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Elementary marketing a to z
- 2. Elementary Marketing: A to Z
Copyright © 2008 – All Rights Reserved 1
Introduction
There are too many websites out there promising more than they can
give. These sites don’t grasp the basic principle of under-promising
and over-delivering.
Elementary Marketing and this accompanying e-book are different.
For years now, I have worked directly with aspiring entrepreneurs.
Recently, I have seen many one-one-one clients desperately spinning
their wheels trying to understand and implement the basics of making
money online.
There are simply too many sources of information. This probably is not
the first piece of information on making money on the internet that
you’ve read. You’ve probably visited a ton of sites, read a couple of
articles or books and still don’t have a grasp on how precisely to
establish or enhance an online business.
Chances are, you are suffering from informational overload and just
don’t know exactly what you need to begin generating revenue online.
Or you are just getting going with the learning process and need a
good starting point.
In both cases, Elementary Marketing is for you.
Regards,
Todd Andrews
Todd Andrews is a professional internet marketing mentor and offers
personal coaching for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Visit
ElementaryMarketing.com for more information.
- 3. Elementary Marketing: A to Z
Copyright © 2008 – All Rights Reserved 2
Legal Notice
This book and its content is copyright of Elementary Marketing –
© Elementary Marketing 2008. All rights reserved.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any
form is prohibited.
You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or
commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in
any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.
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Copyright © 2008 – All Rights Reserved 3
Table of Contents
Article Directories 4
Blogging 6
Commission Junction 8
Domains 10
E-mail Marketing 12
Free Giveaways 14
Google Analytics 16
Hosting 18
Influence 20
Joomla 22
Keyword Research 24
Link Building 26
Message Boards 28
Niche Marketing 30
Outsourcing 32
Price Points 34
Quality Content 36
Resell Rights 38
SEO 40
Titles and Headlines 42
Usability 44
Visual Elements 46
WordPress 48
X-Factors 50
YouTube 52
Zest 54
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A | Article Directories
Article directories are websites filled with content on anything from
golf tips to small business financial advice. These article databases are
broken down into categories and subcategories based on topic.
Submitting relevant content to these directories is a great way to
market your website because posting articles gives you two major
benefits. For starters, this is a way of actively promoting your website.
When you submit an article, you have the opportunity to include a link
back to your website. If someone comes across your article on the
web, they may choose to follow the link to your site to learn more. So
submitting some simple material relevant to your niche can directly
drive traffic to your online business.
Along with basic traffic generation, submitting content to article
directories has some search engine optimization advantages. Links
back to your websites help you to rank higher in the search engines.
This is because a basic element of search engine optimization is the
number of relevant links back to your website.
Think of it like this: If many other websites have a link to your page (a
backlink), then your page must be pretty good. This is one of the basic
reasoning the search engines use when determining where you rank
for various keyword phrases. So submitting content to an article
directory gives you one of these backlinks.
There are thousands of article directories out there to submit content
to, but start by focusing on just the biggest and most credible ones.
Begin submitting to EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com. These are
not only two of the most popular article directories, but they also have
good standing with the search engines. This means that links on these
two directories can do more for you then a backlink on other
directories.
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Copyright © 2008 – All Rights Reserved 4
A | Article Directories
Article directories are websites filled with content on anything from
golf tips to small business financial advice. These article databases are
broken down into categories and subcategories based on topic.
Submitting relevant content to these directories is a great way to
market your website because posting articles gives you two major
benefits. For starters, this is a way of actively promoting your website.
When you submit an article, you have the opportunity to include a link
back to your website. If someone comes across your article on the
web, they may choose to follow the link to your site to learn more. So
submitting some simple material relevant to your niche can directly
drive traffic to your online business.
Along with basic traffic generation, submitting content to article
directories has some search engine optimization advantages. Links
back to your websites help you to rank higher in the search engines.
This is because a basic element of search engine optimization is the
number of relevant links back to your website.
Think of it like this: If many other websites have a link to your page (a
backlink), then your page must be pretty good. This is one of the basic
reasoning the search engines use when determining where you rank
for various keyword phrases. So submitting content to an article
directory gives you one of these backlinks.
There are thousands of article directories out there to submit content
to, but start by focusing on just the biggest and most credible ones.
Begin submitting to EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com. These are
not only two of the most popular article directories, but they also have
good standing with the search engines. This means that links on these
two directories can do more for you then a backlink on other
directories.
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Copyright © 2008 – All Rights Reserved 6
B | Blogging
Everyone should be blogging. Throw out any opinions on blogs you
may already hold. Chances are, your ideas and thoughts on blogging
are inaccurate. Many people wrongly have a pre-conceived notion that
a blog is a personal diary. That is extremely far from the truth.
In fact, many of the world's biggest and most profitable companies
have blogs, such as: Amazon.com, NY Times, Boeing, Coca Cola,
Google, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart.
Dozens more Fortune 500 businesses maintain a blog, especially the
ones leading their respective industry.
Developing and maintaining an active blog helps your online business
in all sorts of ways. A blog can be anything, and is typically just
information arranged in chronological order with the most recent
posting at the top of the page. The most successful blogs center
around one specific interest.
Before your web business takes shape, you can blog to get some
positive momentum under your belt.
Simply writing out thoughts or advice on a general topic will provide
you with some insight in your personal desires or experience. For
example, if right now all you know is that you want to be involved in
the health market, start blogging about different aspects of health
(nutrition, exercise, mental health, diet, etc.).
You will discover that you enjoy covering certain sub-topics more than
others. You'll also discover your postings on one sub-topic get read
more than postings on another sub-topic, giving you some good
insight on what area you most effectively connect with an audience.
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There are also many more direct benefits of a blog. Blogs do excellent
in search engines because the search engines like the frequent content
you pumped into a blog.
Blogging is also networked in nature – meaning they are linked heavily
with other blogs and websites. This web of linking between blogs and
sites helps in search engine rankings. Blogs are also great front-end
products. If your goal is to direct people to something they can
purchase, providing those people with some free information upfront
through your blog gives you the opportunity to prove your worth to an
audience.
Before starting a blog, check out some of the Top 100 blogs according
to Technorati.com (a popular blog search engine). See what these
most popular blogs do effectively, and spend a few minutes getting a
better idea of what a blog is all about. Then use the search feature to
find some blogs in your market or niche to get even more insight into
blogs that are relevant to you.
Perhaps most importantly with your blog, be professional but be
yourself. You want to remain conversational with your blog, and make
your self accessible to your audience by providing contact information
and engaging readers with the blog posts.
You can make money indirectly because of your blog or make money
directly from it. The recent trend is to generate income both way. By
mastering this, the most popular blogs make thousands of dollars each
month.
A basic example of making money indirectly would be using the blog to
generate interest in your information and having people sign up for a
free newsletter. Inside the newsletter, you might promote affiliate
products. An example of making money directly would be by putting
advertisements on your pages.
Either way, a blog should be a major weapon in your arsenal.
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C |Commission Junction
Affiliate networks are a great way to make money online, and
Commission Junction is the largest of these networks. Networks such
as this one allow merchants to post products or services and
advertisers to promote those products or services for a commission of
the sale.
On a basic level, there are two sides to an affiliate network. One
person creates something, and someone else helps to sell it.
According to Commission Junction’s terminology, an advertiser (also
called a merchant or retailer) is a website or company selling a product
or service online. On the other hand, a publisher (also called an
affiliate or reseller) is the independent party promoting the product or
service.
So if you have something to sell (anything from jewelry to web
hosting), you can have other people help sell it. If you don’t have
anything of your own to offer, you can make money helping to sell
someone else’s. In this second case, you're goal is to build up a
website with high traffic or an e-mail list of people with interests that
match what you sell. Affiliate networks work as a sort of middle man.
