The main advantage of ezines as advertising vehicles is that they are delivered to a very targeted group of readers. Usually, the quality of the subscribers will be higher in ezines that focus on single, very narrow topics such as crocheting or knitting. Ezine ads generally fall into one of three categories:

1 – Classified Ads

Classified ads are among the cheapest newsletter ads and are usually found at the bottom of newsletters. Sometimes free classified ads are given away as an incentive to subscribe to the newsletter or ezine. They are also the least effective due to their poor placement and limited copy. The best results with classified ads are obtained in the largest newsletters, since response rates are usually fairly poor.

2 – Sponsor Ads

These ads are priced higher than classified ads and are usually found at the top of the ezine or in the middle (within the content). They allow for more words and are more effective than classified ads, but are also usually more expensive. Sponsor ads are generally more effective than classified ads simply because their placement is better and they can contain more content. Some ezines only have one sponsor ad per issue and some have a handful depending on the publisher’s preferences.

3 – Solo Ads

Solo ads are by far the most effective ezine ad type. Solo ads fill up an entire email with only your advertisement. That means that the content is sent on your behalf to the subscribers. No other content is included, so you get the reader’s full attention and your ad gets the biggest exposure. Since a solo ad is usually seen as an endorsement from the ezine publisher, your message will enjoy a great deal of credibility. Solo ads are more expensive than sponsor ads, but are also many times more effective. Needless to say, reserve them for your products with the highest profit margins.

Another way to run solo ads is to partner in a joint venture. This way instead of paying a fixed fee to run your ad, you reach an agreement with the ezine publisher to split the profits 50/50 (or any other mutually agreed percentage split). The benefit of doing it this way is that you only pay for what you sell. If you don’t sell, you don’t pay; and if you sell well, you and the list owner both come away quite happy.

Before you spend money on ezine ads, it is a good idea to do some research: ask publishers what their typical click-through rate is and make sure their ezine is highly targeted to your primary target market. The conversion rate will depend on what’s on the website you send them to, but the more highly targeted your ad and the publication it’s in, the higher you can expect your conversion rate to be.

If you’re aiming towards a sponsorship ad, it’s also a good idea to check to see if the ezine publisher has a policy of never running ads for two similar products in the same issue. Your ad will be much more effective if it’s the only one of its kind in that particular issue. Also ask the publisher if they have ever had an ad placed in their publication for a similar product or service to the one you are offering. And find out what the success rate was like.

Since ezines are published on different schedules (some weekly, some monthly or bi-monthly) the impact of your exposure is affected. More people likely read a monthly newsletter more thoroughly than a weekly newsletter and will be more impacted and exposed to your ad. For solo ads, there is a proportional relationship between the time period in which different mailings are sent and the overall response rate to the ad.

Another way to advertise in ezines is to write an article and allow the publishers to use it for free with your resource box. That way you also gain credibility and build trust, and any leads you generate will be more qualified than those arising from an advertisement. Articles may also be placed on websites for back issues of the ezine and can have a shelf life of a few years or more.

With any type of ad, always be sure to track it with your own ad tracking software, so you can follow your visitors through to the sale. If you’re running ads in subsequent ezines, don’t forget to test a different variable in each issue. If you don’t have an ad tracker, http://www.1StartCart.com has a good one.

Ezine advertising is a great way to deliver highly targeted traffic to your website. If you pick the right ezines and the right type of ads, you will experience an above average click-through rate for the product you sell, and with a good sales page, an above average conversion rate as well.

Needless to say resell rights come in many forms and sizes. They can come in large packages of many products that are bundled together and offered for an almost suspiciously low price (junk), or they can be offered as a single product for thousands of dollars. If you’re looking for a way to make money with resell rights, you want to make sure you purchase something that actually has value, which means it will cost more than a few dollars.

Resell rights have different restrictions, limitations and allow you to do different things, so as always, be sure to read the terms and conditions.

Basic resell rights often only give you the right to sell the product and don’t offer much other flexibility. You usually cannot claim the product is your own and you do not have permission to offer the resell rights to anyone else. Sometimes you can change the affiliate links to your own, other times you need to leave things exactly as they are. Basic rights are usually the cheapest to purchase, so it can be a good way to get started.

Some of the conditions or restrictions to look for are as follows:

• The price(s) you can sell the product for.
• Can it be given away as a bonus?
• Can it be given away for free?
• Can it be modified in any way?
• Can you change the affiliate links to your own?
• Are there any conditions for distributing the product on membership and auction sites?

Master resell rights often include a web or sales page with the product. They give you the right to resell the product and allow you the right to sell the resell rights to your customers as well. However, that is typically as far as it goes; your customers cannot sell the resell rights for the product to their customers. While master resell rights usually do not allow you to alter the product, they quite often allow you to replace the affiliate links with your own, and usually offer more flexibility in terms of how you distribute the product including pricing.

If you’re buying the resell rights to software make sure you know the product well enough to deal with any troubleshooting inquiries. Some software rights sellers are prepared to deal with inquiries themselves which is a definite advantage for you. Software may also come with a FAQ or troubleshooting webpage or link to the manufacturer’s webpage that you can use.

There are also two types of resell rights that may be referred to as private label rights. The first type is where you are given resell rights for a finished product and you are allowed to put your name on it as the author or creator. This is usually for information or software products.

The second type of private label rights is known as source code rights. The product may or may not be ready to sell. Sometimes it is raw material that you can use to produce a finished product such as information for an ebook that needs to be organized, or the source code for a software product. With the source code rights you can change the product in any way you want. You can add your name as the author, put in your links, add, remove or change the content, or even split it into several products.Most often with both types of private label rights you are able to sell resell rights and even master resell rights.

Most private label rights packages also come with a webpage, sales letters, graphics and other ads that you can use to sell the product. If you are buying private label rights you are also able to edit the product. This is especially important if you are buying rights for software. Private label rights are usually priced in the hundreds or thousands of dollars range, however they offer you more flexibility and the opportunity to make a lot more money than you could with basic or master resell rights.

As always, take time to do market research before purchasing the resell rights to anything. Make sure there are people who actually want the product and are willing to pay for it. Find out how many other people have bought the resell rights, so you know how many competitors you have. How do they market the product? And are they successful?

So you’d like to start making money on the Internet, but you don’t know an AdWords campaign from search engine optimization? Fear not, help has arrived.

Let me introduce you to Justin Michie’s new Internet marketing book “Street Smart Internet Marketing: Tips, Tools, Tactics & Techniques to Market Your Product, Service, Business or Ideas Online.”

Too many people seem to jump into starting an Internet business with their eyes closed and then wonder why they fail. In a study by thebusinessdevelopers.com, it was found that 9 out of 10 internet businesses will ultimately fail don’t let that happen to you. As with anything, you’ll experience much more success learning from the experience, trials and tribulations of others than trying to figure things out for yourself. This book is an excellent and very affordable way to do just that.

