You are almost there. You have a hot product in demand, a sales copy that is proven to sell, your web site is up and ready to take credit card orders...
But nobody is coming to your site if you don't promote it!
If you build a well-designed, well thought out site and promote it, they will come. If you just build it, it will just sit there.
Today, in online marketing part 1, you will learn:
• Search engines
• Affiliate program
• Opt-in email list strategy
• Article submission to ezines and web sites
• Link exchange
Although some webmasters don't rely on search engines very much any more, search engines are still an awesome way to build traffic to your site without having to spend your hard earned dollars. If you come up on top, you get thousands of hits. If you come up in the 1,000 position, you get zilch.
Another advantage is that visitors from search engines are highly targeted. A person searching for a particular phrase which your site is related on a search engine is naturally interested in this topic and much more likely to buy.
It makes sense then, to make your site as search-engine-friendly as possible, so your rankings will improve, giving you more visitors which leads to more sales.The difficulty in achieving top positions is the fact that many of the search engines change their ranking algorithms almost monthly.
However, the principles remain the same. Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of search engines is to provide relevant search results for their, not yours, visitors. So the number one key to getting good positions is having fresh and relevant content about your subject. It's becoming more and more important now.
The first step in successful search engine promotion is to pick the right keywords that people will be searching for. Just as when you identify your niche market, don't try to be everything to everyone. Focus on 5-8 words for each page.
Then search engine will calculate page ranking mainly based on these factors:
The ratio of keywords to all the words on your page. If you have 100 words on a page and 5 of them are "marketing", then you have a keyword density of 5% for the word "marketing" at this page.
Keyword density is one of the most important factors to determine page rankings. The logic is that, the more you mention something in a page the more likely this page is related to this subject.
Put your keywords in your page so that they are used on 3-10% of the page. You can analyze your keyword density at Keyword Density.Be careful not to overstuff keywords in your copy so that it sounds strange when you read it.
Besides body text, you can also put keywords in Meta tags, comment tags, ALT tags for images to increase keyword density.
Never try to fool search engines. You WILL be caught sooner or later if you do. Some tricks might work several years ago, like using invisible text (white text on white background). Search engines are getting smarter everyday. Don't you think the programmers and engineers in these giant companies are as smart as we are? :-)
* Keyword positionSearch engines tend to place more emphasis on some particular positions in a HTML file:
• The closer to the beginning of visible text, the more importance and relevance will be put
• Domain name
• Page file name
• Page title
• Keyword Meta tag
• Description Meta tag
• Text in heading or bold
• Link text
Make sure you put keywords in those key places. Some search engines may not place more emphasis on all of them. For example, Google doesn't read your Description tags at all. But most of them are still working for most search engines.
It doesn't hurt to include keywords in these places, anyway.* Link popularity
Search engines, especially Google, place high emphasis on links to your site in assigning a good ranking. Simply put, other things remaining the same, more inbound links means higher ranking.
What is important is not only the number of links to your site, but also the types of sites which are linking to you. A link from a site which is related to yours is more valuable than a link from an unrelated site.
This factor is becoming more and more important and it makes perfect sense. The quality of a site can be largely reflected by the number of webmasters who think the site is great and therefore are linking to it.
The outlines described above are over-simplified. For detailed search engine optimization tips, read this article:
http://www.working-at-home-business.com/articles/searchengine.shtml
Search engines keep changing their ranking algorithms to serve their clients better (and to keep us from catching up with them as well), it becomes almost a full-time job just to figure out which techniques work on which engines today.
Since it's next to impossible for anyone to discover all the current secrets of all the search engines, my suggestion is, focus on good quality content with well-written, keyword-rich copy.
You can also make use of two useful resources for the war:Search Engine Watch: Lots of free tips, techniques and latest news about search engines.
Web Position Gold: Top-notch software helping you achieve top positions. You can download a free trial version by clicking the link above.
Additionally, there are two directories you need to submit your site to, Yahoo and Open Directory Project.
Unlike the search engines, an actual human editor will evaluate your site.
Getting your site an optimum listing in Yahoo and Open Directory is perhaps the most important step in effective web site promotion.