To make money promoting someone else’s product or service, you
simply need a personal affiliate link. This link can be posted on a
website, blog or in an e-mail. If someone follows your link and makes
a purchase, you make a commission.
Affiliate networks work on your behalf, as it benefits them to have
successful advertisers and publishers. So, they often provide good
information to help you choose the best products or services to
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promote. Look at the statistics they provide for guidance on making
profitable marketing decisions.
Traditional banner advertising is similar to affiliate marketing but not
exactly the same thing. With direct advertising like Google's AdSense,
you are basically leasing out real estate space on your site. You then
make money when people click on the advertisements, but you’re not
working directly as an affiliate for the business.
In many cases though, banner ads are a part of an affiliate program
when you manually choose the particular ads and make a commission
based on the sale of something instead of just a click. Amazon is an
affiliate program you may be more familiar with. Amazon.com has
thousands of products you can link to and earn commission. Matching
the perfect affiliate program with the perfect audience can be
extremely profitable.
Signing up for an affiliate network like Commission Junction is free,
and just requires a short application process. You can then tap into a
list of a wide variety of products or services to promote, as well as
information on things such as commission percentage and how well
the product is received by customers.
The first affordable solution for EVERY BUSINESS that can be
easily implemented in minutes!
Commission Junction customers include some of the largest names in
business, including eBay, Best Buy, Home Depot and Yahoo!. Other
major affiliate networks include ShareASale.com, PayDotCom.com and
ClickBank.com. ClickBank is a popular affiliate network centered
around digital products such as software and e-books.
To maximize your affiliate marketing income, avoid using a sales pitch.
Instead of aggressively pushing a product or service on readers,
provide a personal recommendation based on the angle of honesty and
objectivity. After grasping the basics of affiliate marketing, you can
move on to ad placement, pre-sell pages, cloaking affiliate links and
other techniques to exponentially improve results.
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D | Domains
When registering a domain name, it will seem like every good name
you consider is already taken. People have been scooping up good
names for years now, but it doesn't mean you can't still purchase a
relevant one.
Before you ponder any specific names, there are some tips to keep in
mind. First, only buy a domain name that ends in ".com". Avoid the
other domain name extensions, such as ".net", ".info" or ".org".
Search engines don't weigh these domain names as favorably.
There is also an inherent credibility element attached to .com domain
names, so many visitors of your website will consider your website
more valuable and legitimate if you follow this tip. Also, second-time
visitors will probably just type in your domain name in the address
bar, using the .com extension. If you don't own it, someone else just
nabbed your traffic.
The same applies with hyphens and numbers. People will remember
the words of your domain name but often forget to include the hyphen
or number. More traffic lost.
Check with your hosting provider before purchasing a domain name.
Many hosting packages come with one or many free domain names, so
you can skip having to pay for one.
If you do need to purchase a domain name, use GoDaddy.com. They
are consistently the cheapest, and you can even reduce the price
further by conducting a simple Google search for godaddy coupon code
to find some discounts. With these coupon codes, you can drop the
price of a $10/year domain to about $7/year. Not a significant
discount, but why not save a couple extra dollars?
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promote. Look at the statistics they provide for guidance on making
profitable marketing decisions.
Traditional banner advertising is similar to affiliate marketing but not
exactly the same thing. With direct advertising like Google's AdSense,
you are basically leasing out real estate space on your site. You then
make money when people click on the advertisements, but you’re not
working directly as an affiliate for the business.
In many cases though, banner ads are a part of an affiliate program
when you manually choose the particular ads and make a commission
based on the sale of something instead of just a click. Amazon is an
affiliate program you may be more familiar with. Amazon.com has
thousands of products you can link to and earn commission. Matching
the perfect affiliate program with the perfect audience can be
extremely profitable.
Signing up for an affiliate network like Commission Junction is free,
and just requires a short application process. You can then tap into a
list of a wide variety of products or services to promote, as well as
information on things such as commission percentage and how well
the product is received by customers.
The first affordable solution for EVERY BUSINESS that can be
easily implemented in minutes!
Commission Junction customers include some of the largest names in
business, including eBay, Best Buy, Home Depot and Yahoo!. Other
major affiliate networks include ShareASale.com, PayDotCom.com and
ClickBank.com. ClickBank is a popular affiliate network centered
around digital products such as software and e-books.
To maximize your affiliate marketing income, avoid using a sales pitch.
Instead of aggressively pushing a product or service on readers,
provide a personal recommendation based on the angle of honesty and
objectivity. After grasping the basics of affiliate marketing, you can
move on to ad placement, pre-sell pages, cloaking affiliate links and
other techniques to exponentially improve results.
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E | E-mail Marketing
Building a list of people interested in your niche is a common
marketing strategy. Its so common because it works. Your goal in e-
mail marketing is to get as many potential customers to opt into your
e-mailing system. Once inside your system, you provide them with
frequent information, giving you a venue to promote.
Think of it as a trade. Offer something in exchange for someone's e-
mail address. A solid e-mail list lets you directly communicate with a
qualified audience. This is much more effective than mass-market
advertising. Whether you're promoting affiliate products or services or
your own material, your e-mail list can be a tremendous source of
residual income.
E-mail marketing is permission based. You are persuading someone to
give up their e-mail address and let you send them messages that can
influence their behavior. The key to this persuasion is based on the
incentive. The better or more useful your offer, the more likely
someone will sign up. These incentives can include a free e-book, a
piece of software, video tutorials, and a free trial.
The goal here is to slowly convert potential customers on your list into
buyers. You are pulling visitors into a free or cheap business model
and gradually monetizing the core supporters by upping your offerings.
To build a REAL, online business, you need to get some BIG
wins very quickly.
Many e-mail lists are garbage because they fail to deliver any useful
information. The best ones buck this trend, and these are the ones
that yield the most revenue.
Before creating your own opt in list, join a few popular e-mail lists as a
subscriber to get a feel for the formatting of their newsletters, the
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process of delivering a set series of e-mails and how they establish
enough trust to reduce a buyer's anxiety.
To actually manage an e-mail list, invest in an autoresponder. This is a
service that lets you automatically and easily send newsletters at pre-
determined times. These autoreponders also let you create the actual
opt-in form to be placed on your website and handle the sign ups and
unsubscribes. The most powerful autoresponder service is AWeber, an
e-mail management system used by most top-notch e-mail marketers.
Getting people to opt-in to your list typically requires a squeeze page,
which is a simple website page intended only to gather signups. The
best squeeze pages are kept simple, as you don't want visitors too
distracted to sign up in the first place. Ensure every item on the page
is relevant. Simplification is very often the key to increasing
conversions.
To also reduce any confusion, tell the visitors what to do. People need
to be told exactly what to do next. Want them to click a specific link?
Tell them to.
The text around the opt-in form is your opportunity to show the visitor
that they need what you have to offer. Use some emotional appeal to
stir up their desires, and explain clearly how you're information,
service or product specifically addresses that problem. Give people a
reason to follow your request.
Throughout the content, stress the benefits of your offering. While its
important to mention features, focusing on the benefits (what your
offering ultimately does to better their life) can be much more
influential. Lastly, offer social proof to demonstrate the effectiveness
of your offering.
E-mail marketing can without a doubt be one of your biggest income
streams.
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F | Free Giveaways
The first step in making money online is to build an audience. This
process can be initiated and simplified by giving something away for
free. Doing so proves your worth by providing your website visitors
some really good information or product up front and at no cost.
You are opening doors to future revenue. Once you develop a sizeable
audience, you can leverage these supporters. Build the audience, then
the income.
Establishing yourself as a credible source of information instills trust in
your audience. Website visitors need to know they'll be getting their
money's worth. Your website should have two primary goals early on –
gaining traffic and building an element of influence.
Very few people can resist getting something for free, as it fulfills a
basic self-interest that’s inherently human. So your plan should be this
-- attract visitors using free as a business model, then slowly
monetizing your supporters with incremental offerings.