I must admit I was very impressed when I started reading this book. Unlike many other books in this field it does not promise the world overnight. It is very realistic in both the author’s expectations and implementation of his strategies. Not only is the book very informative and well written, but it is also well researched. Since it was just released and published in December of 06 all the information is fully up-to-date which is absolutely essential in this rapidly changing field.

I found that this book is user-friendly and comprehensive, pulling into one resource a multitude of successful, Internet marketing strategies, techniques and tips based on the success and experience of the author. Furthermore, the author has done an excellent job in presenting all the essential topics as related to creating and managing a successful Internet marketing presence with no stone left unturned.

Even if you’re an absolute Internet newbie, there’s no need to worry. Each topic begins with the basics spelled out in simple English and then progresses step by step to the more advanced marketing concepts – so even if you’ve been online for awhile you’ll still find a wealth of valuable information.

Street Smart Internet Marketing is a little longer than most business related books coming in at 307 pages but don’t let that deceive you – there is not an ounce of wasted space and boring it is not. It also includes an in-depth glossary containing hundreds of common “Internet marketing” related terms and a comprehensive index making it very easy to use as a reference tool. The rest of the book is divided into seven sections containing thirty-eight chapters. Some of the many topics you can expect to learn about include:

• Driving traffic to your website for little or no cost

• Building an opt-in email list

• Optimizing your website for search engines

• The secrets of information marketing

• Website design including sales optimization

• Effective email marketing

• Product development and positioning

• Joint venture marketing

• Affiliate marketing

And much more!

By the time you are done reading this book you can expect to be an expert in all of these areas and more. There is literally so much information that you’ll want to take notes or grab a highlighter so you don’t forget any important concepts or strategies.

If you currently have an offline business (or even if you don’t) and want to get online this is the perfect place to start. I would have paid a lot of money to have had access to this information a few years ago when I was first getting started online. Maybe it is the experience of trying to figure things out for myself that allows me to see how valuable the information in this book really is.

Compared with other internet marketing related books I’ve read, or even the much more expensive courses I’ve purchased, I found this to be an exceptional resource and I am constantly referring back to it for guidance and marketing ideas. There is literally nothing that I have seen that has this much practical real world content. This is a book that I strongly feel anyone with a website should have on their desk and priced at under $20, there’s no reason not to.

One of the many things I liked about this book is that it doesn’t just spit out buckets of information then leave the rest to you; it provides helpful knowledge and experience in a very actionable form which includes step by step instructions for things like writing proper response-oriented emails and creating a high quality information product.

Unlike many other books on similar subjects I have read, I found this book most practical – and closest to the need in the real business world, thus the origin of the title “Street Smart Internet Marketing. Justin’s techniques are sound, practical, user friendly and well tested. I highly recommend anyone who has any interest in online marketing immediately buy this book and devour every single word!

Also, did I mention that there is also a special membership site for readers of the book where they can find updated information, additional resources and freebies among other things. If you only buy one internet marketing book this year – make darn sure this is the one.

This book is available online at www.Amazon.com, or you can get it directly from the author’s website at www.InternetMarketingBook.com. By the time you finish reading it, your success on the Internet will be just around the corner!

Under no circumstances should you ever purchase a CD of millions of email addresses. These emails have been harvested from the internet and if you contact anyone on these lists, you will be spamming them. Also avoid opt-out lists where recipients are placed on a list involuntarily and then invited to unsubscribe if they want to.

It’s important to note that the lists are always rented, never bought. The list owner is the only person who ever sees the actual list. You rent the one-time use of the list, send your promotion to the list owner, who in turn sends it out to the list.

Since you only get the one-time use of the list, instead of trying to directly sell the recipients a product or service, pull out all the stops to try and collect their email address. Since most people are unlikely to buy from the first contact, this allows you to contact them again and again until you eventually sell your product or service to them. Offer a free gift or ethical bribe, get their email, then sell to them later. This way, not only can you try and sell one product to them later, but over the span of their lifetime with you, you can sell to them again and again,

The average list rental will usually cost between $0.01 and $0.50 per name with an average of about $0.20 per name. Additional specifications, including postal/zip codes, ages, gender and job types carry an additional cost of about $0.05 per name. A typical response rate from a rented list hovers around the 0.5% mark; of course it depends on the list, the copy and the offer, but 0.5% is average.

List Brokers

It’s not always a simple and easy task to find the right opt-in email list to rent for your business. In fact, most of the time it’s a very difficult task and takes lots of research, patience and time. That’s where a list broker can help. Their job is to help you chose and acquire the properly targeted list at the right price. They will even sometimes negotiate for you with the list owner. And the great news is that it won’t cost you a thing. The broker earns an industry standard commission of around 15-20% from the actual owner of the list. Most brokers have a minimum order value of $1,000 (or 5,000 names at $0.20 a name) to make it profitable for them.

Since list sales reps usually work on commissions, they may sometimes try to sell you more names than you want or need, instead of the best names for your campaign. However, you should remember that it is list quality, not quantity that counts.

Here are some tips on choosing a list broker:

• Make sure you have a specific definition of your target audience for them to work with.
• Having a budget in mind will help as well.
• Find out if the list is single or double opt-in. How did they opt-in?
• Ask the list broker if they will review your offer / copy.

Although they will most likely not be a copy editor, they should have a good idea if it will be successful based on previous offerings.

It would also be worth it to insist that there be a warranty built into the contract that will protect your business should the rented list fall foul to spam or data protection legislation.

Perhaps the most important thing about purchasing email lists is to test them first. That means sending a test email to 5-10% of the list before purchasing it to test your response. Be wary of list owners that won’t allow you to test their list. Most will charge you for it (or include the initial rental charge if you do decide to rent the list) so don’t expect it for free. It’s also not a bad idea to send a couple of test emails testing different elements of your email before you blast it to the entire list.

If you’re just starting out, or looking to grow quickly, purchasing a list can be a very viable option. Always remember to research list owners to make sure they are reputable. If they have testimonials, or email/phone numbers of past clients you can call, all the better. Just remember, you’ll get what you pay for.

In a short, meaningful, specific sentence, a USP describes your primary distinguishing feature to your target market and lets them know what’s in it for them if they do business with you. According to Rosser Reeves, the author of “Reality in Advertising” who coined the USP, the three requirements for a USP are:

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the customer: “buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
2. The proposition itself must be unique – something that competitors do not, or will not, offer.
3. The proposition must be strong enough to pull new customers to the product.

Some of most well know USP examples are:

Domino’s Pizza – “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less.”

