Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
IS ONLINE MARKETING A WASTE OF YOUR TIME?
1. SHOULD YOU BOTHER AT ALL WITH INTERNET MARKETING
As of March 2007, 16.9% of the world's 6.5 billion population was using the internet which roughly translates into 1.2 billion people! Asia boasts more than 50% of the world's population and of that Asian populous only 10.7% is currently online as compared to almost 70% of the North American population!
PROS: The internet is one vast marketing arena that grows bigger and bigger every year. Put another way, in the year of 2006, online advertising racked up revenue in excess of $16.7 billion dollars and is expected to reach $45 billion in the next five years.
CONS: That many people online means that the competition is bound to be fierce; but the opposite holds true as well. That many people online means there should be enough market share to go around.
BOTTOM LINE: An internet business is a great way to generate a second income or a primary money generating system that once set up is completely automated. However if you are starting out now be aware that you have millions of already established internet marketing businesses to compete with.
2. DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST
Before deciding on what your internet business is going to be make sure that there is a large enough target audience to make it worth your while. There's no point marketing something that nobody is interested in.
PROS: Countless opportunities abound online and also there're several websites such as digitalpoint.com which offer excellent free marketing research tools.
CONS: Excellent as a lot of these free tools are, they cannot compete with some fee-based tools as far as in-depth analytics go.
BOTTOM LINE: Plenty of novice internet marketers doom themselves right from the get go because they don't bother doing any prior research which is tantamount to firing first before readying yourself, aiming then finally firing!
3. GETTING YOUR WEB PRESENCE
The internet has come of age. A few years back getting a credible web presence usually translated into having to shell out exorbitant hosting fees. That has since changed!
These days you can get luxury-level, premium loaded web hosting for less than $4/month. Even better yet you can conduct an online business without ever having to pay web hosting fees. All you have to do is use a blog!
PROS: Starting an online business today need not cost you a single cent upfront!
CONS: Just starting out means that you've got your work cut out to distinguish your internet business from the rest of the crowd; a very big crowd!
BOTTOM LINE: You really no longer have an excuse for not getting a web presence. The old oh-I-cannot-afford-hosting-fees excuse no longer cuts it! As previously mentioned it is now possible to conduct internet marketing without putting down a single cent. And as for not knowing HTML (web coding language)! That excuse too is dead and buried.; knowing html or other web coding language is a thing of the past, these days you can make do quite nicely without.
4. WHAT IS THE FASTEST/EASIEST WAY TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE?
Hands down the cheapest, easiest and quickest way to make money online is through affiliate marketing.
And what is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is simply a partnership between an affiliate(you) and a merchant (the merchant being the owner of the product). Affiliate marketing may also be referred to as affiliate programs, referral programs and associate programs.
Here's how affiliate marketing works--You (the affiliate) promote or advertise a product on your site that belongs to somebody else (the merchant).
Basically, the merchant supplies you with a variety of text links, banners or graphics embedded with your own affiliate code. You then strategically insert any number of those coded links or graphics onto your website (or blog) with the purpose of referring your visitors to the merchant's site.
When one of your site's visitors clicks on any one of those code-imbedded links they are transferred to the merchant's site. If that visitor then purchases something from that merchant you get paid. It's as simple as that.
PROS: You don't have to spend a cent to be an affiliate marketer. The best affiliate programs furnish you with all the necessary tools to conduct a successful promotional campaign of their products. Best of all, there are more than enough well-established and trustworthy affiliate program directories from which you can choose almost any product to promote!
CONS: You need to make sure that the products that you promote actually achieve what the claim to do (which in some cases entails trying them out beforehand). Also you are going to be faced with the issue of being just another affiliate marketer promoting the same products as thousands of other internet marketers.
BOTTOM LINE: Affiliate marketing is the cheapest way to start out. However bear in mind that the internet marketers who make the big bucks do so through selling their own products. So in essence you should promote other people's stuff up until you've become internet marketing savvy enough to sell your own product, be it digital goods (downloadable stuff) or whatever.