Make sure the offer has real value. The more useful things you share,
the more loyal a supporter will be. Look at the recent changes in the
music industry for an example. Artists have started distributed music
for free, by giving away their albums or posting songs on social sites.
Just about all of Google's services are free as well, from GMail (e-
mailing) to Picasa (photo albums).
The battle of free versus pay online is ending, and free is winning. The
New York Times and Wall Street Journal recently opened up their news
articles at no cost.
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Keep in mind that buying a domain name just gives you that actual
name. To have an actual website online, you need a hosting provider.
Use GoDaddy only for buying the domain name and not for the hosting
because there are better and less expensive hosting services out
there.
Once you own a domain name, you can have it point to your hosting
provider by changing the domains nameserver (DNS). This requires
you to login to GoDaddy or wherever you bought the domain name
and making a simple tweak to the settings.
For help choosing a domain, there are many online resources. You can
use NameBoy.com to search available domain names, and this website
also provides a domain name generator. After entering a few
keywords, NameBoy will suggest many variations of a domain name
for your consideration. Try WebConfs.com's for a domain name
suggestion tool that takes into consideration some relevant and
popular keyword phrases.
Getting keywords into your domain name is beneficial for search
engine optimization. However, you do not want to overdo this by
stuffing too many words into the domain name. A keyword-rich
domain name is just one element of search engine optimization.
Also avoid extremely long domain names. While they are not
necessarily punished by the search engines, they come across like
spam. And who is going to remember your domain name that's 10
words long? Try to stay below 10 characters, and never exceed 20.
For example, Advice.com is probably worth hundreds of thousands of
dollars. ProAdvice is probably worth thousands.
YourProAdviceNow.com is worthless. In general, a domain name is like
a piece of real estate. A good piece of land can be valuable and is
always in demand.
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G | Google Analytics
Google offers a free website statistic application, allowing you to track
all sorts of helpful information regarding your website visitors. After
copying and pasting a snippet of code onto your website, Google
Analytics automatically begins gathering detailed data, allowing you to
make well-informed marketing decisions based on visitor behaviors
and trends.
In fact, "detailed" is an understatement. When you log into your free
Google Analytics account, you will instantly be greeted with
information on the sheer number of visitors and exactly what each one
did on your site. Here is a breakdown of the best pieces of information
to monitor closely:
1. Referring sites and keywords – This shows you exactly where
your visitors are coming from. Understanding the sources of your
website traffic enables you to adapt your website and content
accordingly. It also shows you which promotional methods are most
successful in your particular case.
Looking at which keywords bring in visitors tells you exactly what
people want when they visit your site. This helps in judging how well
you’re using keywords. You now also have some insight into the
desires of your visitors, allowing you to see exactly what they want.
2. Content pages – Looking at exactly which pages are generating
the most views and which pages your visitors stay on the longest helps
you to understand where you are effectively connecting with your
audience.
Tracking how long people stay on your pages lets you see where you
are doing good providing interesting and captivation information. A
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high bounce rate on a particular page shows that the page isn't
effectively keeping visitors hooked.
3. New vs. returning visitors – This shows you how many visitors
have seen your website before and how many are viewing it for the
first time. If most of your visitors are new, you might take small steps
to help navigate them around your website or introduce the purpose
and goal of the website. If most visitors are returning, you should
consider keeping the information timely and frequently updated. You
should also highlight the latest information by putting the most recent
content front and center.
These statistics, as well as all the others provided by Google Analytics,
are saved and tracked over time. So, you can actually review charts
and graphs to monitor your progress over weeks, months or years.
This is extremely useful in determining what changes to your website
or marketing tactics are paying off and which are counter-productive.
The most useful thing Google Analytics can do for you is provide
insight into the navigation and buying decisions of your visitors.
Google Analytics lets you tap into that with real, tangible data.
You likely have an ultimate goal of each website. For example, your
goal may be for someone to purchase a product or sign up for your
mailing list. Keeping this goal in mind, you can actually gather
additional information on everyone who did what you wanted them to.
So, you can see exactly how many people you're converting by
tracking the people who get to your Thank You or Confirmation page.
The service can also be integrated with your Google Adwords account,
allowing you to see which pay-per-click terms are generating the most
revenue for you and which ones should be to tweaked or stopped.
With Google Analytics, you will have no shortage of information. And
having a good amount of data on your customers is an absolute must
if you really want to make money online.
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H | Hosting
To actually get your website on the internet and in a position to start
receiving visitors (regardless if its a full company website or just a
small blog), you’ll need a hosting service. Don’t confuse hosting with
domains. Your domain name is just that — a name. It will not provide
you with a spot on the internet. For this, you need a hosting provider.
More technically speaking, a web hosting server gives you space on
their server. This enables your website to have the internet
connectivity that anyone can access.
Competition is plentiful, so when searching for a hosting service, you
will have thousands of options. Use these two criteria when choosing
the host:
1. Good customer support — You never know when something
will go wrong with one of your websites and you’ll need assistance.
Getting a customer support agent on the phone quickly and easily is a
huge benefit, especially for beginners. You might be losing money
every minute your website is not online and functioning.
2. cPanel — Many hosting services come with cPanel, a specific
type of control panel. This control panel comes with all sorts of easy-
to-use features that help you manage many aspects of your site.
These features include: setting up re-directs, an e-mail system,
website statistics, a shopping cart, security features and much more.
CPanel also comes with good backup options to preserve your website
files in case of an emergency or major problem with your site.
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The best thing about cPanel is that is comes with Fantastico, an auto-
installing program that lets you activate many website additions with
the click of a button. Fantastico is the easiest way to install your
WordPress blog, a chat room or message board, an e-commerce
system, an image gallery, polls and surveys and a ton of other
additions.
A good hosting provider also comes with free website creating
software and free templates to chose from, so you can begin
establishing your online identity immediately.
Choosing a great hosting provider is another instance of making a
smart business investment. Successful companies hire the right people
and services for various tasks. You need a hosting service that is fast
and reliable. Search around some internet forums and you'll find tons
of discussions on recommendations and which hosts to avoid. The
most common complaint about a hosting provider is downtime, when
your website is offline and not accessible. With free or cheap hosts,
this happens frequently and can annoy visitors, harm search
optimization or turn away potential customers.
Consider features such as bandwidth and disk space to be of lesser
importance than the features mentioned above. More than likely, even
the most basic hosting package has more bandwidth and space that
you could possibly need for a while. And you can always upgrade later
if needed.
If you are serious about your online business or making money online,
be serious about the hosting provider that receives your investment.
Taking all of this into consideration, a great hosting provider to
consider is HostGator. The Baby package is probably all you will need
and costs less than $8/month. This package lets you host an unlimited
number of domain names. Going with a free host or one that is
cheaper is a common mistake that many beginners make...and
strongly regret later.
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I | Influence
No matter the intention of your online business, you are looking to
influence the actions of others. You want them to read a product
description, click on a buy button, something, sign up for a newsletter,
etc. Understanding and using some of the basic elements of influence
can put you in the top echelon of successful businesses.
The first rule of influence involves social proof. People tend to
determine what is correct or best for them based on what others think
is correct. Human nature involves a core design to fit into the
establishment.
If you just opened a restaurant, you might fill the parking lot with cars
to show that others are eating there. If you're selling a product online,
you might explain how many other people have already bought the
product. Social proof can go a long way in easing a customer's
uncertainty.
Another element of influence is the rule of reciprocity. Obligation is a
strong force. Create an obligation in the mind of a customer, and they
are more likely to engage in the desired action. So, give something
away with confidence that you’re getting something back in the future.
You see this force of influence happen all the time at the airport and
on the streets. When someone randomly gives you a flower at the
airport without asking for anything in return, they are building up your
sense of obligation to return the favor. When someone starts washing
your car windshield at a stoplight, they are also building up the
obligation factor. You likely donate a dollar in both cases, even though
you weren't directly asked to pay.
