universe
eZINESearch
Best Ezines
Today’s Assignment:
1. Find 20 – 50 Ezines that accept articles. You may need to email some of the ezine
editors asking if they accept articles. The paid directories will give you this
invaluable information.
2. Find 5 potential ezines you’d like to advertise in. Contact the editors for their
requirements. (Once again the paid ezine directories usually give you this
information.)
Today’s Resources:
Ezine Directories
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines
These are 2 important ezine directories that I use whenever I am looking for editors that
accept ezine articles or places to advertise in.
Email Merge Programs:
You’ll need to get some kind of email merge software so you can submit articles to ezine
editors or you can do it all yourself manually (if you have more time than money).
Group Mail - Group-mail is a mail merge software that works very well. I use it
personally and I’ve heard good things about it. It has both a free and paid version.
“Budget Cruncher”!
Email merge programs
Go to www.Downloads.com and look for free versions or free trials
of email merge software. Try searching for “email merge” first.
One that I found (which may or may not still be there as you check
this) is called G-Lock Easy Mail 4.0 – it is free to try and lets you do email merge. Plus
other nice features.
Submitting to Ezines
Your option here is simply to submit to each ezine by hand – there’s no way around it.
Almost “Halfway Point”
Summary
Lesson Objective:
As we head into what is approximately the second “half” of the “33 Days” program, lets
catch up on any assignments that have been overlooked or not quite finished.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Part 1 – Review
Before we move into the area of “surfing for ideas” and catching up on any unfinished
tasks, let’s review what we’ve done so far and put it all into perspective.
I think you’ll agree that we’ve covered a lot of ground quickly and you should feel proud
of yourself for making it this far! Give yourself a pat on the back!
Days 1 - 3
· You came up with your initial list of keywords, picked our Yahoo and Dmoz
categories and chose a domain name.
· You physically “set up shop” and obtained the tools for conducting business
online.
· You started the process of building our site by deciding on the “look and feel”
and designing a template page.
Day 4 - 6
· You began to write your sales letter and brainstormed headlines.
· You wrote out sales copy.
· You pulled the whole sales letter together into a powerful sales tool.
Day 7
· You added “meta-tags” and posted our site to our web hosting account.
· You created a folder in your web browser called “Possible JV Partners”.
· You found a number of sites to potentially partner with later.
Day 8-9
· You created your autoresponder sequence and installed it on our website.
Day 10
· You started laying the groundwork for getting traffic to your site with pay-
per-click search engines.
· You also focused and refined your list of keywords.
Day 11
· You finalized your sales letter and wrote better titles and descriptions for your
pay-per-click search engine links.
Day 12
· You submitted your site to Yahoo, Dmoz and the major search engines.
Day 13
· You identified 50 ezines to submit articles and 5 ezines to buy advertising.
You also obtained an email merge product such as Mail King.
And here we are on Day 14… see how much you have accomplished!
You should feel really good right now that you have come so far so fast.
Let’s keep the momentum going!
Part 2 – Surf for Ideas
“Surfing for ideas” is a technique I got from Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla
Marketing series of books.
A simple yet powerful technique, surfing for ideas means you start out in the search
engines, ezines, links pages, classified ads or anywhere else searching for your most
popular keyword phrases and click on other people’s sites.
Your purpose is to stay on top of what other people are doing online so you don’t miss
any trends on generating traffic, converting site visitors to leads, sales and more.
When you surf for ideas you should:
· Look for new and exciting ways other site owners are using technology –
especially readily available technology such as auto-responders, popup
windows and simple java scripts.
· Look for offers that get you excited and could get your customers excited too
– then sign up for their affiliate program. These items usually make for
excellent endorsed mailings to your list.
· Watch for offers you could use to “up-sell” to your customers right at the
point of purchase.
· See who your competitors link to – and who links to them! This can open a
whole new world for you in terms of finding potential joint venture partners
and uncovering new sources of targeted traffic to your site.
· Anywhere you see a competitor with a productive link, you should try to get a
link too – especially if you can get the link for free or on a per-sale basis.
· Open your mind to how other people are doing things and ask yourself how
what you see could help you improve your site and business.
Immediately implement any worthwhile ideas you pick up.
DO NOT WAIT! ACT on what you see immediately!
Part 3 – Catch Up
The last assignment for today is to look back over the last couple of weeks and fill in any
gaps in your activities.
Do you need to write something?
Do you need to tweak something?
Do you need to totally re-do something?
Today is the day to catch up so you can start fresh tomorrow.
Summary of “Halfway Point” Assignments:
1. “Surf for ideas”
2. Implement what you learn from your idea surfing session.
3. Catch up on any tasks or items you may not have finished yet.
Today’s Resources:
See the Resource Article “3 Secrets to ‘Striking it Rich’ in Cyberspace” on
the next page.