5. INTERNET TRAFFIC: THE POT OF GOLD AT THE END OF EVERY INTERNET MARKETING RAINBOW
In the online world once you've got lots of internet traffic you're made, without it, you're dead! Internet traffic is the true engine that drives any successful internet business. Those websites or blogs that are raking it in do so for one reason and one reason alone; they get tons of online traffic!
So how do you get traffic? There're a variety of ways to get traffic, some of them free and others not so.
A.USE WEB 2.0 TECHNIQUES: Web 2.0 is the newest phase or 2nd generation of web based services which include social networking sites such as myspace.com and youtube.com to name but a few. A well organized and interesting blog is a good platform with which to gain web 2.0 based internet traffic.
B.WRITE ARTICLES: Cheap and highly effective method to attract quick relevant traffic to your website or blog. It does require a certain amount of effort on your part (in other words conveying useful information) to make sure that your article attracts a ton of visitors to your site. The best bit about article writing is that you have literally thousands of article directories where you can submit your articles to.
C.POSTING IN FORUMS: Most people trawl forums to find answers that resolve their problems. You can capitalize on this by checking out forums relevant to your market and posting replies to current or recent questions to which you know the answers. If you post a genuinely useful and helpful reply you could end up with several grateful customers.
How?
Well, it's very probable those people whose problem you just solved will click on your signature link to see what further useful information they can get from your site. Most forums enable you to promote your site by allowing you to paste a link pointing to your site at the end of your posting (different forums have different guidelines so it's good to read them up).
D. PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING of which perhaps the most famous (or infamous depending on your perspective) is Google Adwords. Paying to get internet traffic through advertising is what is commonly known as PPC or pay-per-click. At its most basic, pay per-click marketing involves you composing an ad and bidding for a relevant searched-for keyword. Your ad will then be listed on the relevant search engine index pages for that same keyword you bid.
E. INTERNET TRAFFIC FROM THE SEARCH ENGINES: This is the best traffic to draw to your website because it is the most qualified and targeted type of online traffic. What do I mean when I say the most qualified type of internet traffic?
I am talking about people who actively typed in a search term/phrase (keyword) into any search engine online. Such a person is more likely to purchase, subscribe or do whatever you most desire your visitors to do when they get to your site.
Getting this kind of traffic requires search engine optimization (seo) of your website or blog.
PROS: There're multiple avenues to draw internet traffic to your website/blog these days, all of which involve a certain amount of effort, some more so than others. A well written article costs you no more than the whirring of your brain and the tip tap of your fingers on the keyboard, yet the traffic generated from that one article could quite easily translate into big sales.
CONS: Online traffic is what everybody with a web presence desires, only problem is that it happens to be rather challenging to get a significant amount of it unless your website has been around for quite a while.
BOTTOM LINE: Internet traffic is the lifeblood of any online business and if you intend to be an internet marketer then you cannot do without it.
6. PLAY NOT FOLLOW THE LEADER!
Masura Ibuka, a co-founder of Sony once said "You never succeed in technology, business or anything else by following others!" That quote is equally applicable today in the internet marketing arena as it was when he said it. If you insist on playing follow-the-leader, then by proxy you'll always be playing catch-up which is not the best marketing strategy.
PROS: Being the leader in whatever marketing endeavor you pursue automatically makes your brand instantly recognizable to the public which translates into more profit because people will always think of you first for that particular niche market. After all don't forget your ultimate internet marketing goal should be selling your own products eventually.
CONS: Being in the forefront by its very nature means that you're going to have to put in a little more time and effort at the beginning to attain that lead than if you were just joining the ranks of followers.
