My Buy Essay

Archive for March, 2009

Website development is an important and crucial first step to creating an online business. The investment made in your website design can be a large investment and you probably want a website that is an extension of your business and display your products or service in a professional way.

Beware, just because a website is amazing to look at, this does not mean it work well with all of your Internet Marketing efforts.

Most of the time the websites are created with out the thought or planning of good quality content, sites are also employing mainly flash design as well as complicated navigation set up making exploring your site frustrating.

Surprisingly Internet Marketing and Website Design seem to be clashing rather than complimenting each other.

Do you ever ask yourself why isn’t your website performing well online no matter what you do?

What causes a beautiful, appealing website to fall short in search engines?

Most cases seem to point to the fact that some website designers do not consider the importance of Internet Marketing when putting together websites for there customers. Some web designers seem to be strictly focused on the graphical components and forget or do know about the Search Engine Marketing, Internet Marketing aspects of most websites.

Internet Marketing may be less of an importance if site is mainly a Business to Business website but in the ecommerce business, websites really depend on SEO Internet Marketing for its overall success.

Websites that fall short in Internet Marketing can lead to very expensive and needed redesigns for your site, changing different components of your pages to make it search engine friendly as well as easy navigation for site exploration although some changes may be less extreme than others. This can cause major set backs in business goals.

Build and design your website around the content not the other way around.

Before you decide on a website designer, make positive that the design will be user friendly as well as friendly for Internet Marketing procedures. Shop around, ask questions, see if the designer understands the importance of certain SEO priorities and keep them informed about what your looking to accomplish.

Design a site that is easily expandable as well as easily adjusted to fit your Internet Marketing, SEO needs or have your SEO Consultant suggest a web designer to work with, insuring everything will function the way your website was intended to function. This just may help prevent costing you much more than you ever expected and it will also help your business goals to remain on the track to success.

There are thousands and thousands of message boards on the internet. That’s a lot of potential people who may be interested in your products or services. It also serves as a quick and easy way to get a lot of links pointing back at your site and can help get your pages spidered faster by the search engines.

I use a free tool, Board Tracker (.boardtracker.com/), to help monitor posts on over 25,000 forums.

You can set up a free account there and then set up alerts. You can set it to alert you to any posts containing any keyword or phrases you like. Some examples would be, your board nicknames, your domain names, affiliate programs you work with, or whatever else you’re interested in..

When someone makes a post and one of your alert keywords is found, you are emailed a link to the thread which you can follow and make a post. So as not to be a blatant board spammer, it is recommended that you register and make an introduction post on that board before responding to the thread. When responding, you should make your post helpful to the person in regards to answering any question they had without spamming your site/program, you are relying on your signature file here to draw their attention.

To make this task easier, I suggest utilizing Roboform (.roboform.com/). Roboform makes it easy to handle all of your registering and logins.

Now, let’s find some forums in which we can participate. Everyone has some knowledge or interest in something. Perhaps it is cars, interior design or something else. Whatever it is, you can be certain there are forums for that particular niche.

You can use your favorite search engine and search for…

forums

“message board”

or specifically for…

car message boards

interior design message boards

or search by the different types of forum software like…

“powered by PHPBB”

“powered by vbulletin”

Before registering with any message boards I would suggest that you setup a yahoo or gmail account just for this purpose. It would also be a good idea to use this email for your boardtracker alerts as well.

Now you are ready to begin registering. I have created a new identity in Roboform to handle the registration for me. This includes my signature file as well. Before posting, make sure that you read the board rules so you are able to comply with those.

Once registered, make your introduction post. Basically you are just announcing your arrival and maybe saying a little something about yourself (roboform can do that too!), be sure to set your introduction thread to notify you of new posts so that you are able to respond as others welcome you.

Some things to keep in mind…

Who is your target audience and where will you find them? Are stay home moms likely to be found in Family & Parenting forums? Who is most likely to be participating at a car forum? A pet owners forum? etc..