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A third rule of influence involves the notion that people prefer to say
yes to someone they know or like. This is based on a couple things,
including physical attraction, similarity, praise and association.
You can use some of these to your benefit on the internet. Because we
tend to like people who are like us, you can form your website or
content to match the qualities and characteristics of the audience. You
are building a sense of similarity.
You can use the association force by linking your product with positive
things and dissociating it with negatives. Just about every
pharmaceutical commercial includes images of smiling faces and happy
families to play on this element of positive association.
Scarcity is another part of influence. People assign more value to
something they conceive to be limited. You see this every holiday
season when companies limit the number of products released. So,
they create a scarcity of video game systems or toys (Remember
Tickle Me Elmo?) to add to the selling power of the product.
Salesletters frequently post a sales deadline or only sell a certain
number of copies to use this rule advantageously.
The last major rule of influence involves authority. People more
strongly comply when someone is perceived as an authority figure. To
add to your authority, you can add third-party indicators of trust and
credibility. Websites frequently post icons and trust seals to show their
site is a professional authority.
Start by recognizing these forces behind influence. When you start
using them with your online business, you’ll start really bringing in the
big bucks.
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J | Joomla
Joomla is one of the most popular and powerful Content Management
Systems (CMS). A CMS is a program allowing you to easily create and
edit your website without having to mess with the raw website code
(usually HTML). With a program like Joomla, you can have a website
up and running in no time and make changes to it on the fly even with
limited website building experience.
Content management systems are becoming more and more popular
because of their ease and effectiveness. And most of them are free. In
most cases, you make changes to your website through WYSIWYG, an
acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The way the content
appears as you edit it is how it will appear in its final output. So you
make changes based on appearance, and the CMS handles the coding
side.
The best feature of a CMS such as Joomla is the wide variety of
extensions available for quick download. An extension is an add-on
program that increases Joomla's functionality. There are thousands of
extensions handling just about anything you could possible need.
There are extensions for improved web design, search engine
optimization, community building, affiliate marketing, language
translation and so on.
For example, want your URL's to be more search engine friendly?
There's an extension for that. Want a message board on your website?
There's an extension. Want a quick way to insert images, photo
albums, calendars or a shopping cart? Track statistics? Install a news
ticker or contact form? Add multimedia elements or change text links?
There are extensions for all these tasks.
If you're more familiar with WordPress, you can use that platform as a
CMS. WordPress is simply a CMS specifically created for blogging. But
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because WordPress became so elaborate and effective, it morphed into
a full-blown CMS to be used for more than just a blog site.
Joomla, WordPress and most other content management systems
make installing a website design extremely quick and painless. There
are thousands of free, pre-made website designs that you can
implement onto your site in just seconds. So its not only possible, but
really a synch to have a professional looking website minutes after
buying a hosting provider and installing a CMS.
In fact, WordPress has become so popular with static pages and not
just blogs, that you often wouldn't even know a website is maintained
with WordPress unless told. The NY Times blog uses WordPress, as
does the Ford Motor Company's non-blog website. There are tons of
other examples of the blogging platform being used for commercial
purposes and not for blogging.
You can easily adapt WordPress to create and manage the following
types of websites:
• Informational
• News and magazine
• Gallery
• Portfolio
• Business
• E-commerce
If you stick to the popular content management systems such as
Joomla and WordPress, you get support from a thriving community.
There are tons of help pages and forums centered around addressing
problems that users have with the systems. If you have a question
about your CMS, you can probably find the answer with a quick Google
search.
Get a CMS in place and your ability to easily control your websites
skyrockets.
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K | Keyword Research
Keyword Research is a fundamental element of all types of internet
marketing and should be conducted frequently.
Understanding exactly what people are actively typing into the search
engines is the best way to discover exactly what they are looking for.
By matching various parts of your website (such as headlines, domain
names, blog posts, etc.) with the terms frequently searched, you can
address a visitor’s intention and bring in more traffic over time.
Essentially, keyword research is an online form of market research.
Keyword research allows you to see and compare the actual phrases
people are typing into the search engines. The internet is a crowded
and competitive market place, so gaining insight into the minds of
potential customers by understanding their terminology puts you
ahead of your competitors.
There are tons of keyword research tools available. The price of these
various tools ranges from absolutely free to several hundred dollars.
Wordtracker, one of the most respected names in the keyword
research industry, offers a free version of their keyword tool, and this
is a great tool to start out with.
Simply type in a term and see how many people search it and any
variation of the phrase. A general tip with keyword research is to start
broad and use the results to help you narrow your main phrases down
to something more specific and direct.
Use keyword research early in the process of forming your online
business, and it can give you guidance. For example, take a general
interest or idea you may have, and use keyword research to determine
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exactly where within that general market is a more narrowly-defined
niche.
It may simply be a matter of different terminology. If you're selling
laptop computers, you may find that more people search the term
"note-book" rather than "laptop". Or you may find that "laptop" has a
higher search volume, but the buying phrases ("buy", "purchase",
"shop", etc.) are more often used with the word "note-book". Without
testing this out, you may be marketing your products under the wrong
name.
No matter your business, chances are there is a synonym for what
you're dealing with, so you better check into all variations you can
possibly conceive.
Even later in the process of marketing your online business, keyword
research is invaluable. Let's say you blog all about exercise. Keyword
research shows you what aspects of exercise to cover. You may find a
lot of people specifically search for exercise equipment. You may find a
lot of searches for "best exercise equipment". Even more specifically, if
a lot of people search for the phrase "best arm exercise equipment",
you can publish a post with that exact title. What better content than
an article that directly addresses what people are searching?
Check out iBusiness Promoter for even more detailed information on
your keyword research, including ways to make sure your keywords
are effectively used on your website.
The right choice of words determines whether or not someone even
lands on your website. The right choice of words determines whether
or not someone reads your blog post or sales page. So, the right
choice of words ultimately plays a vital role in your ability to generate
income.
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L | Link Building
One of the core elements of search engine optimization and traffic
generation is link building. On a basic level, your website ranks higher
in Google if lots of other relevant websites link to your site. This is not
the only part of the search engine formula, but it is probably the
biggest and most influential.
The best kind of links come from websites that are relevant and
credible in the eyes of the search engines. It is not just about the
sheer number of links back to your site that matters most.
If your businesses relies too heavily on search engine traffic, your
success is tied directly to an outside party - a search engine. When a
search engine such as Google makes some changes to the algorithm
that determines where you rank and you drop to the second page of
Google, your businesses can plummet. So link building is a lifeline and
more about traffic than search engine optimization.
The key to acquiring links back to your website is in network
marketing. You need to establish a relationship with other people in
your industry or with others who share the same audience. The best
kind of traffic does not come from search engines but comes directly
from other websites.
Exchanging reciprocal links with other people in your niche can be
extremely useful in the beginning. However, make sure not to overdo
this, as search engines pick up on it if you directly swap too many.
There are tons of specific ways to get links back to your website. First,
list your website in some online directories. These are websites with
thousands of websites categorized by topic. You can list your website
on some of these for free, but some can be fairly expensive. There are
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F | Free Giveaways
The first step in making money online is to build an audience. This
process can be initiated and simplified by giving something away for
free. Doing so proves your worth by providing your website visitors
some really good information or product up front and at no cost.
You are opening doors to future revenue. Once you develop a sizeable
audience, you can leverage these supporters. Build the audience, then
the income.
Establishing yourself as a credible source of information instills trust in
your audience. Website visitors need to know they'll be getting their
money's worth. Your website should have two primary goals early on –
gaining traffic and building an element of influence.
Very few people can resist getting something for free, as it fulfills a
basic self-interest that’s inherently human. So your plan should be this
-- attract visitors using free as a business model, then slowly
monetizing your supporters with incremental offerings.