FedEx – “Your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”

M&M’s – “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand”

Wonder Bread – “It helps build strong bones 12 ways”

But what if such a proprietary advantage does not exist? What if your product is basically the same as your competition’s, with no special distinguishing? Check this out: Once M&M established their USP: “M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand” – what could the competition do? Run an ad that said, “We also melt in your mouth, not in your hand?” It reminds me of an example from the book Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins that has gone on to become a classic story used to describe USPs. It goes something like this:

“Schlitz Beer had hired Hopkins to increase their falling market share. At the time the beer companies were frantically buying bigger and bigger advertising space to promote the word PURE. Everyone said their beer was pure, but no one bothered to explain to the public what ‘pure meant’ this meant:

The first thing Hopkins did was take a tour of the Schlitz Brewery. He was shown plate-glass rooms filled with filtered air where beer was dripped over pipes to cool without any impurities. He was shown huge expensive filters that were each cleaned twice daily to ensure the products purity. He notices that each bottle was sterilized four separate times before being filled with beer. He was even shown 4,000 foot deep artesian wells dug to provide the cleanest, purest water available, even though the factory was right on the shore of Lake Michigan (which at the time was not polluted and could still provide clean water).

After his tour Hopkins exclaimed, “Why don’t you tell people these things?” The company responded that every beer manufacturer does it the same way. To that Hopkins replied, “But others have never told this story” And Hopkins went on to create an advertising campaign that explained to people exactly what makes Schlitz beer pure. It was highlighted with the tagline “Schlitz beer bottles ‘Washed with live steam’. He told the same story any brewer could have, but he gave meaning to purity. That is what took Schlitz from 5th place to tie for 1st place in market share.”

Creating a USP for Your Business

When developing the USP for your business it can be helpful to try thinking in the customer’s point of view: why should they buy from you, not why you should sell to them. Your USP should state what the most important benefit is to the customer in the target market you are trying to reach. Trying to appeal to everyone will not give you an effective USP. Focus on the clients that are your greatest income makers and direct the USP to them. You want to attract the ideal client, not just any client.

Here are some questions that a USP should answer:

• What problem are you the answer to?
• What quality makes you different, better or more desirable than the competition?
• What opportunity can you present to potential customers that others can or do not?
• Why should people buy from you?

When answering some of these questions, it is not enough to say “Our service is better,” or “Our product is better quality.” These statements are not compelling reasons to choose your business over any other business. Also be sure to focus on a uniqueness that is actually meaningful to your customers. Building your USP around a feature is relatively unimportant to potential customers, and will not move them to try your product or service.

You can start by crafting a statement that defines what makes your product or service unique and special. You might want to start with a long statement of two or three paragraphs, and then work from there. If you are already have an existing business, ask clients what they value most about the way you do business? And also ask yourself: “In what ways do I benefit my customers?”

Continue editing your statement until it is short, snappy, to the point and describes your uniqueness in a way your customers care about. Once you get your USP finalized, start sharing it with your target market, and let them know what you can do for them. Plaster your USP in your marketing materials, at networking events, on your business cards, on your website and any other time you are given the opportunity.

Just remember, a USP is free, easy to duplicate and communicate, and above all, tells your prospects what’s in it for them if they do business with you. Be sure to take the time to properly develop a USP that will work for you, your business and your target market.

Hopefully you’ve heard of joint venture marketing (JVM) and have at least a basic understanding of what it’s all about. In all honesty, joint ventures (JV’s) are what business is made of. They are one of the simplest and quickest ways to make a lot of money in a very short amount of time. Joint ventures work so well, that fortune 500 companies do them all the time – McDonalds does them, Wal-Mart does them (they do it together), and so should you.

JV partnerships can be one of the most rewarding and profitable methods used to influence your online business in a financially positive way. If you’re not utilizing this strategic weapon, chances are your competition is (or will soon be) using this to their competitive advantage, quite possibly against you. According to the Commonwealth Alliance Program, businesses estimated that in 2005, 25% of their total revenue (40 trillion dollars) was the result of joint ventures.

A joint venture is defined as a cooperative arrangement or partnership that will mutually benefit two or more companies or individuals that have complimentary products and/or services.

Let me give you an example of a simple JV:

Company X sells home study computer courses on various topics including: word processing, email, the internet etc. Company Y sells computers online at an average of about 100 per week. Company X thinks that Company Y would be a good JV partner, so they call them up and agree to form a mutually beneficial partnership. Company Y is going to let company X send a sales letter to all of their previous customers from the last four years (100 per week x 52 weeks per year x 4 years à 20,800 customers) in return for 50% of the net sales. Company X sends out a well-written sales letter and receives an industry average response rate of 2%. Since their average sale is approx. $50 their total sales are ($50 x 20,800 x 2%), or $20,800, which they split 50/50 with company Y.

$10,400 is a lot of money, especially for only a few hours work sending out a simple sales letter to someone else’s email list… but what if we could somehow increase the response rate? What if we could double it? Then double it again? Is an 8% response, or better, unheard of? Absolutely not! That’s what endorsed JVM is all about. You know at the start of this article where I said that JV’s are one of the easiest and most successful ways to make money in business? Well… I didn’t tell you the complete truth! Endorsed joint ventures are without a doubt, are one of the best ways to make a lot of money quickly and easily in any business.

There are many different types of joint ventures, but we’re going to concentrate primarily on electronic or online joint ventures.

An endorsed JV is when the company or individual that you are partnering with endorses or recommends your products or service to the customers on their mailing list. This is one of the only ways that you can successfully go directly from a prospect to a customer. One of the reasons that this can be so successful is that your partner already has an established relationship with everyone on their list. They have an established rapport with their customer base who values their opinion.

Let me show you an example of why endorsements work so well:

My wife’s grandmother was in town (she lives in Bermuda) and had lunch with my wife at a local restaurant. When they returned, I asked them how their lunch was. Her grandmother said that her meal was “heaven,” and that she’d just eaten some of the best ribs of her life. I love ribs, so the next time we went out for dinner, guess where we went? And guess what I ordered?

Now, if I received a flyer in the mail from Rob’s Rib House advertising “Best Ribs You’ll Ever Eat?” would I eat there? Maybe, maybe not.

You see the difference is, I know my grandma-in-law, we have an established relationship. I know that she is a very classy lady who has traveled the world many times over, and that she really appreciates good food. If she says something is “heaven” I know it’s going to be excellent; and there’s an excellent chance next time I have an opportunity to try it, I will.

When you receive a flyer in the mail from a restaurant advertising that they have the best ribs in town, why should you believe them? Isn’t it possible that their opinion may be a little biased? And exactly whose opinion is it anyways?

Still on the topic of ribs, if you read an article written by a renowned restaurant critic, who rated the ribs at Rob’s Rib House, number two in the entire country? If you enjoyed ribs as much as I do, might you possibly go a little out of your way to try them? Of course you would.

