Old-Age Internet Marketing Methods that Still Work
Synopsis
While several new Internet marketing methods are making their presence felt with each passing day, at the same time, the old methods are not forgotten.
Like wine in a bottle, they have only gotten better with time. There are so many ways in which the conventional methods can be harnessed to bring in a steady trickle of faithful customers on a continuous basis.
In this chapter, we shall take a look at such methods.
Old-Age Internet Marketing Methods that Still Work
While we have been talking of so many new Internet marketing methods that people are using to the hilt nowadays, we also need to bear in mind that the old-age methods aren’t exactly passé. In fact, an avid Internet marketer will first start by employing the traditional marketing methods, and then go on to employ the new-fangled ones. It is the healthy mélange of all different kinds of methods that can give people the satisfaction of having marketed well and bring the results that they are looking for.
Some of the old-age methods that are still prevalent today—actually all of them still are—include link building where you share your links with other people in various ways and make your business website more popular, article marketing and blogging of which you already have an idea through previous chapters, and affiliate marketing where someone promotes your ecommerce website and you pay them in proportion to the clicks, sales or leads that they are able to bring to your business.
Each of these methods has their charm intact still and they do bring in results as well. The best thing is that all these methods are quite free to use. There is nothing or nobody you have to pay for, except for the effort that you might have to take in. However, for the diligent Internet marketer, this effort is not a big ordeal… it is all part of the big game.
Link Building
Link building is something that has been popular since the inception of search engine optimization. As this is the case, one will need to make sure that they have the right information with regards to this platform in order for them to succeed in it. Before a person understands what it entails, it is advisable for them to have an idea what it means.
In general terms, link building can be defined as the art of creating inbound links that go directly to their site. The links that are used for such a situation are known as reciprocal links. The reciprocal links are normally listed in article directories and newsletters. Using link building is advised for people who want to have a lot of traffic on their sites. There are many types and one of them is reciprocal linking.
Reciprocal links are sometimes termed as link exchange. These terms are used to show when two owners of a website decide to show each other’s link on their sites. When these sites are liked this way, it will indirectly increase the traffic to each of them. When the traffic is increased, the ranking by search engines improves. This improvement becomes more when there is a lot of link building on a site. This process has several advantages that some people might not know about.
One advantage about link building is that it is used to get quality traffic. The traffic is gotten from sites that have a similar platform as the one that is being linked. This being the case, the traffic that is generated is not spam but actual traffic. The following fact of having a lot of quality traffic is that the site is perceived to be a valuable resource. Apart from benefitting the users, link building is seen to be something that creates awareness, credibility and visibility of the website. This will turn to cause a rise in revenue in terms of sales and advertisements.
Ultimately, the greatest and best advantage is that it improves the indexing in all search engines. Indexing in search engines is done by the quality of traffic that is generated. This is why search engines that have a lot of poor traffic will not be ranked higher than those that have average high quality traffic. In the present day, links have been very popular such that people who own websites are always looking for ways that they can buy more links. As a result, there are people who are in the business of creating links and selling them over the Internet. This has caused an opportunity for people to earn some extra cash while creating jobs for those who have knowledge of the business. There are companies that can also help a person make links. These companies are normally referred to as directories. A list of some of these directives follows below:
To get a list of more of these sites, you can check http://www.directory-owners.com/showthread.php?t=7
Uses of Directories
A web directory is a website just like any other website. The difference is that it will have a collection of web pages that have more or less the same content. This means that a directory of medicine will have web pages that are mainly about medicine. The first use of web directories is being a source of information for people. Most of the people who search for information on the Internet will have to look for them on web directories. Therefore they make it easier for people to get information regarding a certain topic. This is one of the reasons that they are considered to be helpful. But is also a main reason why they are popular with Internet users.
When you list your website on a directory, you are privy to certain advantages. One of them is the chance to have a better ranking on search engines. Once you have listed your site on a directory, the search engines will have a higher chance of finding it. Once they have found it, they will add it in their listings free of charge. You also have the possibility to have one way links. These are links that redirect your only your site. This means that you will not have to include their links on your site.
Types of Traffic Obtained from Directories
The traffic that is generated from directories will come in three different types. The first type is termed as click – through traffic. This type of traffic is one where a visitor is compelled to come to your website. The compelling is normally because of visiting the directory. When it is visited, the visitor will see your site and information. Seeing these items will compel them to visit your website.