7. AVOID THE MINEFIELD OF ONLINE SCAMS.
I'm sure you don't need to be told that the internet is awash with scams. A good rule of thumb to abide by is: If it seems too good to be true then it is precisely that! Most people get scammed because they are looking for the easiest path to riches and hence ignore that little squeaky voice in their head that is telling them "there's no such thing as an overnight success!"
PROS: A lot of internet marketers who had been operating smoothly behind a facade of respectability have since been exposed together with their scams. Still the onus is on you to keep your wits and common sense and not get duped!
CONS: It is easy to be swept off your senses by good copywriting and visions of all that money you're apparently going to make overnight doing practically nothing!
If you ever do start getting that giddy feeling ascribed to gonna-be-rich-overnight syndrome, remember what world-famous hairstylist Vidal Sassoon had to say about success: "The only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary!"
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Learn The Fundamentals Of SEO
It's Really True! So-called SEO Experts Want You To Believe That Search Engine Optimization Is Some Hocus Pocus Magic That Only They Understand!
What Is SEO
In very simple terms SEO is the process by which you configure your website (content-wise and through links) in a manner that compels the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN to name but a few) to rank it higher for a given keyword or phrase.
Bearing this in mind, if your website happens to be at the top of page one of Google, for example, what that means is that as far as Google is concerned your site is the single best contender for that search phrase.
This doesn't necessarily mean your site has the best content with respect for that given search phrase.
What it does mean though, is that as far as the googlebot (google search engine spider that crawls the web) is concerned your site desrves first place as a result of excellent optimization that satisfied all the criteria the googlebot looks for.
SEO Services Don't Do Their Best Work!
Are you aware that most SEO services don't optimize their clients' websites to the best of their abilities. Can you guess why?
Because if they did then they wouldn't be able to charge those same clients the exorbitant monthly fees that they do! Afterall once they've correctly optimized your site you don't need them any longer...and then they have lost a lucrative source of income.
You see the average person is under the impression that search engine optimization is way beyond them. And in fact that is a myth that countless folks involved with search engine optimization are more than happy to perpetuate.
And why not? Search is very big business. Think about it...Google is barely a decade old, yet they are worth over $100 billion! So it really is in the interest of so-called SEO experts to make you believe that they...and they alone understand this magic called search engine optimization!
Some of the Myths of SEO
You need a ton of links to get a good ranking!
It is virtually impossible to get indexed quickly by Google unless you spend a fortune to have one-way links from high pagerank sites!
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If your site is new be prepared for it to wallow in the Google Sandbox for anywhere from 6 to 12 months (the so-called Google sandbox is the way in which Google sequesters new sites until they've proved their worth...i.e., they aren't spam sites).
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You need a ton of content to rank well on Google and the other search engines!
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You have to spend a fortune to get targeted traffic to your website!
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It is better to use a submission service to automatically mass submit your new url to the various search engines.
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If you really needed a ton of links...why is it (for a given search term) that in several cases the topmost ranked websites have far fewer links than their competitors...yet they still rank higher! The Answer--Correct search engine optimization.
Getting indexed quickly by Google is almost impossible! Oh Really? Truth is...Google themselves give you a clue on how to go about it. They actually encourage you to submit your sitemap to them...only catch is it has to be submitted in the form of an XML map and your server must support python script. (But there're ways around this...don't worry)
The Google Sandbox is a reality...but there are legit ways to beat it and they won't cost you a fortune. Google themselves provide clues on how to go about this. Only problem is, the internet is a vast place...you could spend forever searching for this information!
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Yes it's true that it is better for the googlebot and other search engines to find your website on their own. That said, it is unlikely that submitting your url manually to Google through their very own submisission page will lower your eventual pagerank and chances of being indexed. More likely than not this is a myth to promote the SEO services industry.
By and large using submission services to submit your new url to the various search engines is a waste of money and time. A lot of them lure you in with seductive langauage about how they are going to save you infinite time and increase your online traffic by automatically submitting your site to hundreds of search engines. Truth be told, other than the few major search engines, the rest as far as traffic goes, are pretty worthless!And what's more using such services is more likely to get your new website penalized!