That’s the power of using an endorsement in your marketing. Many large companies have paid celebrities millions to appear in their commercials and ads. Most people know Michael Jordan isn’t going to put his name to a product that is crap, and risk harming his reputation; even if he is getting paid to do it. Just the fact that Michael Jordan supports something instantly communicates that the product is quality, and endorses (or gives credibility) to the ad.

Let’s take a look at an example of an endorsed joint venture versus cold mailing:

Let’s suppose that you are selling a $97 home study course on how to write a book and get it published. Since you don’t have a mailing list of your own, you set up a JV with someone in a similar but non-competing business who has a 10,000 person list. If your mailing goes well, and you get an industry average 2% response rate, your total sales would be $19,400 (10,000 x 2% x $97). Why is your response rate only 2%? Because people don’t know anything about you, your business or your product. You’re a stranger. You haven’t established a relationship with them, and they have no reason to believe what you have to say is true- why should they? Not to mention that they are afraid of being ripped off.

Now, what if you got the owner of the mailing list (who communicates regularly with his clients, and thus has established a relationship with them) to write an endorsement on top of your sales letter? They could let their customers know how great they believe your offer to be, how valuable your product or service is, and how it has positively affected their life. If you took the exact same product, mailing list and sales letter, and did everything else the same, except that now you have the owner of the list endorsing you, do you think that you might be a little more successful?

If your JV partner had most of the key factors in place such as a good relationship with a high quality list, instead of a 2% response rate, you might achieve a success rate of 10% or more. Let’s do the math, that’s (10,000 x 10% x $97) = $97,000. That’s incredible! One short letter made you five times more money than even the most well written and powerful sales letter ever could. That my friends, is the power of endorsed joint venture marketing.

Perhaps the best part about JVM is that it creates a “win win win” situation. Your partner wins because they make money with little or no effort, you win because you get a lot more sales than you could get on your own, with little, or no advertising cost, and the customer wins because they get affordable access to a product or service that benefits them.

1. The benefits of forming a JV partnership really are limitless. Here are 10 of the more potent benefits you might expect:
2. You can increase your credibility by teaming up and getting endorsements from other reputable businesses or experts.
3. You can very cost effectively gain new leads, customers and/or newsletter subscribers.
4. JV’s save time and money on marketing and advertising costs.
5. You can easily and conveniently increase your sales and profits.
6. You can offer your customers new products and services.
7. You can target other potential markets, and/or find hidden income streams.
8. You can expand and grow your business quickly.
9. You can spread/reduce risk.
10. You can develop new technology (ie. software).
11. You can increase product distribution.

There are risks involved with joint ventures, but they pale in comparison with the risk associated if you partook in the same activities alone; and the potential rewards far outweigh the risk. Some of the risk you would expect to shoulder may include any number of the following:

• Wasting your time
• Losing money
• Accomplishing nothing
• Reducing your credibility

As always it is important to completely evaluate the risks involved and do your homework before and during the process.

JVM is also a good way to get started in building your email database. But it proposes a little difficulty, which needs to be overcome. If you are relatively unknown, how do you get someone to agree to let you send out an email to their database?

You do everything you can to make it as easy as possible for them, and make the offer as attractive as you can. Give them a large percentage of the sales that you do with their list. Heck, even if you give them 100% of the sales or profits you make it can still be well worth it in the long run for you on the back-end.

Above all, joint ventures are great for everybody. Everybody wins and there are no losers. JV’s are one of the fastest ways to grow your business and is something that you should look into implementing immediately, if you haven’t already. Always keep a lookout for qualified JV partners.

A blog is essentially a mixture of what is happening in the blogger’s life, and what is happening on the web. There are really no set rules as to what defines a blog, but it is generally accepted to be some kind of personal thoughts combined with any other number of elements. Blogs are sometimes refereed to as “web logs,” however this can cause some confusion as “web log” can also refer to a web server’s log files.

Blogs are forums for voicing opinions and developing communities with common interests. It is human nature to communicate. Each new form of communication and revolutionized the way the world interacts. Right from the day of when the telegraph was invented to the day when internet was made public, the way people communicated has gone through a sea of change.

To smart marketers, blogs offer more than the communication of thoughts on the internet. Blogs are becoming an increasingly popular advertising medium and another source of revenue for marketers. There are two ways to market with blogs, the first is to use your own blog to build relationships, customer loyalty, branding, and subtly mention your products or services in them. The second way market with blogs is to place ads on or in other people’s blogs.

One of the reasons that blogs are popular with marketers is that they often rank high in search engines because the content is usually updated daily.

Blogging

Since blogs are personal, a company or business can’t technically have its own blog. However, the president, CEO, owner, or an employee can have their own personal blog. The business that the blogger works for can use the blog to advertise their products or services subtly throughout the blog, or less subtly as graphical or text ads through the blog page.

A blog is also an excellent way to popularize products and services. It serves an informal medium for getting across to potential customers, and if they validate your product or service. And blogs are an excellent tool for viral marketing, or free word of mouth publicity.

To ideally achieve the optimum search engine ranking, you should really update your blog 4-6 times a day. Since that’s often not possible, you can settle for a couple times a day, or use an RSS feed to add content.

Rich Site Summary, or RSS feeds allows you to post content on your blog automatically from any website with an RSS feed or vice versa. Types of content include could be news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums etc. You’ll need to ask your website designer to do this for you, as it does get a little technical.

Search engines look for change. If the search engine sees that you have new information, they will see that they need to visit your website more often, to keep its listings current.

Blog Ads

Blogs ads work because blogs serve as watering holes for like minded people. Blogger’s are vocal and influential, and people read them with passion, and tend to give them more influence in their lives then they should. Blog advertising is appropriate for new launches, new products, newsworthy material, and other things or relevant value.

Blog ads require different creative tactics than most of the rest of the internet. There are 3 ad options: They can be graphical in nature, solo text ads, or text ads intertwined into the actual text content of the blog. Like the blog itself, successful blog ads rely heavily on content. Humor and sarcasm tend to work well, as do ads with a timely newsworthy hook and/or some thought-provoking text.

Some of the best blog ads are placed right into the blog, so as appear to be part of the blog itself. These types of ads don’t actually appear to be ads to the casual reader, so they have some extra credibility that you couldn’t get from any ad, no matter how good it is.

Blog ads pricing is all over the place, but is usually priced by CPM, but can be priced by PPC, and rarely PPA. Prices usually go up from $5 CPM to $50 CPM, or range any where from $0.10 – $1 + if you go the PPC route.

Getting started with a blog of your own does not take a lot of technical know-how, and almost none if you use a site like www.blogger.com. Today blogs are spreading across the internet like wild fire and there does not seem to be any sign of abating.