Secondly, the other type of method to generate traffic is through indexing. Many directories will start indexing a site immediately they find its links. Once they have indexed, every time they come back to your site they will bring along traffic with them. Finally traffic is generated by search engines. This is done by the directories increasing your ranking on search engines. This happens as they find the amount of references and links that lead to your site.
In overall, link building is one of the most effective ways to make sure that your site is successful. You should incorporate it when you are building your site. Making sure you have quality links will increase your listing in search engines and PR.
It will increase the chances of getting more traffic to your site. There are some people who are saying that link building is coming to an end. However, through using link building, one is able to increase traffic. At the same time, they are able to get a higher PR and therefore get more traffic from search engines. This means that link building still works and it is not yet extinct.
Article Marketing
Article marketing can be simply defined as the writing of short articles for certain online businesses with the aim of marketing them. This being the case, one will find that they will have to find ways and means to do so especially if they have a website. Once the articles have been written, they are distributed and made available for publication in different websites. The websites that are chosen for publication of the articles are sites that have similar content or related content to the articles.
The main reason articles are written is to provide some form of marketing for the owners’ website. When the articles are placed on other websites, one will find that there are people who will get information regarding products of certain sites. This information is normally incorporated with a link to the owner’s website. This way, a person who looks at the website will be able to get more information and products from the link that is provided. As long as the articles have been written well, they will provide a possibility of having an increase in traffic to the owner’s website.
Poorly written articles will not have a big impact and sometime as they may be stagnant. As an owner of a website, article marketing is one of the ways that you can use to get more traffic to your site. This is a marketing system that has been proven by many web maters all over the world. There are two main types of article marketing. There is the traditional one and online article marketing. To get a good understanding on the two, one would need to have a general overview of how they work.
Traditional Article Marketing
Traditional article marketing is the use of magazines, newspapers and any print media to advertise the article. This has been something that has been going on for a long time. In the general sense of it, traditional article marketing is still in style and it still generates results to offline businesses. However, this is changing rapidly due to the impact that online article marketing has on certain businesses.
The process that traditional article marketing follows is very simple. What happens is that a business owner will go to a print media business of their choice. They can choose to use a newspaper, magazine or even a brochure. When they have chosen the print media they will use, the next step would be to discuss the terms of the article that will be printed. In most cases the business person will write an article of certain specifications that will be given by the print media they have chosen.
Once they have written, the print media company will print and publish the article. The benefits of such a venture are mutual. The print media will get content for their products and the business person will get advertising for their goods and/or services. For example, a person who is in the real estate business will approach a real estate magazine. They will negotiate on terms and conditions of having the article printed. The real estate magazine might decide that it needs content about the current mortgage rates in the country or area. The real estate businessperson will come up with an article to this effect.
Once he has finished wiring it, he will provide it to the magazine. The magazine will then edit it according to their specifications and publish it in the coming issue. The real estate businessperson will get clients from the article in the magazine. The magazine will in turn get content and indirectly generate some revenue. This way, both parties benefit from the venture.
Internet Article Marketing
Internet article marketing is an Internet marketing strategy that is used to generate leads to the site that uses this strategy. The main idea behind this idea is to have services and products of the company advertised on the Internet. This is normally done through using online article directories. The online marketing directories will indirectly give revenue to the article marketers. The main reason behind this is that most of these directories will have a high volume of traffic. At the same time, search engines normally consider them to be the leaders in information and therefore they gave them priority over all the other websites.
This issue has made it possible for articles to receive free traffic from these websites. When a search engine has been in contact with the directory, the end result is sending of a PageRank to the author of the website.
It will also send traffic that it has received from readers. With this in mind, Internet markets will try to maximize their traffic by submitting the same article to many directories. This will have an effect of producing the same content when search engines look for content.
To avoid this situation, search engines have a filter that ensures that the same content is not repeated. Since this is the case, submitting the same article to different directories will not make them traffic generating articles.
Currently, there are some Internet marketers who have discovered a way to change the articles in order to submit them to many article directories. This changing is normally referred to as article spinning. When an article is spun, it uses synonyms to change the words but keeping the meaning. This method makes sure that a single article can theoretically gain traffic form multiple directories when it is submitted. This, one article can theoretically gain traffic from multiple article directories.