Make sure the offer has real value. The more useful things you share,
the more loyal a supporter will be. Look at the recent changes in the
music industry for an example. Artists have started distributed music
for free, by giving away their albums or posting songs on social sites.
Just about all of Google's services are free as well, from GMail (e-
mailing) to Picasa (photo albums).
The battle of free versus pay online is ending, and free is winning. The
New York Times and Wall Street Journal recently opened up their news
articles at no cost.
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M | Message Boards
A message board, forum or bulletin board is simply a website featuring
a chat system where messages are posted. Most message boards
center around a specific interest, making niche-specific message board
a very effective marketing tool because they provide a place for
promoting your website to a targeted audience.
Generating some word-of-mouth buzz is essential when just starting
out. Initially people won't seek out your website. You won't be indexed
very strongly in the search engines. In fact, nobody will know your
website even exists. This is where your word-of-mouth marketing
comes into play.
The key to message board promotion is subtlety. You don't want to
hard sell your website by just posting to advertise your site. Develop a
relationship with fellow posters and a reputation as someone who
provides valuable insight the forum discussions. It is essential to build
this foundation first before pumping your site, so you can use your
relationship and reputation as leverage.
Message board posters often have a strong community bond, so you
need to be a member of that community instead of an outsider trying
to take advantage of it.
Find the most niche-specific message boards and consider them your
top target. The more specific the board, the more targeted the
audience. So, people will be more likely to visit your site and
eventually buy your products.
Start by simply posting good information on threads with little or no
mention of your website. Over time, you can begin mentioning your
website but only when its in context with the discussion. And never
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just provide a link to your site without actually posting some good
content directly on the message board posting.
Adding a link in the signature portion of your posts is another subtle
way to promote your site. Most message boards allow users to include
a signature portion that appears in every post automatically. This is
good place to include a link. As your relationships and reputation
build, people will begin following that link to learn more about you or
your company.
Not only does human traffic follow links on a message board, but
search engines spiders do as well. This helps with search engine
optimization and allows you to start ranking for keyword phrases.
The SEO and traffic benefits of message board marketing may not
yield as many visitors as social media networking, but the visitors are
typically much more qualified and valuable to you.
To find relevant message boards, you can do a simple Google search.
However, using search engines specifically geared towards message
boards can be even more effective. Boardtracker.com is an example
of one of these message board search engines, allowing you to search
for entire boards devoted to your key terms.
If community building is a core part of your online business, you might
consider having a message board of your own. Integrating a message
board on your website can be easy and a great way to encourage
frequent visitors.
Tapping into a community can give your online business an initial
boost. Hosting your own online community can be lucrative.
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N | Niche Marketing
You can drown if you try to jump into the online business realm
without targeting a specific audience. Success is much more possible
with niche marketing, which involves identifying a distinct group of
people with a shared interest or need and focusing on addressing that
well-defined niche.
You are striving to be a big fish in a small pond, and not the other way
around. Consider your broad interests or experiences, and try to tap
into a very specific problem. You want to get intimate with a market
niche and completely grasp what the audience likes, dislikes and
needs. Provide the exact answer to that and the results can be
extremely profitable. There is no more sure-fire way to be successful
than to give someone exactly what they want or need.
When you have a specific ailment, you prefer to go to a specialist.
Let's say you are having a medical issue with your eyes. Instead of
going to a general practitioner, chances are you'd rather go right to a
specialist – someone who knows a lot about one thing rather than
someone who knows a little about a lot.
In just about every aspect of marketing, your chances of success
increases as your market narrows. For example, a blog post or sales
letter arguing just one point can be much more effective. A hard-
hitting salesletter finds a point and drills it into your head with
comparisons, examples and references. Focus on too many issues and
the strength of the message dwindles or the audience becomes too
distracted to take the desired action.
You should be able to sum up your business and value proposition
(what your business offers that makes it desirable) in one sentence.
The best slogans do this effectively. If you can't do this, you're focus is
too broad. If a website visitor cannot comprehend exactly what your
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high bounce rate on a particular page shows that the page isn't
effectively keeping visitors hooked.
3. New vs. returning visitors – This shows you how many visitors
have seen your website before and how many are viewing it for the
first time. If most of your visitors are new, you might take small steps
to help navigate them around your website or introduce the purpose
and goal of the website. If most visitors are returning, you should
consider keeping the information timely and frequently updated. You
should also highlight the latest information by putting the most recent
content front and center.
These statistics, as well as all the others provided by Google Analytics,
are saved and tracked over time. So, you can actually review charts
and graphs to monitor your progress over weeks, months or years.
This is extremely useful in determining what changes to your website
or marketing tactics are paying off and which are counter-productive.
The most useful thing Google Analytics can do for you is provide
insight into the navigation and buying decisions of your visitors.
Google Analytics lets you tap into that with real, tangible data.
You likely have an ultimate goal of each website. For example, your
goal may be for someone to purchase a product or sign up for your
mailing list. Keeping this goal in mind, you can actually gather
additional information on everyone who did what you wanted them to.
So, you can see exactly how many people you're converting by
tracking the people who get to your Thank You or Confirmation page.
The service can also be integrated with your Google Adwords account,
allowing you to see which pay-per-click terms are generating the most
revenue for you and which ones should be to tweaked or stopped.
With Google Analytics, you will have no shortage of information. And
having a good amount of data on your customers is an absolute must
if you really want to make money online.
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O | Outsourcing
Outsourcing websites connect people with the professionals needed to
get something done. For tasks you want to avoid or have problems
accomplishing, you can hire a freelance worker to take on the
assignment.
These freelance websites allow you to post your project explaining
exactly what you want. Freelance workers then bid on your project,
and you choose who gets to fulfill your requirements. Most of these
websites are free to use, and come with some added security to
ensure you don't pay for something incomplete.
When people bid on your project, they will typically include some
background information on their work history or abilities. These
websites also have a feedback system, so you can avoid accepting a
freelancer with a bad reputation.
The services you can outsource include just about everything
imaginable. Some of the most popular services people get help on
include copywriting, application building, website design, web
programming and search engine optimization.
In 2003, Kevin Rose had an idea for a website and posted the project
on a freelance website and paid a couple hundred dollars for a
programmer. The website project grew and became Digg.com, a social
media website estimated to be worth $200 million today.
Rather than simplifying life, computer technology has complicated it.
Freelance services increase efficiency by providing virtual assistants.
This is the basic premise behind Tim Ferriss' 2007 book that became
the #1 Bestseller on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal book
list. Ferriss recently won Wired.com's Self-Promotion Prize and was
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named one of the Most Innovative Business People of 2007 because of
his message of outsourcing.
For more menial tasks that you really want to avoid, check out
Amazon's Mechanical Turk. This service provides you with a 24/7
workforce willing to take on just about any task. Mechanical Turk
connects you with real people who complete small assignments.
These are typically bite-sized units of work that cannot be automated
by a computer. This can include the writing of product descriptions,
identifying singers on a music album and transcribing audio.
There isn't much Mechanical Turk won't handle for you, and its done
cheap.
You simply will not have time to master everything needed to be
successful without at least handing over some work. Other large
freelance websites include GetAFreelancer.com and RentACoder.com
and Elance.com. Don't forget to check Craigslist.com, as well.
Freeing up some of your time and energy is essential when it comes to
making websites or marketing online. It allow you to focus on
whatever area of the project you do best. Having a good freelance
worker in your Rolodex is an invaluable resource.
"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to
get all the credit for doing it." -- Andrew Carnegie
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P | Price Points
Price undeniably influences conversions. One of the most common
question people ask is: How much should I charge for this?
There is no simple and full-proof answer. To figure this out, we test it.