Once you’ve located your target audience, target your signature to meet the needs of that audience. For example, if you were involved in a Family & Parenting forum, a signature aimed towards the mom who would like to earn money while being home for her children may be in order. If it were a Car or Electronics forum, maybe a signature promoting Free Satellite Dishes (these pay $50-$100 per install btw) would be more appropriate. The idea is to determine what the needs of any particular audience would be and finding a way to appeal to that.

Also, notice that the majority of forums offer a place for people to place advertising, usually under a category labeled something like, “opportunities”, “recommendations”, “spam allowed”, etc.. Look for these and make use of those as well. Each of those is a free targeted link to your site or product.

Make sure that you are paying attention to your anchor text. Anchor text, in case you don’t know, is the actual text that is linked. Choose good keywords for your anchor text that you would like to do well for in the search engines. Never link text such as “click here”.

The most important thing is to make this a part of your daily schedule. Do it each and every day and shortly you will have thousands of free advertising links all over the internet!

Disclaimer: I am in no way endorsing blatant spamming! The method I’ve outlined above is more of a suggestion for yet another avenue of free marketing that should be used in a responsible and productive manner which will benefit the board owners, other board members as well as yourself.

How To Get Massive Traffic To Your Web Site? Twenty Simple Ways.

Do you think that embarking on an Internet marketing campaign is difficult, tricky, or complicated? Successful Internet marketing campaign doesn’t have to be difficult, tricky, or complicated. Here are twenty simple ways that you can easily implement to get tons of traffic to your site right now.

1) Social bookmark


You must drain to the last drop what you give any social bookmark site. You can bookmark each page of your site and each blog entry you post. While this might seem wearisome, it’s worth it. You’ll see a strong increase in traffic if you social bookmark each page on your site and each of your blog entries.

2) Write articles


Believe it or not this is an incredible tool for driving traffic to your site. Relevant, well-written articles can net quite a bit of activity to your web place. Off course – don’t forget to add your URL in your byline. Articles should be 500 to 2,000 words in length. You can send articles to sites like: Ezine Articles, GoArticles, Submit Your Articles and Article City.

3) And speaking of your email signature line

If you don’t, create one. Believe it or not, people do follow these links. You’ll be amaze how many users read email signature lines. I have one and change it several times a year, depending on what we are doing or promoting.

4) List your web site in the best web directories

You’ll have to pay for this but since most people don’t do this (since everyone is looking for a freebie) you could really enhance your traffic by getting a listing: botw dot org and many, dir dot yahoo dot com, business dot org other good directories.

5) Get yourself listed at: DMOZ dot org


It’s not easy – to get link at DMOZ, but worth the effort.

6) Create a “recommended by” list on your Delicious page

You can do this by logging on and creating an account and there and then tagging articles, blogs and other content you think is important to your readership. Then offer this page as a resource site. You can add a link to this page in your email signature line or on your web site.

7) Offer a freebie on Craig’s List


You’ll be surprised at how much traffic you get from a single Craig’s List ad. The key here is to send users to a page on your site and make sure they have to sign up for something (like your email newsletter) before they can grab their freebie. That way you’re not just getting traffic, you’re also building your list.

Review:


If you can review hot new products or books within your market, head on over to Amazon and start positioning yourself as an expert. In order to do this effectively you’ll want to create an Amazon profile and make sure and sign each review with a reference to your URL (your web site). You can also go to Epinions and Revoo to review products as well.

9) Lend a helping hand:


You can be an answer person at Yahoo Answers &ndash you don’t have to spend hours on there, but maybe a 15 to 30 minutes a week and include a link back to your site following your answers.

10) Set up a social networking site using Facebook, LinkedIn, or Squidoo

It’s free and easy, just don’t forget the all-important link back to your site!

A long time ago you decided that working all the hours God sends every week and being away from your family just has to be wrong. You know what? It is. There is a way to right this wrong and it has to do with the Internet. But you knew that already. So what is the next step?