An optimum listing in Yahoo can bring in more traffic to your site than any other search engines since Yahoo is the most trafficked site on the Internet. AOL Search, Netscape, Lycos and many other smaller or regional search engines and directories pull results from Open Directory.
In addition to this, getting listed in Yahoo and Open Directory will also help you greatly improve the link popularity of your site which helps in improving the ranking of your site in search engines.
However, getting listed in these two directories can be tough, especially Yahoo. Only 10% of submissions are actually included in Yahoo.
------------------------ Affiliate Program
Affiliate program is a powerful and really cost effective way to market your products. In fact, I can't think of a better way to market your products or services with such a low risk! It is absolutely fantastic.
So how do you get hundreds or even thousands of affiliates to join your program?* List your program in affiliate program directories
The first thing to do once you set up your program is to submit it to as much affiliate program directories as possible. Here are some to start:
http://www.affiliateshowcase.com/?15543
http://www.associateprograms.com/
http://www.affiliateworld.com/
http://www.affiliatematch.com/
http://www.sponsordirectory.com/
http://www.whichaffiliate.com/
http://www.affiliate-programs-directory.com/
http://www.affiliate-programs-guide.com/
http://www.internet-affiliate-programs.com/ http://www.becomeanaffiliate.com/
http://www.associatesearch.com/
http://www.affiliateguide.com/
Mention your affiliate program in order confirmation email and ask your customers to join if they are happy with your products or services.
In your newsletter, introduce your affiliate program briefly and the benefits to sign up.
Of course, you should create an affiliate section at your site, explain the details, and ask your visitors to join even if they don't want to buy your products.
* Search for affiliates on the Internet
Search for affiliates who have the perfect exposure to your target market. As a matter of fact, many people surf a couple of hours everyday for news and information in related industry. There are countless web sites to explore if you want to study a subject.
For example, I look for Internet marketing tips and techniques on the web everyday. I want to know new stuff once it comes out. And I do learn many interesting techniques from others' web sites. It's an endless task.
While you surf, whenever you find a site selling products which are complementary (but not competitive) to yours, send them an email and ask if they would like to sell your products at their site.
These are the people who would be your perfect "joint venture" partners, therefore your perfect affiliates.* Pay good commission
If you are paying out 5% or 10% per item sold, few people will bother to sign up for your program - unless you are selling something in great demands at the price of at least several hundred dollars.
For digital info products like eBooks, you should pay a minimum 30-40% commission to make it attractive to other webmasters. You know the selling cost is zero, that's why you choose these products to sell. Others know that either.
That sounds a big portion of the sales price, you may say. Yes, it is. But these are all free money! You can never reach these customers without the help of your affiliates anyway. You should pay a good commission for their hard work.
And don't set the minimum payout amount too high. $30 or $50 is normal. Otherwise some webmasters will not bother because they have to wait for a year to receive the first check.
* Take good care of your affiliatesTell them how to sign up exactly, clearly, step by step. Create text and banner links for them to use. Create personalized HTML code for them to copy and paste to their pages.
Almost all the potential affiliates are webmasters themselves and they surely know how to code HTML or design banners. However, people are lazy. It would be much easier to ask them just to "copy and paste" than to write an ad.
(I would never design a banner for any affiliate program I join - why not spend the time on my own banner?!)Respond to your affiliates' emails instantly. Teach them how to market affiliate programs on the Internet. Let them access real time stats.
And send the commission checks on time! By the way, if you would like to join my affiliate program, visit here :-) http://www.working-at-home-business.com/affiliate/index.shtml
------------------------Opt-in Email List Strategy
One thing you should always remember: capture your visitors' name and email address, keep in touch with them on a regular basis. That's the best way to make real money on the Internet.
There are thousands more on the Internet that can take your visitors' credit card order and deliver the product within minutes. If you don't work to stay in the minds of your visitors, others will.
I have discussed the importance of opt-in list and the options available to manage it in the last lesson. A list management program is useless if you don't have subscribers. So how to invite visitors to subscribe and build your list quickly and easily?
* Use a pop-up windowI know a lot of people don't like pop-up windows. I hate it too. But, to be honest, it's still one of the most efficient ways to attract opt-in list subscribers. It will easily triple your subscription rate and should have a place in your online marketing plan.