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Online traffic is the lifeblood of any internet business...that much is true. But if you're just starting out in a highly competitive market do you really need to spend a small fortune to get decent if any traffic at all? Not at all. There're free and more sustainable ways to get decent online traffic than through advertising. But if you feel that the cash in your pockets is burning a hole...by all means go ahead and compete with the big guns who can afford to run exorbitant advertising campaigns.
Click Here To Read An Article Showing Good Fundamental SEO Basics!
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Still Need More Reasons To Do SEO Yourself?
If all that I have written above is not enough to persuade you of the value of learning SEO yourself then I don't know what will? But here goes. How about:
Unlike other search engine optimization books out there the SEO Book is constantly being updated to keep pace with the changes in the search engine world
- It is one of the most referenced search engine optimization articles currently on the internet
This article on seo shows you how easy it is to implement effective seo campaigns yourself.
Click Here To Learn How To Master SEO!
The SEO Book shows you how to get free targeted traffic
The SEO Book provides you with free tools to help you determine the viability of any market before you actually commit yourself
The SEO Book provides great tips on copywriting
In striking contrast to other eBooks the SEO Book does not promote a plethora of worthless items. In fact you'll find in many instances the author will direct you to a given link just so as to clarify a particular point, but then will also unabashedly tell you not to waste your money buying that product for such and such a reason... now how often does that happen on the web?
The SEO Book directs you to a host of excellent free services and internet tools that many other sites are selling for a fortune (or the equivalent software)
The Devil Is In The Details
You've probably heard of information overload and may in fact have been a victim yourself. The problem of being inundated with details is that very often you lose sight of the big picture...after all there is only so much information that your brain can handle at any one time.
Think about your approach to tackling a novel. There's a good chance that given a choice you will probably shy away from that oversized 1000 page tome...right?
So what am I leading upto and what has this got to do with your internet marketing endeavors?
okay here's the point I'm trying to make. When you intend to buy an internet marketing course don't always go for the one that has the most pages and is the most voluminous. How come? How about the fact that a lot of the information within that oversized course is irrelevant and is more likely to confuse you especially if you are pressed for time.
In fact that is a well established gambit that several internet marketers use to attract potential buyers away from their competitors...by offering oversized internet marketing tomes largely filled with fluff!
And it works! Most people seem to equate size with quality.
By and large I am of the school of thought that the best size for an internet marketing eBook or eCourse should be no more than 80 pages (assuming the lines aren't double spaced). This may necessitate more effort and rewriting on the authors part but the plus side is that you'll end up with a better quality books.
On a final note ask yourself this...when was the last time you finished a 500 page novel or tome; unless of course you are of the scholarly disposition.
The Value Of Obsolete Web Pages
As The Size of Your Website Grows Some Of Your Older Pages Are Going To Become Increasingly Dated and Irrelevant!
It's been said that a week in politics is a lifetime (well something akin to that anyhow) probably because change happens so quickly in that particular theater of life. Well the same could be said of the internet, which means that much of what was once true may no longer hold true within a few short months.
The significance of this is that you may end up being saddled with a slew of older webpages that are obsolete at best and inaccurate at worst, and what is more the web design of those original web pages probably do not reflect the sparkling brilliance of your new redefined website layout.
Sure...those pages may look tacky and downright embarrassing in comparison to your new website design but the wrong approach to take is to delete those pages and be done with them, most especially if they have attained page rank. Why? Because you are discarding potential links to your home page.
That's right, search engines factor links from your inner pages to your homepage in their overall assessment of your website's link quota. Admittedly links from your website may not carry as much weight as those from a totally independent site but they are still worth optimizing for. And bear in mind if your obsolete inner page has a pagerank of say PR4, it definitely has more value than an outside link from a webpage of PR2 or even PR3.