You have been looking online in the search engines and maybe in the newsgroups and you have seen plenty of opportunities. Most of the hype you read sounds much too good to be true and most of it is. However, there are some real opportunities out there. You just have to know where to look. Don’t follow the other sheep, work it out for yourself.

Where do you look? Who holds the keys to this bountiful virtual treasure chest? Do you have a chance at success?

From here on in we’ll confirm some truths and dispel some lies which you’ll find all over the place online.

Lie: I can earn amazing sums of money online really quick. I can quit the 9-5 within weeks!

Truth: Pure hype reigns supreme on the Internet. The claims of huge downlines, 6 figure incomes overnight and massive mailing lists with no effort are complete drivel. Nothing is easy to make a go of and online it’s no different. It’s possibly even harder to make your fortune online since the rules are always changing. Staying on top of and driving these changes is where your success will come from.

Lie: Working your online business is easier than working the 9-5.

Truth: Making a true success of your online business is, more often than not, a whole lot harder. You are directly responsible for the amount of money you put in the bank at the end of the month. You will need excellent time management skills and organizational skills. Possibly the hardest thing is the motivation. To get up every day and motivate yourself to switch the computer on, knowing you have to get down to some hard work can be very tough some days.

Lie: My time is my own. I can work whenever.

Truth: Your time is your most precious commodity. There are daily demands on your time from your family and the business of everyday living. Real life carries on regardless of whether you have a spreadsheet to prepare or not. Managing your time actually becomes a delicate balancing act. You cannot ignore your family if you’re working at home – and anyway, one of the reasons you wanted to work at home was to spend more time with the family, right?

Lie: My children will enjoy the extra time I can spend with them.

Truth: Still with this time thing. Yes your kids will be happier to see you more around the place but they will also become confused as to why you can’t play with them more and may even come to resent this. The delicate balancing act is indeed a thin tight-rope walk and you’ve got to be a masterful acrobat to pull it off. It can be done however and this shouldn’t put you off.

Lie: Build it and they will come.

Truth: Whilst this may have been true in the very early days of the Internet with the most basic of search engines driving traffic, these days nothing could be further from the truth. Building your website and getting it online puts you on the first rung of the ladder. Getting enough traffic to make your website profitable is your next goal. There are many places online which claim to be able to do this for you, only 2-3% of these places will be worth your time.

Lie: The Internet is just one big playground for scammers.

Truth: The Internet, with it’s anonymity, is indeed a fertile breeding ground for the more unscrupulous among us. While scammers get all the press there are plenty of real people like you making some nice piles of coin from the Internet perfectly legally. The information revolution is upon us and you better get onboard.

Lie: All my friends and family will want to join me.

Truth: Your friends and family will think you’re completely mad. While you may find one or two people who’re open to your dreams and visions, most will simply ridicule you so be ready for that. They may not talk about you openly but they will think you’re wasting your time. Ignore them and prove them wrong. You can do it. Success is sweet.

At the final analysis, if you want to work at home on the Internet, become truly financially and spiritually free then the odds are not stacked in your favour. This being said, with the fire of determination burning inside you, with the strong desire to enjoy a life of no money worries and more quality time with your family then you will succeed. It takes time, effort and hard choices but you can do it.

Just do one thing every day to improve your position and that’s all it takes.

Here’s to your ultimate success!

Riley.

I have spent several months reviewing e-books that claim to make you money. Out of the ones I reviewed, only 3 were really true to their word. These 3 are the best and fastest way to make money online.

Below is a list of the 3 e-books I reviewed that will guarantee your success.

My number one pick is Affiliate Cash Vault

This e-book will teach you how to make money through the affiliate programs. You can start earning money in no time. With this package, you don’t have to worry about making a web site of your own, creating your own products, have any stock or inventory on hand, take or ship orders, deal with customers or follow ups on leads, have to work any set hours and or fork over huge investments.

My number two pick is The Ultimate Wealth Package

This package has a little bit of something for everyone. This book shows you how to create affiliate sites and make money right away. It teaches you pay per click money making strategies and simple SEO techniques.