3 Secrets to “Striking it Rich” in Cyberspace
In the few seconds it takes you to read this sentence, another domain name gets registered at
www.NetworkSolutions.com, the Internet’s oldest and largest domain name registrar.
Everyone from industrial giants to corner flower shops currently wants to stake a profitable
claim in cyberspace.
The lure of low startup costs compared to brick-and-mortar operations and the promise of
high rewards draws an ever-swelling crowd of merchants to the online marketplace.
People from all over the country ask me what it takes to succeed in the e-commerce world
once they’ve completed the basic steps for getting online.
The following three keys virtually guarantee success for any online enterprise.
The First Key:
A Quality product or service with highly evident and readily understood benefits for
consumers.
If your product or service does not represent the highest quality and value possible, and if
consumers don’t understand exactly why they should buy from you, the speed of the Internet
will just expose your shortcomings to the marketplace that much quicker.
In the offline world a product's benefits, not the features, cause consumers to make buying
decisions.
A man doesn't buy a car with a 5-liter engine because of the horsepower, he buys it for the
feeling of supremacy and control he thinks it will give him.
Kids don't want a fast computer for the computing power in doing homework, they want to
play the latest games.
The Internet magnifies this "what's in it for me" benefits-driven evaluation by consumers.
Products or services presented with readily understood, self-serving benefits for consumers
sell best online (and off).
The Second Key:
An excellent website that loads fast, provides pertinent information to targeted consumers,
and allows them to make online purchases quickly and securely.
Your website should:
· Load fast by making conservative use of graphics. (Go to yahoo.com for an excellent
example of a site that uses very few graphics.)
· Provide exactly the information your potential customers want and need.
· Make it extremely easy for surfers to navigate your site and find exactly what they
want.
· Look good on both the Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers at various
screen resolutions (640x480, 800x600, etc.).
The Third Key:
Consistent, targeted website traffic by consumers capable of buying your product or
service.
Imagine buying a 50-foot billboard and, instead of putting it out by the highway, you hid it in
your basement. Nobody would see it!
The same thing happens if you don’t actively and continuously promote your website to
attract visitors.
With its incredible speed and communications power, the Internet acts as a magnifying glass
for any organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
E-commerce, e-mail, and a website by themselves -- without intelligent input from
you -- won't do the job of marketing, selling, and customer service for any company.
When used properly, however, they will help every organization perform all of those
business functions better, faster, and less expensively with the real and tangible result of
“striking it rich” in cyberspace!
Source: www.thenetreporter.com
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Article Submissions
There are many places online where you can submit a short (400-600
word) non-fiction article about something you know. This article could
be your first blog posting, it could be something you come up with just
to post on an article directory website, or it could be an article you
have someone else ghostwrite and then publish under your own name.
This is one time where having other people write for you probably isn’t
a bad thing. As long as the article is good and sound it really doesn’t
matter if it was written by you or a ghostwriter you hired to write it.
Submitting an article to an online article directory is free, simple, and
easy. Simply turn one of your blog posts into an article which can
stand alone, and then submit it to the article directory of your choice.
(Some popular ones are articlealley.com, contentdesk.com,
ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com.) There are also automated
submission programs you can use to submit your articles to many
article sites all at one time.
Attached to your article will be a “byline.” Your byline will contain
information about you and a link to your blogs and other websites.
You could have your byline read something like “Jane Smith is a
programmer by day and blogs on horses at night. See her amazing
programming website at www.iprogram.com and read her blog at
www.besthorseblog.com.” This example byline just created two back-
links for every time you publish the article; one to the programming
site and another to the horse blog. If you post this article five times
on the web you have ten back-links to your sites.
Also, many article sites allow you to publish non-exclusive rights
articles on their sites. This means that you are free to post the same
article on other article sites as well. Each time you submit the article
you build links to your site. In addition, other bloggers and
webmasters will link to these articles on their own relevant sites and
that creates even more links for your site as well. By submitting
articles to article directory websites you can build links easily to your
site to increase your search engine rankings.
word) non-fiction article about something you know. This article could
be your first blog posting, it could be something you come up with just
to post on an article directory website, or it could be an article you
have someone else ghostwrite and then publish under your own name.
This is one time where having other people write for you probably isn’t
a bad thing. As long as the article is good and sound it really doesn’t
matter if it was written by you or a ghostwriter you hired to write it.
Submitting an article to an online article directory is free, simple, and
easy. Simply turn one of your blog posts into an article which can
stand alone, and then submit it to the article directory of your choice.