However, pop-up widow IS annoying to many people. You have to be very careful while using it.First of all, it's a good idea to make it come up on exit so that visitors are not immediately hit with it when they enter into your site. For me, my first reaction to this kind of right-atfront-door pop-ups is, always, close it before it is loaded.
Let your visitors know a little about your site first, then ask them to subscribe to your list.Secondly, have it controlled with a cookie so that visitors get it just once within any single day (or three or five days, you can set the number of days), no matter how many times they exit any of your pages.
This is especially important if you are going to add the same pop-up to every pages of your site (yes, you should do that since visitors may land at any pages of your site from search engines). By setting a cookie, visitors will not be bothered by pop-ups when they surf within your site.
You can see it working at my site:http://www.working-at-home-business.com
Don't see it? That's because you must have been to my site in the last three days. I don't want to keep bothering my visitors. It only pops up to the visitors the first time they visit my site within any three days.
Sounds complicated? Not really. You can set it up in 5 minutes. There's an article explaining the details and the java script itself at my site:
http://www.working-at-home-business.com/articles/popup.shtml
* Add subscription form at your site
You need to give people the opportunities to subscribe to your list on as many pages as possible. The more people are exposed to your message, the more they will respond. This should go without saying, but many opt-in list owners still aren't doing it.
Don't overdo it. You don't want to put subscription form on every page. For example, on your main sales copy page, you shouldn't distract your visitors by putting anything else other than the sales copy itself.
* Submit to all listingsContinually find places to list your ezine or newsletter. Some of the popular ezine directories where you can list your ezine for free:
http://www.ezine-dir.com
http://ezine-universe.com
http://www.newsletter-directory.com
http://www.freezineweb.com
http://www.list-city.com
http://www.ezinelocater.com
http://www.marketing-seek.com/directory/index.shtml http://www.ezinelinks.com
http://www.ezinehub.com
http://www.internationalpromoter.com
Some of the directories have huge traffic and will bring you many subscribers while some others will bring in few. In order to start with the popular ones, you can use Google PageRank to check a site's popularity.
Another way is, pick out the subscribe pages from some of your main competitors and find out all of the sites linking to them. Then, go through and submit your ezine to the same directories.
The key to attracting more subscribers from ezine directories is your ezine's description. Treat it just as classified ad, tell visitors what's in it for them, the benefits to subscribe to your list. If you give away freebies for subscribing, you definitely want to mention that.
* Add a gift eBook for subscribingMy subscription rate doubled after I started to give away gift eBooks for subscribing. In fact, I give subscribers 7 valuable eBooks for signing up for my newsletter!
Click here if you would like to subscribe to my newsletter and receive the gift ebooks.
It has been proven time and time again that your sales will increase if you add a bonus to a product or service you are selling. It's equally true that more people will sign up for a free ezine or newsletter if you also include a free bonus with that as well.
* Include a signature file for your ezineSignature file is one of the simplest way to market online. You should have your email software set to include a signature file on every email message you send out. You should include a signature file whenever you post messages in newsgroups or forums as well.
You will find it is much easier to use any ads to get people to subscribe to your free ezine than it is to get them to purchase a product. Then, once they are on your list, you build a relationship with them and convince them to buy your products.
So instead of promoting your product directly, you can try to promote your free opt-in list along with your gift ebook in the signature file.* Trade ads with other lists
Once you have built up a list of at least a few hundred subscribers, you can start trading ads with other publishers. Create a recommended ezine section in your ezine and start trading with ezine publishers in every single issue. You publish their ad in your ezine and they publish yours in their ezine.
If you consistently do this with every issue, your newsletter is going to start growing exponentially. At the ezine directories I listed above, you can find hundreds of ezine owners who are willing to trade ads.
* Ask your subscribers to forward your ezine to friendsIn every issue of your ezine, ask your subscribers to forward it to their friends. If your ezine is really helpful, many people will be willing to do that for you since it costs them nothing.