You also get in the package 108 bonus items, which include many items you won’t find anywhere else. You also get a free web site build by one of his designers that would normally cost $400.

My number three pick is Honest Income Program.

This program is what the title says, it’s honest. In this e-book you’ll learn how to make money with 3 systems. The systems are easy to understand and you can start making money right away with them.

The first system you can make $500

The second system you can make $200

The third system you can make $1,200

The best way to make money online is to know where to start and I provided you with a place to start. You can only succeed with the three books I reviewed.

For details please go to my site — Money making online

The Internet offers many means of affordable marketing, often with full-color imagery to go along with text. And multimedia components add some spice to the mix and increase online visitors and purchases. Here are some top Internet marketing techniques to help increase your sales and income.

1. DIRECTORY – Create your own directory on a specific industry topic, placing your own ad or banner along the top. Then invite others to add their website links via a link exchange program, listing themselves in your directory. This will result in lots of free advertising for you as your directory expands with links across the World Wide Web. Enter “link exchange software” into your favorite search engine for help with setup.

2. TEACH A COURSE &ndash Write out a simple step-by-step instructional class in your area of expertise. Then break it up into smaller segments and set them up in an autoresponder as email messages with your ads included at the top and / or bottom of each message. Invite website visitors to sign up through on online form or email subscription address offered through the autoresponder service. Then as people sign up, they will learn more about you and your products and services.

3. EZINE EBOOK &ndash Forget about small daily or weekly ezines. Try publishing one large monthly e-zine as an e-book format, preferably an Adobe .pdf file. Include a large number of articles with each issue and regularly featured areas like inspirational quotes, industry tips, favorite sites and advice from the pros. Also insert full-color graphics, multimedia components like audio file links, if you like, and ads. Then you can charge a monthly rate, with an annual discounted package purchase, and sell advertising spots.

4. TIP OF THE DAY &ndash Set up your own Tip of the Day targeting your own area of expertise, relating to your own products and services. You can set it up on your website in a targeted box, via autoresponder, a blog, an RSS feed, an audio file or others means of communication. Add your own ad along with your tip for whichever product or service you want to target or maybe even your own online store for all. This will gently remind your target audience where to go to learn more.

In summary, by using Internet Marketing techniques customized to fit your own products and services, you can reach out and increase your website traffic and purchase opportunities. Internet marketing can mean a more affordable way to grow your business.

Internet marketing can be a tricky business if you do not know what you are doing. That is one reason that so many marketing beginners constantly execute some of the top internet marketing mistakes known to the cyber world. Building a clean, workable web site can be very simple if you educate yourself on the basics of site design and content. And if you fail to learn the most important aspects of web site creation? You will most likely commit some of the deadliest internet marketing blunders the World Wide Web has ever seen.

A significant internet marketing mistake frequently made, is letting your webmaster compose your site copy. Webmasters are generally not trained to write text, and most probably cringe at the thoughts of having to write the copy that will be viewed by thousands. When developing your internet marketing plan, you must allow money to hire a professional copywriter that is paid to create articles and text. For your site to make money, you need words that will entice your visitors, and encourage them to buy your products. Experienced copywriters are very knowledgeable in marketing and promotion, and can guarantee to attract large amounts traffic with their exceptional copy and unique ideas.

Another major internet marketing blunder is poor web site design and navigation. A site’s design should be clean and simple, with a search box on the top, and clickable categories running down the side. Small thumbnail pictures should accompany each product, with larger, crisp photos just a click away. A great internet marketing technique is to have a separate section of the web site specifically for sale and discount products, and another page for seasonal items.

Forgetting to include contact information on your web site is another huge internet marketing mistake. Who would want to buy from a company that cannot be reached? Your web site should always include a telephone number, e-mail address, and shipping address. It is advisable to include a separate page solely for contact information, and have a link to your e-mail address on the home page.

1. Failing to understand how to make a marketing piece “viral”

Often people create what they call a viral marketing piece when it is nothing more than a brochure and an advertisement. It is way too self serving. It has no possibility of creating buzz. While there is no guaranteed formula for creating a viral marketing piece, there are many things you can do to increase its effectiveness and its viral nature.