When making any marketing decision about your website or business,
the ultimate authority is the audience or potential customer. You want
to adapt to the preferences or wants of these people instead of
relaying too heavily on your own judgment or opinion. It matters what
your potential customer thinks is good. It matters much less what you
think is good.
You can actually test the preferences of website visitors. Split testing
is basically funneling half your traffic to one version of a page and the
other half to another version. You can then track which version of the
page led to more conversions. A conversion is whatever your goal is,
such as a sale, sign-up, download, etc.
Split testing should also be conducted when choosing what price to
assign a product or service. Assign two different prices to something
and see which creates more total revenue. Be sure to judge the
change in total revenue and not just change in sales or subscriptions
because reducing the price frequently increases the number of sales
but lowers total profit.
Even the slightest change in price can have a significant impact on
your overall revenue.
Sometimes you may want to consider future and long-term value of a
customer and go with the option that yielded the most subscriptions or
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sales rather than most current revenue. In this case, you are
sacrificing some money up front but investing in a potential, future and
frequent buyer. The determining factor is the long-term value of a
customer.
In other cases, actually raising prices produces more sales or sign-ups.
Many people make the mistake of lowering price to beat a competitor.
However, many customers associate price with value, so they assume
your product is less useful if you price it too cheap. Increasing the
price can show potential customers that your product or service
provides more value and quality.
The process of split testing is always ongoing. Until you have
thoroughly tested multiple price points, you are leaving money on the
table. Split testing should even be done with other elements along
with price, such as the design of your page, the headlines or titles,
images and anything else. You will eventually have a page or site that
is completely optimized for best results.
Google helps automate the process of split testing by providing Google
Website Optimizer. This free service helps take care of the technical
side of a split test to really ease the process of setting it up and
gathering insightful data.
Make sure you have yielded enough data before acting on the
information. The more clicks and visitors your website obtains, the
more accurate the test results. There are simple and free tools that
examine your data to help determine whether or not you currently
have enough information to act.
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I | Influence
No matter the intention of your online business, you are looking to
influence the actions of others. You want them to read a product
description, click on a buy button, something, sign up for a newsletter,
etc. Understanding and using some of the basic elements of influence
can put you in the top echelon of successful businesses.
The first rule of influence involves social proof. People tend to
determine what is correct or best for them based on what others think
is correct. Human nature involves a core design to fit into the
establishment.
If you just opened a restaurant, you might fill the parking lot with cars
to show that others are eating there. If you're selling a product online,
you might explain how many other people have already bought the
product. Social proof can go a long way in easing a customer's
uncertainty.
Another element of influence is the rule of reciprocity. Obligation is a
strong force. Create an obligation in the mind of a customer, and they
are more likely to engage in the desired action. So, give something
away with confidence that you’re getting something back in the future.
You see this force of influence happen all the time at the airport and
on the streets. When someone randomly gives you a flower at the
airport without asking for anything in return, they are building up your
sense of obligation to return the favor. When someone starts washing
your car windshield at a stoplight, they are also building up the
obligation factor. You likely donate a dollar in both cases, even though
you weren't directly asked to pay.
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Draw inspiration and techniques from proven material provided by
professional copywriters. You can start with a basic, proven model and
customize from that point. For example, there are swipe files
containing winning content that can be tweaked and altered to match
your intent.
Failing to relay original and useful information is the quickest way to
turn away readers and kill a website’s popularity. If you’re simply
reposting other people’s words and ideas, you’re only to have short-
term success.
The biggest rule of copywriting is this: keep it short and sweet. The
overall length of your copy can vary and depends on the intention, but
keeping your points laser focused and your sentences concise and
strong helps deliver your message more than anything else.
And don’t underestimate spelling and grammar rules. Professionalism
is hampered by frequent typos or mistakes. If you need some help in
this area, get it.
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R | Resell Rights
Many e-books and pieces of software come with resell rights, meaning
those who purchase the material can then do with it whatever they
like. It is important to understand the differences between the major
types of resell rights, as these difference dictate exactly what can be
done with the purchased content.
Normal Resell Rights allow you to turn around and sell the material on
your own but doesn't generally let you alter the content.
With Private Label Rights, you can sell the material in its current form
or alter the material to your liking.
Master Resell Rights lets you alter the material, sell it or sell the actual
rights to someone else.
The most useful type to internet marketers is Private Label Rights
(PLR) due to its popularity. There are tons of websites selling material
in various forms, and this material opens up endless possibilities. It is
as though you have purchased an entire book, and you can do
whatever the heck you want with it. Want to use some of the content
for blog posts? You can. Want to chop it up and make a newsletter out
of it? Go for it. Want to turn around and give it away as a free bonus?
Not a problem.
A full supply of content and material is essential to making money
online. You need content for tons of reasons, including search engine
optimization, building a readership, acquiring links, etc. PLR content is
a world of content basically handed to you...and for practically
nothing.
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Most PLR content sells for just a couple of dollars and can be hundreds
of pages in length. As stated earlier, this material can include
software, which is a great resource to pass along for free or sell.
There is PLR content on just about every topic imaginable. Here's just
a sample of some specific topics with plenty of available PLR content:
• Dog training
• Scrapbooking
• Alternative medicine
• Weight loss
• Mental health
• Guitar
• Painting
• Budget travel
• Real estate
• Parenting
• Personal finance
• Dating
• Poker strategy
• Massage therapy
• Cooking
• Web design
• Copywriting
Many PLR sites are membership based, providing you an ample supply
of content for a small monthly fee. Others charge per product, so you
can buy a full e-book for just a couple of bucks.
An important disclaimer: Avoid using the content as is. In most cases,
someone else has already published the material, so you face the
troublesome issue of duplicate content. However, you can always
simply re-write or re-structure the material to make it unique.
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because WordPress became so elaborate and effective, it morphed into
a full-blown CMS to be used for more than just a blog site.
Joomla, WordPress and most other content management systems
make installing a website design extremely quick and painless. There
are thousands of free, pre-made website designs that you can
implement onto your site in just seconds. So its not only possible, but
really a synch to have a professional looking website minutes after
buying a hosting provider and installing a CMS.
In fact, WordPress has become so popular with static pages and not
just blogs, that you often wouldn't even know a website is maintained
with WordPress unless told. The NY Times blog uses WordPress, as
does the Ford Motor Company's non-blog website. There are tons of
other examples of the blogging platform being used for commercial
purposes and not for blogging.
You can easily adapt WordPress to create and manage the following
types of websites:
• Informational
• News and magazine
• Gallery
• Portfolio
• Business
• E-commerce
If you stick to the popular content management systems such as
Joomla and WordPress, you get support from a thriving community.
There are tons of help pages and forums centered around addressing
problems that users have with the systems. If you have a question
about your CMS, you can probably find the answer with a quick Google
search.
Get a CMS in place and your ability to easily control your websites
skyrockets.
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to find what they're looking for? What do you want to provide them
once on your page?
The results of SEO can take time to surface. After putting up a new
website, it can take weeks or months to even be indexed by Google
and the other search engines. And after being indexed, it can take
even more time to start proving your worth and climbing up the search
engine ladder.
The best thing you can do to improve your ranking is to provide fresh,
useful content. If you're frequently posting articles and information
that is new and unique, you're going to eventually move up in the
search engines. This one reason blogs do so well in search engines.
This is also why website featuring duplicate content do not rank very
well. If your content is simply cut and pasted from another site, you
aren't adding anything useful to the web, according to the search
engines.
The basis of your content should be centered around keywords. These
are words that people frequently type into the search engines. Using
these keyword phrases in the appropriate places brings in well-
targeted traffic. These keywords should be used throughout your
pages, and specifically used in title tags.
Of the hundred or so determinants of rankings, another major element
is links back to your site. Google determines rank loosely on
popularity, so the more websites link back to your site, the better your
results. According to the search engines, having authoritative websites
with high credibility linking to you means your site is valuable and
worthy of a high rank.