1. Meta tags and titles: Meta tags have been one of the oldest methods of SEO, and it’s quite simple to do. As a web site owner, you can ask your web designer to insert relevant keyword and description meta tags on each of your webpages, or even do them yourself with the help of an HTML editor, or online meta tag generator. Relevant keyword rich page titles should also be used.




2. Keywords: Choosing the right set of keywords for your web site is extremely important as it helps focus all search engine optimization activities in the desired direction. You can choose keywords based on your products or services or research them online with tools such as www.wordtracker.com and develop a keyword list most suited for your web site and easy to promote. Once you have your set of keywords ready, you can put them in your meta tags, on page titles and even on the web page content. You can even create articles based around this set of keywords and feature them on your web site for faster search engine optimization.




3. Content of the page: The content on key pages of the web site is also extremely important as many search engine spiders (a smart piece of software which trolls through content and picks up keywords) tends to feature websites which have the keyword well placed on the site content. Your main keywords should be featured within the first line of content, page titles, headers and throughout the rest of the page. Content is very important for search engine optimization of a website it is recommended that the content be featured as early in the page as possible and be repeated up to 5 or 6 times to maximize exposure.

The above tips are just the starting point or basic level of search engine optimization. Once you get started with the above recommended steps, you can create your own in-depth search engine optimization plan over a period of time. For more information on search engine optimization, you can visit websites like www.searchenginewatch.com.

Step #1 – Research

The first step in selling information is the research or gathering step. If you know a lot about something or have a core expertise, a good part (but not all) of your research may lie in determining that the information you have is something other people want. In the upcoming paragraphs, we’ll discuss how you research, discover, acquire and/or organize your ideas.

What do you know that we don’t? Or who do you know that knows something that the rest of us need or want to know? You don’t need to spend years becoming an expert in something. You do however need to borrow, license, acquire or rent the expertise from someone. If you don’t have an expertise that you can write or speak about, the easiest way to go about finding someone who does is to look for an expert who is under marketed. Then ask them if they would consider letting you repackage their information and take it to the marketplace. Negotiate a way to split the profits that will be mutually beneficial; then they’re happy, you’re happy and you’ll both have more money in the bank. Here’s an example:

You go to a PTA meeting at your kid’s school there’s this guy there speaking on how to influence your children to form good study habits. He really seems to know what he’s talking about and is selling an under-priced Saturday seminar on the subject. You could approach him with an offer to either market for him on a commission based basis, or better yet, take his information and repackage it in the form of a self help book, ebook, audio or video disc, or anything else for that matter, then split the profits with him.

No matter whether you yourself are the expert, or you are using someone else’s expertise, proper research is essential. No matter how much you know, or how great your expertise, you need to be able to back what you have to say up with facts, studies and real world examples. Take some time to make sure that what you’re saying is correct and can be verified. Nothing ruins your credibility more than when a customer catches you saying something that is not true. If they catch you just once, how can they know that everything else you say is correct? Check, and double-check the facts before you put anything to print.

There’s been a saying that’s been floating around for quite a while; it goes like this: “Copying from one or two books is plagiarism, but copying from many is research.” That doesn’t mean to copy anything word for word, or to take other’s ideas and call them your own. But it does mean that you can learn from the experience of others, form your own conclusions, then put them to print, audio or video. Take any non-fiction book for example; most of the concepts and ideas in the book have surfaced somewhere, sometime in the past; everything is not by any means a completely new idea or concept. The key is how you package them. How you put them together into something that is concise and easy to apply and understand.

I believe it was Jay Abraham who said “All the notes had already been discovered long before Mozart came along.” It’s not the notes that are important, but how they are packaged together (into a song) that matters. Information is much the same, you can take the same information, repackage it into something that is easier to understand and implement and you have a whole new product. It’s a simple concept called repurposing or repackaging information. An ebook could easily become an audio CD set, or a home study guide.

In conclusion, make sure you take the time to produce quality work, and that means researching your information. Be sure others back up what you have to say, as a mistake can be drastically costly to you or your business. Don’t forget that once you publish your information, there’s no taking it back — it’s out there forever.

Researching the Market

Before you even start creating an information product, or make a deal with an expert to use his or her expertise, you need to research the market. An easy way to do this is to look for other people that are selling similar information. If there isn’t anyone selling it, there’s probably a good reason – there’s no market for it. That doesn’t mean there’s no one who wants your information, it just means no one wants to pay for it, or not enough people want to pay for it to make it profitable. It would be very rare that you come across a category of information no one else has tapped, and in my opinion you’re better off with something that is tried and true than something new. There’s no reason to try and reinvent the wheel.

Determine who your potential customers are and then determine their needs, wants, and expectations; figure out if there is a demand for your product. Get their opinions about it. Find out how they would like it packaged (book, audio CD) and how much they would be willing to pay for it. Then take a look at who your competitors are and how well they are doing. Find out what they’re doing, how they work, then do it better. It’s as simple as that.

While market research may appear to be a tedious, time-consuming process, it is often necessary if you want to be successful. It is an invaluable tool that can save you time, effort and money.

Step #2 – Packaging

Packaging isn’t limited to fancy graphics and showy slogans on the package of your product. Packaging is how your information is organized, including the form you sell it in, at what price, and how easy it is to use. The main goal of packaging is to make sure that your product is desirable to the consumer. That means everything from choosing the right format for selling your information, to making sure that it is organized in a fashion that is easy to understand and simple to implement.

These are the three steps which are essential to proper packaging:

1. How you physically package it
2. The way you organize the materials
3. Choosing the best price to sell your information for

Packaging Information

This isn’t what color or type of packaging you should use, but the format that you use. The format is the medium which you convey your information through. This could be anything from an ebook, to a DVD, to hosting a live seminar.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of information marketing is how the information is packaged, or put together into a format that is easy to follow, can be quickly accessed, and can achieve fast results. That is what makes the information that you have to offer so much better then that of all the other information floating around out there. There is tons of raw information swarming all around us. But most of us don’t have the time to sit down and decipher it into something that is easy to understand, and easy to use. Not only do you need to provide the information, but you must provide the tools for the user of the information to integrate it into his or her business and/or life.

There are tons of different ways you can package your information. Thirteen of the more popular packaging techniques are listed below.

1. Publish a book or article
2. Host a seminar
3. Become a public speaker
4. Host a teleseminar
5. Publish a newsletter or ezine
6. Create a computer program or educational game
7. Produce a television program or infomercial (informative commercial)
8. Become a consultant
9. Teach or train
10. Publish a magazine or newspaper
11. Become a talk show host
12. Create a product (how to course, audio CDs, video etc.)
13. License your information

Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. What format of information would you want most? What would work best for your needs and lifestyle? Don’t stop at just one format though. If you start with an ebook, put it on CD. If you have a home study course, teach it in a seminar or teleseminar. Start with one format, then branch out and expand. Different people like different formats. Some people might like a home study course, then to go to a seminar and learn that way, then listen to audio CDs in their car as a refresher. Give some choice, but not too much or people will put off making a decision.