2. Failing to make it interesting enough to pass along

Whether or not there are external incentives to encourage the viral spread, if you failed to make the article or e-book interesting enough with high quality content that is useful or entertaining, you couldn’t pay them enough to pass it along. If on the other hand it is very useful, high quality or entertaining, it will get passed along with or without any other incentives.

3. Failing to provide incentives to encourage people to pass your message along

While there are many successes where the sender was not rewarded for passing on viral information, it works better if you can provide an incentive. Provide an incentive that you don’t have to pay up front. Instead provide a success incentive. If the desired outcome is met then you give them money, commissions, discounts, extended memberships, additional MP3 recordings, more articles, more eBooks, etc. Whatever incentive you decide to use, make sure it is easy to sign up for and easy to collect.

4. Failing to provide an incentive for people to respond to your call to action

The way to sell with a viral marketing piece is to do so at the very end, in the conclusion, in the summary or in the resource box. It doesn’t need to be a hard pitch, just an offer for an ethical bribe that will move them to visit your website, call your 800 number or send an email to get whatever you are offering.

Experience has shown that the incentive should be related to your product or service. If you are a law firm, don’t offer a chance to win a Corvette or an iPod. Too many unqualified people will sign up and waste your time following up with them. Instead if you are a law firm specializing in Intellectual Property, offer a free e-book on “How you can increase the value of your company with patents and trademarks.”

5. Failing to effectively promote their viral campaigns

Because we’ve heard of some success stories where no promotion was needed, it is easy to fall into the trap that yours too will be one of those. I’m not sure what the statistics are but the vast majority of viral marketing requires promotion to make them successful.

6. Failing to encourage others to pass it along

There is a wonderful piece of wisdom you should apply to viral marketing &ndash “you have not because you ask not.” Does your viral marketing ask the reader to pass this along to others? This can be done in the resource box with something very simple like, “If you found this useful, please pass it onto others that might be helped by it too.”

If it is a viral article and you have also it published on your website, have a button or link on the page that says “Send to your friends.” While it is true the “Send to your friends” button won’t make it viral all by itself you never know which “friend” that gets it might decide to promote it to their list of 100,000.

7. Failing to send out anything less than a blockbuster success

While it would be nice to repeat viral marketing successes like Blair Witch, Hotmail, Purple Cow or ICQ those are rare occurrences. Just because your idea falls a bit short of phenomenal doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. Let’s say you shoot for exponential viral results and only obtain a moderate success, it is still a success. The fact you got free visitors to come to your site is great.

I love Michael Jordan’s quote when he attempted to go into baseball after his wildly successful basketball career. “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying.” Even if you think it won’t blow away Blair Witch’s success, try it anyway.

8. Focusing on a single viral piece rather than a viral process

One thing I’ve noticed in my business career is that we tend to adopt the John Wayne syndrome, go big or go home. We give it ONE try and if it fails we go home. I don’t know of successful business people or successful marketing campaigns that take that approach. Instead of giving it this one shot and then not doing anything after that, create a process for creating, promoting, testing and measuring continual viral marketing efforts.

9. Failing to test and track the results

To be successful you need to experiment with different titles for the article or e-book; test different ethical bribes; try different promotional methods; approach different list owners. Find all of the elements that can be tested in your project, test various combinations and measure the results.

10. Not recognizing it is different from word-of-mouth marketing

I fell in love with word-of-mouth marketing early in my consulting career. After 10 years of consulting I analyzed every project I’d worked on, every client I’d worked for and wrote down the source. To my shock, 95% of all of them came from word-of-mouth. The good news was it was cheap (free). The bad news it was unpredictable and couldn’t be controlled on-demand like I needed.