(Some popular ones are articlealley.com, contentdesk.com,
ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com.) There are also automated
submission programs you can use to submit your articles to many
article sites all at one time.
Attached to your article will be a “byline.” Your byline will contain
information about you and a link to your blogs and other websites.
You could have your byline read something like “Jane Smith is a
programmer by day and blogs on horses at night. See her amazing
programming website at www.iprogram.com and read her blog at
www.besthorseblog.com.” This example byline just created two back-
links for every time you publish the article; one to the programming
site and another to the horse blog. If you post this article five times
on the web you have ten back-links to your sites.
Also, many article sites allow you to publish non-exclusive rights
articles on their sites. This means that you are free to post the same
article on other article sites as well. Each time you submit the article
you build links to your site. In addition, other bloggers and
webmasters will link to these articles on their own relevant sites and
that creates even more links for your site as well. By submitting
articles to article directory websites you can build links easily to your
site to increase your search engine rankings.
E-Mail Signature Files
Most every e-mail client these days offers you the ability to create a
signature file. Even free e-mail accounts, such as Yahoo or Hotmail,
allow you to create a signature file. Exactly the same as on an online
message board or forum, this signature file is attached to each and
every message you send out from your e-mail account. Think of all
the people you send e-mail to each day and all of the possible new
blog readers you can gain from this one simple signature file.
If you attach a link to your blog in every e-mail message you send out
people will invariably click on it whether it has to do with what you e-
mailed them about or not. People are very curious creatures and they
want to know what’s up with other people and what they are thinking.
Your blog allows them into your brain a bit, so they will click on the
link to your blog and look it over.
These e-mail contacts may be potential blog readers who you would
not have reached with online advertising in any other way. Using
signature files allows you to easily reach a large variety of people yet
not spend more than the couple minutes it takes to initially set up the
signature file itself. And, if you have a good quality blog then it is
entirely possible these new readers will pass along your link to all the
people they know as well.
If you have multiple blogs and multiple e-mail accounts you can put
links to all of your blogs in the signature files of each e-mail account or
your can put one link per account. Try to think what will generate you
the most traffic to the specific blogs you choose. You should always
take the time to promote your own blogs and your own sites through
your other blogs and sites; even if they are not directly related to each
other. Your goal for any blog or website should always be to have the
most visitors possible and you can do this through promoting your
sites wherever you can both online and off.
signature file. Even free e-mail accounts, such as Yahoo or Hotmail,
allow you to create a signature file. Exactly the same as on an online
message board or forum, this signature file is attached to each and
every message you send out from your e-mail account. Think of all
the people you send e-mail to each day and all of the possible new
blog readers you can gain from this one simple signature file.
If you attach a link to your blog in every e-mail message you send out
people will invariably click on it whether it has to do with what you e-
mailed them about or not. People are very curious creatures and they
want to know what’s up with other people and what they are thinking.
Your blog allows them into your brain a bit, so they will click on the
link to your blog and look it over.
These e-mail contacts may be potential blog readers who you would
not have reached with online advertising in any other way. Using
signature files allows you to easily reach a large variety of people yet
not spend more than the couple minutes it takes to initially set up the
signature file itself. And, if you have a good quality blog then it is
entirely possible these new readers will pass along your link to all the
people they know as well.
If you have multiple blogs and multiple e-mail accounts you can put
links to all of your blogs in the signature files of each e-mail account or
your can put one link per account. Try to think what will generate you
the most traffic to the specific blogs you choose. You should always
take the time to promote your own blogs and your own sites through
your other blogs and sites; even if they are not directly related to each
other. Your goal for any blog or website should always be to have the
most visitors possible and you can do this through promoting your
sites wherever you can both online and off.
Posting Messages on Your Blog
I prefer to post messages on my blogs four or five days each week.
Posting more often than that isn’t necessary, but you also do not want
to post too infrequently either. Nothing will loose you readers faster
than if you only post now and again when you feel like it. If your
readers come back to your blog even once or twice and find the same
content with nothing new then they will likely think you have
abandoned the blog and they will not come back. Your readers will
have a very short attention span and will always be looking for new
and exciting information on your blog. If you can’t be bothered to
write some new content for them to read then why should your
readers keep checking back in to try and read it?
Likewise, it is totally unnecessary to post multiple messages each day
on your blog. Some people say you should post three messages each
day on your blog. This just isn’t necessary and sort of defeats the
entire purpose of generating yourself some passive income. You want
to keep your readers coming back but you do not want to bury them in
content either. They should be coming to your blog, reading a new
posting or two, clicking on some ads, and then leaving to return again
in the next day or two.