Organizing Your Materials

The big thing about organization in general is the fact that it keeps things neat and tidy and puts them in a place where you can easily find and use them. When you’re organizing information the goal is much the same. A good information product must be:

• Organized
• Simplified
• Systematized
• Personalized
• Interactive
• Ready to use, on demand, instantly

Most people don’t have the time to spend studying and reorganizing the readily available data into something that fits their unique circumstances. They want something they can use now, which is easy to understand and provides fast results. And the best part is, they’re willing to pay for it.

To illustrate this, let’s say you own a late model car that requires lots of love (think maintenance and repairs) to keep it running in tip top shape. You may have a decent knowledge of how cars work and enjoy working on yours, but you don’t know absolutely everything about everything, and might need a little guidance once on a while. When you need help, you have a few options:

1. Ask a friend or acquaintance for help who might possibly know something you don’t.
2. Plop yourself down in front of your computer and plough through webpage after webpage in an attempt to find something helpful (and correct) on the internet.
3. Or, you buy a readily available book for $29.95 at your local book bookstore that explains everything you’ll ever need to know.

Do you spend the $30 for the book, waste countless hours researching for credible information on the internet, or ask a friend who might know? Since I value my time, the choice for me is easy; I spend $30 for the book. Research shows that most other people feel the same way. Why? The book gives you access to immediate, credible, specialized information that you can quickly act on.

Price

A well-thought-out marketing strategy takes into consideration not only the marketing factors, but also pricing strategies. While it’s always important to make a profit, if the market won’t bear such a high price, it’s better to lower your profit margin than not do any business at all. You may actually be able to make more money with a lower price than you will with a higher one. Make sure your marketing plan combines marketing and pricing.

Also be sure your price is fair and competitive with the marketplace. If your price isn’t right, people will pass you by without even giving you a chance. Above all, always be sure you test different price points adequately to determine which will make you the most money, not get the most sales.

Step #3 – Marketing

When you’re selling anything, marketing is the absolute most important skill to have. If you wanted, you could market junk with right marketing campaign (not that you would want to).

Marketing information can be both harder and/or easier than marketing other types of more physical products. If you’re trying to convince people that they need the information you have to offer, it can be quite a chore to actually persuade them to purchase it; especially with all the free information floating around on the internet. However, simply find the right audience that knows the true power of properly packaged information and the impact that it can have on their lives and their business. If you find the right market and they’ll be begging you to sell them anything they can buy…

It’s important to note that each search engine uses its own ultra secretive algorithm to rank sites, so search engine ranking strategies in general terms here that are likely to help improve your ranking collectively.

Keywords

One of the most important components to almost every search engine is the content of your site; in particular the keywords contained within the content of your site. All major search engines place a large weight on the keywords contained within your site and where they fins them. Some of the best places to use keywords are in your domain name, HTML page title, H1, H2, and H3 header tags, the actual content of the webpages, links, meta tags and ALT tags.

The keyword frequency of your pages is another consideration of most search engines. It measures of the number of times keywords occur within a page’s text. It’s tied to the concept of keyword density. Search engines want to see more than one repetition of a keyword in your text to make sure it’s not an isolated case. Ideally you want to choose 2-3 keywords per webpage and repeat them 5-7 times throughout the page.

Your webpage keyword density is something else that you’ll want to configure. Keyword density measures the relationship of your keywords as compared to other text on the webpage. The higher the percentage of keywords in relationship to other text, the higher the keyword density is. The recommended keyword density for any webpage is 3-7%, per keyword or keyword phrase. This means you should repeat all your keywords three-to-seven times for every 100 words of content on your webpage.

Keyword prominence is yet another part of many search engine’s ranking algorithms. Besides all of the other keyword real estate locations mentioned above, the best place to place keywords in the text of your webpage is right at the top of the main page. Most web crawlers assume that any page relevant to the topic will mention these words right at the beginning. If your navigation system currently uses text links and is at the top of your page, make it graphical so the first text the search engine sees can be relevant.

Some search engines, such as Google, also use the concept of keyword proximity as part of their ranking formulas. As suggested by the name, keyword proximity means the how close keywords are to each other. By putting your keywords as close together as possible and making sure your sentences are clear, concise, and make perfect sense you’re likely to rank better. For example the sentence ‘Internet marketing made simple’ would rank better than ‘Marketing on the internet made simple’ for the keywords internet marketing.

Domain names are another great place for keywords. If relevant keywords are contained in the domain name, it carries more weight with almost all search engines, than keywords found in the text of the webpage. Shorter or top-level domain names with keywords generally carry more weight than really long domain names.

For instance, if all other factors are the same, the domain name www.InternetMarketing.com would rank higher than www.MarketingOnTheInternet.com, for the keywords internet marketing. More recently, search engines have begun to prioritize the use of keywords in a site’s domain name, in their ranking formulas. Google and Yahoo! are two of the search engines that do this.

Also avoid search engine spamming. That is, don’t be tempted to use tiny or invisible text to put keywords at the beginning of your pages. Search engines define this behavior as spam and can reject your site for it. Also sites that list keywords and/or repeat them over and over can also be rejected for keyword spamming.

Meta Tags

The meta description and keyword tags are another great place to use keywords. They describe your site’s content, giving search engines spiders an accurate summary filled with multiple keywords. Meta tags are hidden in a document’s source code; the search engines can see them, but they visitors can’t (unless of course they view your source code). Some search engines, however, use it as a site’s summary on their results pages. If they do, the reader may actually see this hidden tag, so make sure its contents are somewhat enticing to the reader.

Meta tags are incredibly important to some search engines and others couldn’t care less about them. There are a handful of search engines that use only meta tags to rank webpages, although the weight of meta tags in general is dropping across the board. Search engines don’t penalize sites that use meta tags properly, so it’s recommended that you always include them.

The meta description tag should contain multiple keywords organized in a logical sentence. Place the keywords at the beginning of your description and close to each other to achieve the best possible rankings. Search engines vary in their preferred size for meta tags. Anywhere between 150-250 characters is the standard accepted size.

ALT Tags

Search engines don’t see images and they won’t index any text that is presented or embedded in an image format. To help fix this problem, there are ALT tags. An ALT tag provides an alternative text when non-textual page elements (images or graphics) cannot be displayed. If someone is using a text-only web browser (handheld device such as a cell phone), or on a slow dialup connection has their images turned off, or if an image is no longer available, an ALT tag would take the images place on the user’s screen. Also, if you hold your mouse over an image with an ALT tag, the tag will be displayed in a little box in the surfers browser. Search engines also don’t penalize for using ALT tags or even for packing them with keywords, so there’s no reason not to use them.