So anyhow back to this whole issue of not discarding your tired old obsolete webpages. That was a mistake I made when I was still an internet marketing greenhorn. I cringe now to recall how I discarded about five pages worth PR3 with happy and oblivious abandon (Then I hadn't notched up the Google 2-Strikes against my website for bad linking policies yet, and my inner pages were all PR3 with a home PR of 5).
Later as I better understood seo techniques I realized how rash I had been in discarding those dated pages. If you do find yourself in this kind of predicament keep those pages and link them appropriately to your homepage or other relevant pages of your website, and when time lends itself you can update the information and design of said webpages to better reflect your new, improved and revamped website.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Sometimes Less Is More And More Is Less
Usually more means more and less means less, but there're times when less equals more and more equals less! Conventional wisdom normally dictates that more is better than less, but as far as online marketing goes, a good rule of thumb is to toss conventional wisdom screaming and pleading out the 21st floor window and rather abide by the Less-Equals-More Principle that has many points of application in web marketing. But first let me back track a little to better explain the paradox that is this principle.
Anyway the list is virtually endless and I could go on practically forever, but I'm sure you get the picture I'm painting here--that generally speaking "More" beats out "Less", except, as previously stated, in the applied science of internet marketing. So without further ado here are the various situations where it is indeed better to apply the Less-Equals-More Principle in your marketing strategy:
1. Adsense: Assuming you posted adsense ads on your site to generate extra revenue, you should opt for fewer than more ads. Why? Because starting from topmost left to bottom most right the amount you get paid for each click-per-ad decreases (note that there're several different adsense formats but inevitably the ads on the left have the highest payout, topmost first). This is one of the classical applications of the Less-Equals-More Principle and is well known to adsense aficionados.
2. Tackling Too Many Goals At Once: It's a well documented fact of life that any given day only has 24hrs. This is a truism that applies to every single sane individual residing on this planet and what it means is that you only have a finite amount of time to accomplish your goals. If you attempt to do too many tasks at once the end result is that in all likelihood you'll probably not even complete a single one. This is what is known as spreading yourself too thin. Think of your mental processes as your own personal army; the tasks and goals you've set count as your adversaries. As with any conventional army it doesn't matter whether you have superior forces if you don't allocate those forces strategically. If you spread those forces too thin then it is entirely possible for a smaller army to punch through your lines and even possibly overwhelm your forces. Same thing goes for your internet marketing strategy -- try to accomplish too much at once and you'll probably succumb to information overload (one of the killer diseases for marketing newbies). The bottom line is that you'll end up as a "Jack of All Trades Master of None" which is a colorful way of saying you know a bit about everything yet are unaccomplished at all!
3. Brandishing A Webpage of Mass Dazzle: I like to refer to such web pages as bling-bling pages because they remind me of rappers' bling-bling (bling-bling refers to the oversized sparkling jewelry once heavily favored by the majority of hip-hop and rap artists (these days they seem to be toning down a bit however). So what exactly do I mean by a bling-bling web page? I'm referring to those web pages that literally hurt your eyes with dazzle as though a confetti bomb had been exploded. There is so much going on the page it is truly difficult to focus on any one thing. Such pages are characterized with: garish colors; flash scripts buzzing about; pop-ups wheezing by; multi-colored text and a vast array of offerings liberally sprinkled between a smattering of text.
Now if your goal is to chase your visitors away as fast as possible, it doesn't get any better than this. If, on the other hand you are trying to get your visitors to purchase a product, but you so happen to be the proud owner of such a bling-bling web page, then it really is high time you rethought your marketing strategy. Your goal as a marketer is to guide the visitors to your site from Point A to Point B with as little fuss and confusion as possible; where Point A is your compelling, clear, concise copy convincing them why they absolutely cannot do without your product, and Point B is where they make the purchase. Once again the Less-Equals-More Principle reigns supreme.