Also include the subscribe page URL in every issue so that anyone who's interested in your newsletter will be able to sign up by themselves.------------------------
Article Submission To Ezines And Web Sites
How would you like to reach million of people with your products or services...for FREE? That is exactly what happens when you start writing articles for ezines and web sites. There are tens of thousands of ezine publishers and web site owners online and almost all of them have one thing in common: they are all looking for good content.
If you have good content (not a sales letter cloaked as an article), then give them exactly what they need. Then, they will give you what you need in exchange: traffic and customers.
Every article comes with a resource box attached at the end of it. While your article should not be a sales letter of your business, your 4 to 6 line resource box should be an outright ad for you and your business. You are free to advertise your web site, your products, your services, or any affiliate program that you are a member of.
The resource box could be something like this:---------------------------------------------
Article by Zac Hewlett at Working-At-Home-Business.com Visit http://www.working-at-home-business.com for Internet marketing techniques, home business ideas, free Internet business e-course, eBooks, articles, and more.
---------------------------------------------
And there comes the best part. Your articles posted at other web sites (most ezine articles will be posted on the Internet as archive) will be there for a long time, generating leads and high quality inbound links to your site! Since search engines are taking link popularity as the most important factor while determine page ranking, the articles will help you get much higher positions.
You gain these benefits at no cost to you.You can go one step further. Why not give them permission to pass down your articles to others who can publish it as well? What about the articles, reviews and other original content your create for your web site? Give visitors permission to use them at their sites as long as the resource box is attached.
By the way, feel free to use this e-course in your publication or web site. They are prelicensed to you. The only requirement is to include the above resource box ;-)You may say that you are not a writer. Well, that just doesn't matter. The writing style online is not that of English professors. In fact, most Internet marketing experts would suggest you to write in a personalized style.
Since the technology we are using seems so cold and impersonal, your readers are seeking someone who is real, who makes mistakes. You'd better write in a conversational tone just like chatting with a friend!
So write about a topic you know, find a large section of ezine publishers with their name and contact emails. Send your articles to them with a short personalized cover paragraph at the top. It would be good enough if 20% ezine publishers use your articles in their ezines.
Then repeat it again and again!
Linking strategies are an essential type of site promotion. The more links pointing to your site, the more traffic you'll receive, and the greater perceived link popularity which will rank your site higher in the search engines.
To get someone to link to your site you need to ask. The simplest way is to find complementary sites, link to them on a links page, and ask them to link back to you. If you develop a strong content oriented site you can persuade thousands of other webmasters to link to you even without linking back to them.
The key is to develop great content people want to link to. No one will link to a nothing site. You have to give them some reason to link to you. What's the benefit for them to link to your site? Is your site helpful for their visitors? Do you have a freebie for their visitors to download?
And then get out there and make the contacts by visiting sites, sending out personalized emails to webmasters.Find your competitor’s sites and other sites in your industry. Then, use search engines to find out everyone who is linking to them. To find out who is linking to a site, type in "link:http://www.website.com" in the search box with "website.com" being the name of the web site which you would like to do research on. Then, the search engine will bring up all the links that are going to this site.
Now, visit each of the pages that come up, examine them, and then send an email to the Webmaster asking for a link. Since they are already linking to similar sites, you have a very good chance to get it as well if you have developed great content.
You have to personalize the email showing them you did visit their site and feel your site is of value for their visitors. Explain the benefit of linking to you for their visitors. No one will link to you because YOU need it. They will do that only if your site provides benefits for their customers and visitors.
In the email, start with a very brief description of your site's content and how it relates to their site. Then provide the exact URL of their page you think the link would be most beneficial. Show them that you've actually visited the site and given some thought to the link. Finally, give the HTML code for the link so the Webmaster can cut and paste it directly into his page code. That gives you some control over the link placement and lets you include your keywords into the link text.
Although it sounds really simple, this is a rather time consuming task. However, it can be one of the most powerful techniques you will ever use in building up your online business. Once you have an established number of links to your site, it will be ranked much higher in search engines, you will have continuous traffic for whatever you want to do.
You can never have too much links to you. So send out email and ask for links whenever you have some spare time. Nothing will happen unless you take the initiative and do something today!
This is the 5th lesson. Have you decided to go online yet?
Good luck!
Zac Hewlett
Webmaster
Working At Home Business
http://www.working-at-home-business.com