SEO tools like iBusiness Promoter help you optimize your website and
monitor your SEO progress. This tool literally pays for itself and
guarantees results.
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T | Titles and Headlines
People judge a book by its cover. And people judge an article, blog
post and e-book by its title or headline. This element is most influential
in determining whether of not someone actually reads your content,
opts in for your offer or buys your product.
You have just seconds to entice someone to continue reading. And
you're limited by space, with a typical title being just one sentence.
Becoming exceptional at writing a great title takes practice, but once it
is mastered, can really make your site or product stand out.
Readership, conversions and sales are all impacted by a title.
Your best material should be delivered at the top of your content
because most people will not take the time to read through an entire
article or post. Note that the title or headline is the very top of a page,
hence its importance.
Keep your titles short and descriptive. They should be hard-hitting, so
try cutting out unnecessary words after writing a title for the first time.
Keeping a title short and powerful also includes cutting out fancy
language that risks chasing away some readers.
Not only does a short and sweet title help avoid any reader hesitation,
but its also more search engine friendly. Keeping a title (especially of
a blog post) to under 40 characters ensures the entire line will appear
in search results.
There are actually headline formulas you can utilize to insert your
unique spin to proven titles. Do some online searching for these fill-in-
the-blank titles to get some initial help writing enticing titles.
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Also focus on grabbing attention, but do this carefully. You want to
entice someone to read your material but not trick them into thinking
you'll provide them with something you won't.
The best kind of title meets a need. You want a reader to feel as
though they absolutely have to continue reading. The more descriptive
and specific you are regarding what the reader will gain, the easier it is
to create a sense of importance. Avoid overselling your content by
promising more than you actually deliver. If you make this mistake,
you lose long-term credibility.
To write good titles, spend time reading good ones. Check out popular
blogs and front-page articles on social media websites to see examples
of well-written titles. Simply applying a great title can make a world of
difference between a couple of new visitors or a couple thousand.
To get the most out of your titles, insert some keyword phrases into
this valuable sentence. Many of your titles are weighed heavily by
search engines, so you gain some SEO benefit from using targeted
keyword phrases.
Secondly, what's a better title than one directly answering what many
people are looking for?
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U | Usability
Perfecting your website’s usability helps your visitors to do exactly
what you want them to do. Implementing good usability techniques
increases your readership, builds a frequent visitor base, boosts
conversions and ultimately makes you more money.
There's plenty of science behind website usability. Detailed eye
tracking studies exist, for example, testing exactly where on a website
a visitor's eye is likely to gravitate towards. Precise data exists
showing the attention span and patience of an average user down to
the exact second. There's even advanced color theories demonstrating
which website colors produce which mindset, and how certain color
combinations can influence buying decisions.
The importance of grasping the details of usability should come after
understanding the broad principles.
The most important element of effective usability is to avoid making
users think. Your website should be extremely obvious and
predictable. Be too fancy and you'll end up confusing visitors and
losing potential customers, as even the tiniest bit of confusion leads to
buyer hesitation.
Avoid being too vague with your wording. For example, your headlines
and slogans should clearly indicate what your business does, and your
navigation menu should be almost ridiculously easy to follow.
If your goal is for visitors to get from Page A to Page B, hold their
hand through the process to guide them to your goal. Don't consider
predictability boring. Instead, consider yourself directly influencing a
visitor to engage in the desired action.
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L | Link Building
One of the core elements of search engine optimization and traffic
generation is link building. On a basic level, your website ranks higher
in Google if lots of other relevant websites link to your site. This is not
the only part of the search engine formula, but it is probably the
biggest and most influential.
The best kind of links come from websites that are relevant and
credible in the eyes of the search engines. It is not just about the
sheer number of links back to your site that matters most.
If your businesses relies too heavily on search engine traffic, your
success is tied directly to an outside party - a search engine. When a
search engine such as Google makes some changes to the algorithm
that determines where you rank and you drop to the second page of
Google, your businesses can plummet. So link building is a lifeline and
more about traffic than search engine optimization.
The key to acquiring links back to your website is in network
marketing. You need to establish a relationship with other people in
your industry or with others who share the same audience. The best
kind of traffic does not come from search engines but comes directly
from other websites.
Exchanging reciprocal links with other people in your niche can be
extremely useful in the beginning. However, make sure not to overdo
this, as search engines pick up on it if you directly swap too many.
There are tons of specific ways to get links back to your website. First,
list your website in some online directories. These are websites with
thousands of websites categorized by topic. You can list your website
on some of these for free, but some can be fairly expensive. There are
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V | Visual Elements
You want your website visitors to take you seriously. They need to
know you are putting time and effort into each of your webpages. One
of the best ways to showcase this serious intent and demonstrate
professionalism is to include images.
Visitors soak up your information, and this is goes well beyond simply
reading your content. In many cases, this is subconscious. People's
eyes scan over your pages and judgments are made. You have just
three seconds to make a good impression on visitors and convince
them they have landed on a high-quality website.
If the look of the site is of high quality, visitors can rightfully assume
that the information is genuine and useful, and the person behind the
content is knowledgably. This all adds up to an overall credibility
element, which is a crucial piece of online marketing.
Along with the credibility element, adding images makes your content
more adapted to web viewing characteristics. People won't read your
content word for word. As their eyes scan your page, most visitors will
be lured to images. So, you want to include images that add to the
message of your content.
Not only do images grab attention, but they also help break up large
blocks of text. Scatter a couple images on a page of long text to help
guide the eyes through the material. Long areas of text are commonly
ignored by website viewers.
People scan websites with very little patience and are quick to hit the
back button on their browser. You need images to help deliver your
message. Pictures can say things that words simply cannot.
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To add images to your website, turning to free stock image libraries is
the best and easiest option. One of these sources of free images is
stock.xchng (http://sxc.hu). Here, you can access and download over
1 million images for absolutely nothing. Click on the browse button to
see images broken down into categories, such as "people" or
"transportation". These categories are then broken down into sub-
categories, allowing you to find very specific images that fit perfectly
with your content.
Know you need a close-up picture of a man's face? Follow the
categories and sub-categories and you'll pull up over 9,000 images to
choose from. Use the search feature as another way to find an ideal
image. Here, you can simply type in a concept or notion if you aren't
exactly sure what kind of image to get.
For example, if you're a professional sales coach trying to gain more
clients with your website, you can type in something like "success" or
"wealth" and find thousands of professional quality images.
When actually inserting an image onto your website, it is always best
to be hosting the image yourself. So, look to upload the image into
your web directory instead of just linking to the image. If you link to
an image at another website and that website moves the image or
takes it down, the image on your website no longer appears. You see
this all the time, and it is typically the cause of the little red x that
often appears on a website where there should be an image.
You want your images to be high quality, but avoid using images that
are too large in size or resolution. Using a very large image slows
down the load time of your page, and you don't want to test a user's
patience. There are many free websites that run speed tests on your
website, allowing you to see if any images in particular are slowing
down the page's load time.
Everything on your website either adds to or subtracts from your
overall message or intent. Use images for your benefit.
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W | WordPress
There are a couple major blogging platforms to consider for managing
your website, but WordPress is the best. Like Blogger or TypePad,
WordPress is a free blog management system.
Basically, this is the application used for making changes to your blog,
such as changing the design or publishing posts.
You and website visitors both see the front-end of your blog. Only you,
as the owner of the blog, can see the back-end. This back-end can be,
and should be, WordPress.
WordPress is extremely popular and very user-friendly. Using
WordPress as your platform can ease up a ton of stress or time you
might be faced with otherwise. When you want to write a new blog
post or make a new web page, it cannot get any easier than
WordPress.
If you're using a hosting provider with cPanel (such as HostGator),
even the installation process is a breeze, even for absolute beginners.
If you consider yourself above the beginning level when it comes to
making and managing website, WordPress is still your best option.