Viral marketing is like word-of-mouth in that one person passes it on to another but typical word-of-mouth comes from one person asking the other if they know how to solve a problem. It is much more reactive than proactive. Viral marketing is proactive. A person who reads a viral article or e-book immediately thinks of 5, 10, 500 or even 1,000 people that should know about this and they send it via email or put it up on their website or post in on their blog. Viral isn’t one person coughing in another person’s face, it is one person coughing in a crowded room causing it to spread like wildfire.

You want to be successful in internet marketing, right? Then read along to find out the 2 MOST important things you need to have success online.

The most important thing to remember when you first begin internet marketing is to build a list. What I mean when I say this is you must have some way of capturing the email addresses of those who come to visit your site. This is very possible to do; all you need to do is set-up an autoresponder account. How it works is when a visitor comes to your site, they see your sign up form, put in their name and email, or whatever information you are asking for, and then they get an instant response email from you saying “Welcome” or “Thanks for signing up for blank” This way you have captured the email address for future emails you send out to promote your website/products etc. Since your visitor willingly gave their name and/or email address to you, any further emails sent won’t seen as spam. This is important because spam sucks, and anyone who gets a bunch of spam is never a happy camper. Also, you should always include a removal link at the end of your emails to give them the option to remove themselves from your mailing list. I have personally found it annoying when I can’t find a removal link in an email and I keep getting them sent to me. Be professional in everything you do.

Another essential for internet marketing online is your own website. Now when I say essential I don’t mean you absolutely HAVE to have a website, but it is very HIGHLY recommended. The reason for this is because it is your space to sell your products/services. It is your virtual “real estate.” You own this website and you can create it anyway you like. You can also create your own website address that no one else has! Make it something easy to remember to keep those visitors coming back for more! Making a website isn’t hard to do. It just takes a little time on your part, but in the end you will be very happy you did.

So go out and build that website and get that autoresponder account. It is guaranteed that without these two essentials you will not have the success you could have with them.

Are you completely overwhelmed by all of the money making websites and emails that you are bombarded with every day?

I know that I am.

Did you know that this is why most people will never succeed with an online business?

This is what I call information overload!

Internet Marketers count on this attribute to make their fortunes. They know that you are looking. They know that you are impressionable and they know that if their sales letter is strong enough then you are hooked. Then what happens to you?

You just found the perfect product or idea, one that is guaranteed to give you the financial freedom and the wealth you are so desperately seeking. You read through the sales page, find your excitement building, order the product or just give your email address and deep down you know that this is “the one”.

You receive the product or e-book, and then what? This is where it ends for most people.

Before you even finish reviewing the product, provided that you even start, you move on to your next great idea. This last “great idea” just sits on your desktop, completely forgotten, collecting virtual dust.

Your days of moving on Must Stop Now!

There are many legitimate ways to make money online and a whole lot of hype revolving around them. Now is the time to make a decision. You can not succeed without a plan.

Find a product–Evaluate it–Research it–Do it–Stick with it!

Do most people fail because of lack of knowledge? Lack of ideas? Lack of resources?

No! Most people fail because of lack of commitment.

Everybody wants to make money online. Everybody wants to fire their boss. Everybody wants to work from home. Everybody does not have what it takes. Commitment.

You are told that you can make a fortune by signing up with such and such program. Pay the small fee, do a few simple steps and watch the money pour in. Bam you’re rich.

There is no such thing!

Whatever you do, whatever you join is going to take hard work, time, and commitment.

The reward, however, can be great. You can work from home, you can make more money online than in any conventional job and you can become financial free.

It is time to join among the ranks of the successful Internet marketers. The fact that you are reading this article shows me that you have what it takes. Chances are that you already have an idea about what you would like to do. Research this idea, build upon and most importantly, do it!

When you are presented with other ideas, think about how they can fit in with your current project. If they don’t, discard them. If they do, then pick out the useful parts and utilize them, ignore the rest

This article is not to sell you on any program. I am not trying to pitch the next big thing. I am trying to have you reach deep inside of yourself and to have you make a decision on what to do. Stop making everyone else rich on your uncertainty. Make a commitment and create your own path to financial freedom.

Make a plan, stay focused, commit and most importantly–never ever give up!