Link Popularity

Link popularity can do a lot for your site. Not only will many search engines rank you higher, but links from other sites will also drive more traffic to you. A growing number of search engines are beginning to use link popularity in their ranking algorithms. Google uses it as its most important PageRank factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN and others also use link popularity in their formulas. Eventually every major engine will probably use link popularity, so developing and maintaining backlinks are essential to your search engine placement.

Search engines use sophisticated formulas to gauge how popular sites are based on more than just a measure of how many links point to your site. In general, however, link popularity is measured by the following three factors:

Relevance- Search engines prioritize incoming links from pages that are relevant to the page in question. If you sell gardening tools, a link from a gardening tool manufacturer boosts your rankings more than one from a antiques discussion forum.

Number of links- The more, the better. Though lots of irrelevant links are less effective than a few relevant ones, they’re better than nothing as they may still generate a little traffic to your site.

Link text- The text used to describe a link can also affect your rankings. These three links all point to the same URL but use different text:

http://www.InternetMarketingBook.com is somewhat relevant
Internet Marketing Book is most relevant
Click here is not at all relevant

Page importance- The more important the page linking to your site is, the more it can do to positively boost your ranking. For example, a link from CNN is much more important than a link from Aunt Edie’s rock collection site.

Most search engines spiders figure that any words other sites use to describe your site are particularly relevant. So, if a lot of sites linking to you use keywords in their link text, search engines will boost your ranking for those keywords.

Click Popularity

Click popularity is the measure of the number of clicks received by each site in a search engine’s results page. For example, let’s say that 100 users search for ‘tropical fish’. If after scanning the first 10 results, 97 users click on Tropical Fish Feeding and Care a click tracking technology assumes that the site Tropical Fish Feeding and Care is more relevant than the others. Next time someone searches for tropical fish, Tropical Fish Feeding and Care will appear higher in the results.

The real only way to boost your click popularity is to see what text the various search engines use in your listing and then make it better. Most search engines use one of, or a combination of following: your page title, the first few lines of text on your webpage, part of your meta description, description or keywords you entered when submitting your site to the search engine.

Stickiness

Stickiness is a measure of the amount of time a user spends at a website. It’s calculated according to the time that elapses between each of the user’s clicks on the search engine’s results page, or how long it is until the user clicks the back button in their browser.

An example could be when you perform a search for ‘chicken recipe’. You get the standard results page with 10 results listed in order of relevancy, click on one of the links and surf the website for 2 minutes. It turns that it doesn’t quite have what you’re looking for, so you try another site that turns out to be junk and spend less than 5 seconds on it before you try another.

Click tracking technologies record the time between your clicks and use that time to determine each site’s relevance. The longer your visit the website, the stickier the site is (in theory) and the better it will do in the results ranking next time. It is important to note that stickiness is not used by many search engines, as it is hard to track and the results can be easily skewed.

Both click popularity and stickiness allow the search engine users to rank sites rather than web crawling software or site reviewers.

Search Engines and Themes

A theme is defined by search engines as a common topic throughout an entire site. Another way to think about it is that some of your most important keywords are used consistently throughout your site. In an effort to provide their users with more relevant information, search engines developed sophisticated technology that extracts website’s themes. This technology allows results to be more focused on relevant sites for the topic searched for, instead of individual webpages.

Theme technology is used by some of the major search engine’s formulas or algorithms to index and rank sites. They are used by AltaVista, Lycos and Google. Also, when a Yahoo! reviewer is reviewing sites, sites that have a common theme will receive a higher ranking than one that is all over the place.

Site Design

Your site’s design plays a major in role in your visitor’s decision to either stick around and look at your content or continue surfing to another site. Graphics, layout, load time, fonts and ease of navigation can all influence the user. To craft a site that retains visitors, make it fast, clean and pleasant. The basic principal is do everything you can to keep them on your site for as long as possible. Not only can that help improve your search engine ranking, but it will help your sales as well.

Aside from attracting and retaining visitors, your site’s design is critical for search engine positioning. Directories, such as Yahoo!, manually review your site before accepting it. Directory editors look for sites with good design to add to their indexes. Any editor from a directory will tell you that a site using ‘This page is under construction’ message won’t be listed. Visitors don’t enjoy construction areas either. Don’t submit to directories, or even search engines for that matter, until you have your whole site up.

Capitalizing on Alphabetical Priority

Some smaller search engines use alphabetical hierarchy in their ranking formulas. But more importantly, directories such as Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project list sites in alphabetical order in their directory or categorical listings. Alphabetical priority is a way of ordering files based on the alphabetical hierarchy of the characters in their names. It is generally accepted that numbers come before letters, and symbols (@, #, & etc.) come before numbers. But don’t try to mislead them by adding ‘AAA’ or some kind of symbol in front of your name. Directories are reviewed by human editors who can confirm your actual business name.

You can only do and learn so much. It often makes much more sense to hire a professional than to try and do it yourself. They can most often do a better job than you can and it also allows you to get much more done with the limited time you have. Instead of working in your business, outsource, and work on your business instead. If you don’t have competent professionals to work with, check out http://www.elance.com and find one.

9. Be Professional

Web surfers are naturally skeptical and everything you do can affect their decision to buy from you. Unless your business or website is a household name, you probably don’t have a ton of credibility in the eyes of your visitors. So you need to do everything you can to ensure that your site builds trust and strengthens your credibility. Something seemingly as small as a spelling error or a minor design flaw can have a huge impact in a visitor decision to do business with you. If you can’t get your site right, how can they expect your product or service is all you say it is? Will it have errors, problems or flaws as well? Whatever you do, get your own domain name, have a money back guarantee, do not use free anything, make sure you get your site professionally designed, be honest and most importantly check and recheck everything you do for spelling, grammatical and design or factual errors.

8. Don’t Spam

This can single handedly destroy your entire online business in a matter of days. Spamming isn’t just limited to sending out unsolicited bulk emails – search engines can be spammed as well. Repeating a list of keywords on your site for the purpose of obtaining a better ranking, using unrelated keywords (Britney Spears on a marketing site) for the purpose of getting more visitors to your site that are searching for something else or using some types of doorway pages are all considered search engine spamming. Search engines don’t like being spammed any more than the average email user, and have been known to permanently ban sites that spam. If you spam by email, you’ll get yourself blacklisted and none of your email will get through. If your email can’t get through, then you can’t get people back to your site to sell to them and you’ll go broke. Needless to say, never send email that isn’t opt-in, and a $29.95 CD with 30 Million so called opt-in email addresses on it doesn’t count.