If you're an internet whiz and can code a website in any language,
WordPress remains the top choice. No matter your level of skill or
experience with websites, you should probably be using WordPress.
Because WordPress is so widely used, an endless amount of extra
features have been created over time to make your blog infinitely
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just provide a link to your site without actually posting some good
content directly on the message board posting.
Adding a link in the signature portion of your posts is another subtle
way to promote your site. Most message boards allow users to include
a signature portion that appears in every post automatically. This is
good place to include a link. As your relationships and reputation
build, people will begin following that link to learn more about you or
your company.
Not only does human traffic follow links on a message board, but
search engines spiders do as well. This helps with search engine
optimization and allows you to start ranking for keyword phrases.
The SEO and traffic benefits of message board marketing may not
yield as many visitors as social media networking, but the visitors are
typically much more qualified and valuable to you.
To find relevant message boards, you can do a simple Google search.
However, using search engines specifically geared towards message
boards can be even more effective. Boardtracker.com is an example
of one of these message board search engines, allowing you to search
for entire boards devoted to your key terms.
If community building is a core part of your online business, you might
consider having a message board of your own. Integrating a message
board on your website can be easy and a great way to encourage
frequent visitors.
Tapping into a community can give your online business an initial
boost. Hosting your own online community can be lucrative.
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X | X-Factors
No one has the time or energy to effectively create websites and
market and promote their sites entirely on their own. The creation side
is easy. Making a website, writing an e-book or building a membership
site can be done in just one day. The real work comes on the
marketing and promotion side of things.
Your level of success is directly related to your level of promotion. In
this day and age, it is not enough to simply create the best product or
service. You have to be actively marketing all the time.
The good news is that there are automated way to handle just about
any marketing task, if you're willing to make the necessary financial
investments. To master the marketing process, get the help from
some X-factors. An X-factor is an element highly influential in
determining a result – in this case, success.
X-factors are tools and resources you can purchase to assist in the
marketing process. The right tools and resources pay for themselves
by saving you a ton of time.
JetSpinner and HumanSpinner are two examples of X-factors. These
services help automate the process of re-writing articles. Writing a
piece of content for the first time is not so tedious. But when you need
other versions of the same article (to submit to different article
directories, for example), you can have the process handled for you.
These applications can provide hundreds of alternate versions of one
source article, giving you a ton of content to utilize.
Another tool that helps with this process is Instant Article Wizard. This
program actually creates great, relevant articles for you from scratch.
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And to succeed in online marketing, you need an abundant supply of
content.
To help post articles to social bookmarking sites, try Auto Social
Poster. This WordPress plugin automatically submits each of your blog
posts to 34 popular bookmarking sites, opening up your content to a
ton of potential visitors. Doing this manually could take hours each
post. There are also tools to help post your pages on StumbleUpon,
Digg and other major social media sites.
A big-time program helping in the promotion process is iBusiness
Promoter. IBP is one of the few pieces of software that guarantees top
10 results in the search engines and actually delivers. This software
optimizes your website to outperform competition by building links to
your site and bringing in massive amounts of quality traffic. A lot of
tools manage various tasks of internet marketing. IBP is one program
covering just about all of it. Try the free trial to see for yourself.
Pre-written content and software is also available for extremely cheap
through Private Label Rights. This is content you purchase and have
the rights to do whatever you want with. This is a great source of
simple bonuses to attach to your product or simply more articles to
add to your arsenal.
Put the right tools to work for you to cut your work time and
effectiveness in half.
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Y | YouTube
Websites such as YouTube provide valuable opportunities to promote
your website to pre-existing social networks to increase the awareness
of site. This is viral marketing, which involves passing along marketing
messages like an actual virus. Get the message out to one person,
who in turn passes it along to another and so on.
YouTube currently houses over 6 million videos, and just about
everyone who has used the internet has been to the site. In just a
matter of minutes, anyone can post a video online and share it with
the world. YouTube is the primary source of viral videos, which can
range from political to humorous.
Post an interesting video on YouTube, and your website traffic can
skyrocket. People have been made famous (or infamous) from
YouTube videos and entire business have been launched from a catchy
video. Because of the viral video phenomenon, companies have
started implementing entire viral marketing strategies, and the
inexpensive work has paid off.
Even though large companies have entered the fray of viral marketing
and viral videos, people and small companies can still reap the biggest
benefits.
YouTube is just one of many websites suited for viral marketing. Social
network sites are currently in abundance and millions of articles are
exchanged each day. Websites such as Digg.com allow people to
submit links to webpages. Other users then read the linked pages, and
a voting system exists. As a page becomes more and more viewed and
voted positively, the popularity of the articles or webpages shoots
upwards. The more favorable an article is, the more prevalent on a
social site it appears, so it gains more traffic.
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O | Outsourcing
Outsourcing websites connect people with the professionals needed to
get something done. For tasks you want to avoid or have problems
accomplishing, you can hire a freelance worker to take on the
assignment.
These freelance websites allow you to post your project explaining
exactly what you want. Freelance workers then bid on your project,
and you choose who gets to fulfill your requirements. Most of these
websites are free to use, and come with some added security to
ensure you don't pay for something incomplete.
When people bid on your project, they will typically include some
background information on their work history or abilities. These
websites also have a feedback system, so you can avoid accepting a
freelancer with a bad reputation.
The services you can outsource include just about everything
imaginable. Some of the most popular services people get help on
include copywriting, application building, website design, web
programming and search engine optimization.
In 2003, Kevin Rose had an idea for a website and posted the project
on a freelance website and paid a couple hundred dollars for a
programmer. The website project grew and became Digg.com, a social
media website estimated to be worth $200 million today.
Rather than simplifying life, computer technology has complicated it.
Freelance services increase efficiency by providing virtual assistants.
This is the basic premise behind Tim Ferriss' 2007 book that became
the #1 Bestseller on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal book
list. Ferriss recently won Wired.com's Self-Promotion Prize and was
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Z | Zest
Long-term success relies heavily on your passion and honest interest
in your niche or industry. No matter what you do, your initial
enthusiasm can carry you far but not all the way. After a while, the
daily or weekly work required to make money online takes its toll, and
its your passion that keeps you going.
When choosing a particular niche to be the core of your business, the
first and most important element to consider is your general interest in
the field. Early on, the likelihood of monetizing your business in the
future is directly related to your supply of passion.
If your only goal is to get traffic to your site and convert sales, your
potential for long-term success is hindered. You are going to be
spending a good amount of time in your niche. You'll be reading,
writing and forming relationships with others in your field, so you
better make sure this process doesn't sound boring. If your online
business is more of a chore than a hobby, you're going to quit.
Money can be made in any industry, so generating income is possible
no matter the focus of your online business. So, start your business
with an interest and the motivation will lead to profitability. If you start
by focusing on the tactics or making money instead of the actual topic
of interest, you're more likely to fail down the road.
Not only does having a true interest in a topic help you through the
process of establishing and maintaining a business, but it enhances
your ability to exert influence others. And this influence is how the
money gets made.
Think of making money as a byproduct of following your passion.
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When you are working just to get by and avoid being fired, you aren't
producing your best quality of work. But when you work from a
standpoint of passion instead of fear, the possibilities are boundless.
Consider this: The most successful people on the internet are the ones
blogging even on vacation or updating their website late at night. If
this doesn’t sound like something you’d ever do, you’re not genuinely
interested enough in your business.
Finding your the topic of your passion can be difficult for many people.
Start by writing down on paper all your interests and skills. When you
visit a bookstore, which section do you drift towards? What do you
spend your free time doing?
After creating a list of interests and skills, spend some time alone and
away from distractions to review your list and focus on narrowing it
down. What you're left with are your passion topics. Pursue this and
you're going to be successful with an online business.
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Visit ElementaryMarketing.com for more
simple and direct information
on making money online.