The style in which you write your blog posts can greatly affect the
readership of your blog. You should always write as if you are talking
to your best friend. Write as if you personally know each person who
is reading your blog. Work to develop a relationship with your readers
so they feel they “know” you. By taking this time to get to know you
and by you taking the time to get to know your readers you will
develop a loyal reader base for your blog.
Ask your readers questions in your blog posts and encourage them to
post their answers as comments on your blog. When your readers
take the time to post you a comment, make sure you always post an
answer to them. If you cannot personally answer all of your
comments then at least refer to your reader’s comments in your next
post. By this simple interaction with your readers they begin to feel
like you care about them. Because you care, and are interested in
your readers, they will become loyal to reading your blog and will help
you out by sharing your blog with people they know. This brings you
more readers and ultimately more AdSense clicks. They will also see
your blog as the authority on your topic and will be interested in the
ads which correspond to your topic and content.
Try to be somewhat entertaining in your blog posts. You don’t have to
write great tales of amazing feats, or be overly humorous or anything,
but you don’t want to put your readers to sleep either. Keep your
posts light, use some humor when you can and when it is appropriate,
tell about yourself and your life occasionally, and try to look at your
messages from the perspective of your readers. Would you return to
your blog each day to read it? Why? Why not? Use the answers to
these questions to improve your blog over time. Keep your blog
changing and interesting for your readers. This will make your readers
enjoy it more and you will enjoy posting on it more as well. It will also
show your readers that you are serious about your blog and in it for
the long haul as well. This will help them want to come back often and
keep coming back over time.
Posting more often than that isn’t necessary, but you also do not want
to post too infrequently either. Nothing will loose you readers faster
than if you only post now and again when you feel like it. If your
readers come back to your blog even once or twice and find the same
content with nothing new then they will likely think you have
abandoned the blog and they will not come back. Your readers will
have a very short attention span and will always be looking for new
and exciting information on your blog. If you can’t be bothered to
write some new content for them to read then why should your
readers keep checking back in to try and read it?
Likewise, it is totally unnecessary to post multiple messages each day
on your blog. Some people say you should post three messages each
day on your blog. This just isn’t necessary and sort of defeats the
entire purpose of generating yourself some passive income. You want
to keep your readers coming back but you do not want to bury them in
content either. They should be coming to your blog, reading a new
posting or two, clicking on some ads, and then leaving to return again
in the next day or two.
The style in which you write your blog posts can greatly affect the
readership of your blog. You should always write as if you are talking
to your best friend. Write as if you personally know each person who
is reading your blog. Work to develop a relationship with your readers
so they feel they “know” you. By taking this time to get to know you
and by you taking the time to get to know your readers you will
develop a loyal reader base for your blog.
Ask your readers questions in your blog posts and encourage them to
post their answers as comments on your blog. When your readers
take the time to post you a comment, make sure you always post an
answer to them. If you cannot personally answer all of your
comments then at least refer to your reader’s comments in your next
post. By this simple interaction with your readers they begin to feel
like you care about them. Because you care, and are interested in
your readers, they will become loyal to reading your blog and will help
you out by sharing your blog with people they know. This brings you
more readers and ultimately more AdSense clicks. They will also see
your blog as the authority on your topic and will be interested in the
ads which correspond to your topic and content.
Try to be somewhat entertaining in your blog posts. You don’t have to
write great tales of amazing feats, or be overly humorous or anything,
but you don’t want to put your readers to sleep either. Keep your
posts light, use some humor when you can and when it is appropriate,
tell about yourself and your life occasionally, and try to look at your
messages from the perspective of your readers. Would you return to
your blog each day to read it? Why? Why not? Use the answers to
these questions to improve your blog over time. Keep your blog
changing and interesting for your readers. This will make your readers
enjoy it more and you will enjoy posting on it more as well. It will also
show your readers that you are serious about your blog and in it for
the long haul as well. This will help them want to come back often and
keep coming back over time.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Graphics and AdSense
Another good AdSense money making trick of experienced bloggers is
to add a picture or graphic file directly above the Google AdSense ads.
Google requires you to have a border separating the image from the
ads and to make them not look like they belong together. However,
by placing the ads directly under the graphic your reader’s eye is
drawn to the graphic and then naturally to the ads. This can be one of
the most effective ways to place AdSense on your blog! Just make
sure you adhere to Google’s requirement that you clearly separate the
ads from the graphics.
to add a picture or graphic file directly above the Google AdSense ads.
Google requires you to have a border separating the image from the
ads and to make them not look like they belong together. However,
by placing the ads directly under the graphic your reader’s eye is
drawn to the graphic and then naturally to the ads. This can be one of
the most effective ways to place AdSense on your blog! Just make
sure you adhere to Google’s requirement that you clearly separate the
ads from the graphics.
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