7. Target Your Audience

If you don’t target your website, promotions and everything else you do online to the right market you’re only wasting your time. There’s no sense sending an email promotion to a business professional on a new knitting pattern. You need to figure out exactly who your target audience is: Where do they live? What do they do? How do they do it? How much do they make? What do they buy? Where do they buy it? The more specific you can be in targeting your audience, the more effective your promotions will be.

6. Use Autoresponders

One of the most convenient aspects of the internet marketing is the ability to automate a large portion of the processes. Autoresponders allow you to do just that. Sequential (or smart) autoresponders allow you to send pre-written, personalized follow-up emails to opt-in subscribers whenever you like. For example, suppose someone signed up for an email e-course on your site which had five lessons. A sequential autoresponder will automatically send out all five messages for you at whichever intervals you like, and even personalize the emails with the information the subscribers filled out when they signed up. If you want to email your entire list with an offer, no problem, just use the built in broadcast email function.

One of the most convenient aspects of the internet marketing is the ability to automate a large portion of the processes. Autoresponders allow you to do just that. Sequential (or smart) autoresponders allow you to send pre-written, personalized follow-up emails to opt-in subscribers whenever you like. For example, suppose someone signed up for an email e-course on your site which had five lessons. A sequential autoresponder will automatically send out all five messages for you at whichever intervals you like, and even personalize the emails with the information the subscribers filled out when they signed up. If you want to email your entire list with an offer, no problem, just use the built in broadcast email function.There are many things to look for when choosing an autoresponder, so take a little time to do some comparison shopping; it is imperative to your business that you make the right choice. Although there are many different services, the one I use and like is http://www.1StartCart.com.

5. Setup an Affiliate Program

If you have your own product or service, setting up an affiliate program is a great way to get more foot traffic to your site and thereby make more sales. You’ll need to decide if you want to pay commissions on only one lever (one-tier) or on two levels (two-tier) and also what kind of commission you’ll pay. Two-tiered programs are much more attractive to affiliate because they not only earn commissions on their sales, but also on the sales of those they sign up into your program. To run your affiliate program make sure to get an affiliate management tool. I prefer the one from http://www.1StartCart.com as it’s integrated with my shopping cart system.

If you have your own product or service, setting up an affiliate program is a great way to get more foot traffic to your site and thereby make more sales. You’ll need to decide if you want to pay commissions on only one lever (one-tier) or on two levels (two-tier) and also what kind of commission you’ll pay. Two-tiered programs are much more attractive to affiliate because they not only earn commissions on their sales, but also on the sales of those they sign up into your program. To run your affiliate program make sure to get an affiliate management tool. I prefer the one from http://www.1StartCart.com as it’s integrated with my shopping cart system.Commissions can be flat rate or percentage based and can be paid on signups, sales or opt-ins; although they’re almost exclusively only paid for sales of some kind. For most electronic products commissions are split 50/50 between the publisher and the affiliate, while physical products have commission rates anywhere from 5 – 45%. Affiliate programs allow you to use the advertising expertise of others and the best part is you don’t pay until you get paid.

4. Testing and Tracking

If you don’t test to find out what works and what doesn’t, how can you ever increase your conversion rate and ultimately your sales? You can’t test if you don’t track. The ability to not only track your visitors but what they do on your site is extremely important to the success of any website. Make sure you get a good web stat tracking service such as the one from http://www.webstat.com – you needed it yesterday.No matter what kind of promotion you do online it is absolutely essential that you test and track everything. If, for example, you have an email list of 25,000 people, before you email your entire list send five different test emails to a random sample of 1,000 people each. Be sure you only change one variable in each email (such as the subject, offer, the PS, lead, sales page etc.) and see which pulls the best results. You will often find that one email may out perform the others by two or three fold. That is the one you want to send to your entire list.

On your website test different headlines, offers, testimonials, benefit statements, prices, free bonuses, opt-in forms, guarantees, design and color test absolutely everything starting with the variables that will have the most significant impact, to those that will have the least impact.

3. Search Engine Optimization

Optimizing your site for search engines is especially important as it can have profound impact on the amount of traffic you get. Though, it won’t get you much traffic right away, once your site becomes more established, it can do wonders for your traffic; and it’s free. Simple things such as using the right keywords in your domain name, page title, headers, body and meta tags can significantly help increase your search engine rankings. Other important things to consider are the number and quality of backlinks to your site (link popularity) and the actual content of your site, and the quality of that content. Simply submit your site to the major search engines and within a few months you’ll start getting quality, free traffic if you play your cards right.

2. Generating Traffic

The ‘if you build it, they will come’ method doesn’t work so well on the internet. If you’ve got a website, chances are you want people to come to it for one reason or another; and to do that you’ll need to advertise in some way, shape or form.

On the net the top five ways to get people to your site are:

Email Joint Ventures This is the absolute best way because it is quick, and easy and can get you tons of target traffic which can make you a lot of extra money.

Article Writing If you write ten articles and place them on ten websites with a link to your site, within a few weeks you’ll have thousands of inbound links to your site.

Search Engine Traffic Both free and paid search engines are a good way to get lots of traffic. It usually takes a little while to get free traffic from search engines, so if you’re just starting out, you might want to pay for it.

Online Advertising This encompasses things like banner ads, ads in ezines, text ads, PPC ads and more.

Press Releases Sending out a press release to the media is another great way to promote your site. Distribution methods are both free and paid.
Many people forget that they can also advertise their site offline as well as online. This includes things like company letterhead, business cards, pens, vehicles, billboards, print ads, radio and TV, trade shows, direct mail or anything else you can think of. Go nuts – make sure your site is on every piece of printed material that comes out of your business.

1. Build a Quality Opt-in Email Database

Building a quality opt-in email database is perhaps one of the most important parts of online marketing. If you don’t collect the names and email address of your visitors, once they leave your site they’re probably never coming back. Most marketers know that it takes up to seven contacts on average to get customers to buy from you, and an email list allows you to do just that. That’s why it’s so important to get this information. It also allows you to build a quality and trusting relationship with your subscribers which makes them more ready when their time comes to do business with you.

Building a quality opt-in email database is perhaps one of the most important parts of online marketing. If you don’t collect the names and email address of your visitors, once they leave your site they’re probably never coming back. Most marketers know that it takes up to seven contacts on average to get customers to buy from you, and an email list allows you to do just that. That’s why it’s so important to get this information. It also allows you to build a quality and trusting relationship with your subscribers which makes them more ready when their time comes to do business with you.Place an opt-in signup form prominently on your site and give visitors a reason to subscribe. Often a newsletter or ezine subscription is not enough, so offer a free bonus that has a high perceived value in the eyes of your visitors. This could be a free ebook, audio or video download, a special report, an email course or anything else of value. Then keep in touch with your subscribers on a regular basis and send them periodic offers for your products or services, or those of an affiliate program and you’ll have the makings of a beautiful relationship.