4. Spoilt For Choice: Several studies and market research has revealed that the more choices presented to an individual, the harder they find it to reach a decision. Strange huh -- You'd think people would welcome a greater selection of choice, wouldn't you? Well apparently not. The extra selections insert an added element that didn't originally exist; one of uncertainty and doubt. Where, beforehand your visitor was 100% ready to buy your product on the strength of your copy, two different but equally matched products presented side by side necessitate the need to conduct further research to determine which one is better and why. That further research may ultimately lead your almost-about-to-buy visitor to your competitor's doorstep where ironically they may end up buying the exact same product they first encountered on your site!
Internet Marketing Techniques
Learn How To Up Your Domain Game
Be aware that if your domain name expires because your domain registrar never bothered to apprise you of its impending expiration, it could cost you a fortune to get it back. This actually happens more commonly than is acknowledged, most especially with the cheaper domain name registrars. You see there really isn't much money to be made from plain domain name registration.
So Tom Cruise Jumped up and down maniacally on Oprah Winfrey's plush sofa professing to anyone bothered enough to listen that he really loves Katie Holmes!
Britney Spears cruised the town panty-less "accidentally" flashing her inner treasures to the entire world to reassure herself and us that she's still of significance in the celebrity-social stratum-- motherhood notwithstanding--while her new very-best-friend Paris Hilton, exhibiting unusual modesty, vainly attempted to keep Spear's inner-thigh secrets...well secret, from the rest of the world.
Decades ago, film producer and director Roman Polanski fled the Us to France after running afoul of the law.
Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy.com embarked on a shooting safari in Africa where he did eventually get to send an elephant to the land of Forever-Tusks and the great beyond.
So what has all this got to do with domain name registration and GoDaddy?
Though I truly and honestly can claim to have never been a fan of Ms. Spears (or whatever name she goes by these days) I will sheepishly confess to having found my legs unwittingly reflexively twitching spasmodically one night to a dance song in a bar, only to discover with shock and horror that the chanteuse was none other than Britney "Oops-did-I-really-let-you-see-all-the-way-up-there" Spears.
Anyway back to GoDaddy and domain name registration.
I may not agree with Bob Parsons shooting an elephant, though it should be noted that the elephant would have been killed anyway. Zimbabwe, (I think it was killed in Zimbabwe) have a nationally supported culling system to keep the numbers of elephants within the boundaries of acceptable limit (acceptable from the point-of-view of the most ferocious earthbound predator--Man!).
But whatever my take on his shooting safari or other celebrity shenanigans, here's why I still register my domain names with GoDaddy.com and recommend them as far as domain name registration goes:
1. They are the biggest domain name registrar in the business which means they aren't disappearing anytime soon.
2. Their prices may not be the cheapest but it is still cheap; no point being penny-wise and pound foolish!
3. By registering your domain names with GoDaddy.com you can be confident that you won't have to contend with some pesky lawsuit somewhere down the road because you were inadvertently issued a domain name that apparently belonged to someone else.
4. You can rest easy in the knowledge that you will get ample notification when your domain name registration is expiring.
Why?
Because domain name register services are charged $6.00 per year per domain name by companies such as VeriSign which by the way is the authoritative directory provider for all .com, .net, .cc, and .tv domain names and is solely responsible for handling the backend system for .com names, which currently constitute the greater percentage of the 105 or so million sites registered worldwide.
On top of that domain name providers or registrars have to pay ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)a non-profit fee of 25 cents per name. Consequently those companies charging less than $7.00/year for domain name registration are making no profit whatsoever and are even probably losing money.
So how do domain name registrars contend with this trifling inconvenience?
The bigger domain name registration companies make their real money on backend or added feature sales, such as hosting. The lesser and cheaper registration companies make do by shaving costs by eliminating important features such as automated-expiration-date notification.
Bottom line: As far as GoDaddy goes, register your domain name with them but skip their hosting offers and other enticing features!
Domain Registration