Commonly Accepted Article Structure and Format
The structure of the article is important to successfully generate the traffic required. When a person publishes something on the Internet, the most common method to generate traffic is to make sure that an interesting and catchy title is used.
The body of the article will have to have an average of 500–800 words. The reason why article marketing is used is to mainly give the owner of a website some traffic. This means that the article will have to have keywords that match the search criteria of Internet users. Once this is done, you are sure of getting traffic from the articles.
Blogging
A blog is defined in simple terms as a type of website or a part of a website. This being the case, one will find that there are different types of blogs which vary according to the owner’s preferences. Blogs are normally kept running by a company or an individual who often updates it with regular events, news entries and new products. Blogging can be defined as using a blog in this way.
Most blogs are mainly used as an interactive platform. This means that any person who visits a blog is allowed to leave a comment on the blog. The possibility of leaving comments on the site is the main difference between blogs and websites. In most cases, the blogs will give information that is relevant to the blog titles. The entries that have been inserted on the blog are mainly shown in a reverse- chronological order.
In some case, there are blogs that have text, images and other entries that are about certain websites. Most of these blogs are based on text inputs. However, there are some of them which are based on images. These normally are art related blogs and they can have photographs. The process of inserting all these comments and images is known as blogging. A blogger can either be the author of the website or a visitor. There are many types of blogs. This is the reason why understanding them will give a person a better perception on blogging.
Personal Blogs
These types of blogs are mainly for the blogger who owns the site. They are mainly used as a diary and a point of reference. In most cases, such blogs are rarely read as they are not indexed or in a directory. However, the owner of the blog is still considered as a blogger as long as he enters entries into the blog. These types of bloggers mainly use such blogs to create a point of reference in their life.
Some of them use personal blogs to reflect on their life. As a result, they are not commercialized and people might stumble on them by mistake. These types of blogs will rarely become famous and they will never have many followers. Another name for such types of blogs is a micro blog. This type of blog is normally very detailed and it is used to catch a certain moment in time. Social sites like twitter will have the ability to let bloggers share their thoughts with people who are close to them. This is a faster method to use than using an email.
Corporate and Organizational Blogs
A blog can be used for different purposes. The type of use that a person wants to use it for will be determined by their preferences and what they are targeting. There are corporate and organizational blogs that are in use in the world today. These types of blogs are mainly used for business purposes. The business that the blog is aimed at promoting is public relations, marketing and branding.
This classification is given to such blogs. Such a blog is meant to mainly inform members of certain events that will happen in the future. The members are mostly in the organization or in the group. Examples of organizations that have such blogs are clubs. When you look at these blogs, you will find information regarding the club and any new event or news. This is main purpose of such blogs.
Genre blogs
A genre is a particular subject. There are some blogs that specialize on a particular subject. This subject can be anything from entertainment to politics. Such blogs are mainly classified as genre blogs. The genre that these blogs use will vary according to the creator of the same. The types of blogs that are common in this category are music and art blogs.
In art blogs, you will find that there are many people who will follow the blogs. There are people who are interested in art. However, the music blogs are the ones that have the highest number of followers. Regardless of the types of music that the blog is about, you will find that a person will always follow such a blog. A reason that makes the blogs popular is the use of different types of music and updates about music or music related things.
Media blog
Media blogs are blogs that are meant to be used for media purposes only. The media that is used will determine the name of the blog. In most cases, the names ill vary from sketchlog, linklog and vlog. A blog that contains a portfolio of sketches is normally referred to as the sketchlog. One that has videos is referred to as vlog while a blog that has links is a linklog.
There are some blogs that will have different types of media in them. These are normally referred to as tumblelogs. There are other types of logs which are made on a typewriter and those that are hosted on a Gopher protocol.
These types of logs are different from the normal logs and they are rarely seen. The one that is made on a typewriter is normally scanned after it has been made. Common names for such a blog are typecast blogs. The phlog is one that is hosted on a Gopher protocol.
By Device
A blog can also be defined by the type of device that is usually used to make it. A blog that has been made by a mobile device will be known as a moblog. This blog is one that has been made by a mobile phone, a PDA or even a pocket pc.
Blogging is something that can be done by almost any individual. The person who does blogging will decide the type of blog they want, the design that they will use and the content that will be placed on the blog. The main advantage of the blog is that it is free and it can be used to make money online.