There are multiple ways to get traffic to your website for very little cost that can make you money online.

If you just got a small proportion of those visitors to convert to leads or sales, that has cost you nothing but your time.

There are two hard facts of any internet business that you cannot escape.

To make money online, you need to generate traffic to your website and second, you need to convert that traffic into buyers.

You might try to do this directly by sending them to a sales page or you may do it indirectly by sending them to an opt-in page to capture their details or to your information site or blog.

First, you should focus on identifying your killer keywords – the ones that attract the right kind of people into you business.

With a good match between what people are searching for and what you are offering, the actual traffic you generate will be more highly targeted and predisposed to your offer and so more likely to convert into buyers.

If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income.

BUT, it doesn’t take thousands to generate website traffic to your site.

While there are ways to jumpstart your traffic flows, the holy grail is knowing how to generate low cost website traffic without having to run up a huge daily advertising bill.

Here I present to you my top 7 strategies to generate low cost website traffic that could help make money online for you.

1. Link exchanges

This is a well known and proven strategy. It’s rare these days to see a website without a link to another site.

Many business owners are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more visibility for their sites.

The more you create back links to your website from other pages, the more the traffic you’ll see coming as you’ll start to rank higher.

If you’re exchanging links with other sites, it’s important that the link is relevant. This usually means it is in the same niche or a relate niche as your own site.

This strategy pleases humans as much as it keeps the search engines happy.

Exchanging links with authority sites or sites with high page ranks will also increase your traffic even more significantly, as it will boost your rankings in search engine listings.

This is known as SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.

2. Article Marketing

There are many electronic magazines (called ezines) and online newsletters around on the internet which provide free space for you to submit articles.

If you want to keep your costs low, you can write the articles yourself. But you can save time, by using the many freelance writers who are willing to create articles on your best converting keywords or keyword phrases. The fees are much smaller than you might think.

Write articles that complement your website, product, business or other offer. Write on topics that you have expertise on so you develop your knowledge researching around the subject and can come across as an authority.

Write articles that produce tips and guidance on the subject or your niche. Looking at existing content on your chosen niche will help you find gaps so less competition and your article will rank more highly for those keywords.

At the end of the article submission process, you can insert a “resource box”. It’s here that can say something about yourself or your business and provide your visitors with a link to your site if they want to find out more.

If they do go there, they are already impressed and predisposed to your offer, wouldn’t you say?

Once you have your article accepted in your primary article directory, you can also send variations to other article directories.

There is a lot of free article submission software available to automate the process and if you are doing a lot of article marketing, a great paid service I personally use is SubmitYourArticles.

3. Video marketing

Video marketing can send literally thousands Of visitors to your primary business. It really is the social medium of the moment. Just look at the popularity of YouTube! 5-10 minutes is all you need to get your point across.

You can either use a camcorder to video your own talking head or create a footage around your product or offer and add the audio later.

If you’re not yet confident on camera, you can also create a series of photos and powerpoint slides and record an audio commentary around that.

Don’t forget to add your website URL as a running title along the top.

Once you have a few videos made, you then need to drive traffic to them. The best way is to submit them to video sites. The most popular are youtube.com, metacafe.com and dailymotion.com.

To really maximise exposure and get the most traffic back to you website, you can use video submission tools. There’s a free video submission service, TubeMogul. An even better tool is a paid service I use is Traffic Geyser.

Once you’re registered on the main video sites, this submitter tool will automatically submit your video to a whole host of video sites for you, resulting in tonnes of free traffic to your website.

4. Forum marketing

This is completely free – it only requires an input of your time. Do some initial sculking around to identify the kinds of problems people have in this niche.

Once you feel you understand the community, you can start to feedback a comment, start a post, here and there, using your knowledge and expertise.

You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

With every post, you can add a link to your site. But remember first to give value, not just blatantly advertise your site.

As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

5. Twitter marketing

Twitter and blogging go hand in hand. They help you build your authority and social networks within your niche.

Twitter has totally transformed the way that people communicate online and since it’s free, it really should be an indispensable part of your overall marketing strategy and link to your blog.

Twitter is free to join and you can get set up with an account in a matter of just a few minutes.

Twitter has proven itself to be incredibly addictive and, for business owners, very valuable too.

Technology such as Twitter has the potential to give us more than just an opportunity to tell others what happened in our day. We can use it to reach more people in a meaningful way.

Imagine if you had cost-efficient and fast marketing tools that met existing customers where they are and that also helped you acquire new customers.

Imagine if you had the power to build a network of like-minded peers, a community of shared ideas and creativity.

6. Blog marketing

You blog should therefore be one of the main hubs for your business. It’s all about YOU Inc.

As your name gets passed around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list and RSS subscribe feed for people who regularly visit your site.

People buy from people they know, like and trust. A blog is like dating – you wouldn’t propose on the first date so why shove your sales pitch down a new visitors throat.

You can point your articles, videos, forum posts and social media activities all through your blog.

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a blog but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many many sources of ideas and inspiration for your blog, which come from your day to day activities and your own personal development.

7. Facebook marketing

Social networking has always been a main part of many internet marketers strategy. But most don’t use it effectively at all. They flood the likes of Facebook and Myspace with offers and promotions. This won’t work.

If you want to use social tools like Facebook to generate traffic to your website, you first have to identify the right groups and then invest something of yourself.

You need to be prepared to make a personal connection with other folks in the community. This kind of media thrives on authentic networking.

Posting up useful content on social networks will get you some awesome rankings on Google. The search engines seem to put a premium on sites like Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Squidoo and Hubpages.

In all these free or low cost traffic generation methods, it’s all about giving value to your niche community.

Leads generated in this way will be far more valuable as leads back to you – interested, highly targeted, committed and profitable.

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Jay Allyson Get Rich Lifestyle Pro Marketing Consultant http://www.JayAllyson.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Seven Inexpensive Ways to Generate Traffic to Make Money Online

If you’re doing tasks such as search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising so you can build a steady stream of traffic on your own, you’re in for a long, hard uphill climb.

Fortunately, there’s an easier way to get loads of traffic very quickly – and for free. All you have to do is leverage other people’s traffic and resources.

Here’s how…

1. Be a Guest Blogger — Some bloggers solicit guest articles, in which case you can create a blog post and submit it for consideration. For example, my articles can be found on blogs like Cathy Goodwin’s Copy-Cat- Copywriting Blog. A great resource that will help you find bloggers who want content is: BloggerLinkUp.com
2. Submit your articles to the top, targeted websites and ezines. For example, I get traffic every day from my articles that are being found on sites like About.com, Microsoft Community Dynamics, Fast Company, Bank of America Small Business, MarketingProfs, SiteProNews and thousands more. You can get a complete, customized database of websites and ezines that you should submit articles to at: ArticleSubmissionSiteDatabase.com
3. Trade Newsletter Articles — If you like the idea of trading content, then consider trading newsletter articles with other people in your niche. Here’s a great tip for you: Look for those who also post their newsletter issues on their blogs, as you’ll get the benefit of a backlink and ongoing traffic!
4. Invite people to become your affiliate. Then provide your affiliates with articles and videos that they can use on their websites, on their blogs and in their newsletters. If you’re in front of your affiliates face all the time with new content for their readers,they’ll be more willing to promote you – and send you ongoing traffic.
5. Compile your articles and create viral, re-brandable special reports. Using a tool like ViralPDF.com, you can create a report that allows others to change the affiliate links in a report to their affiliate links. This way anyone who distributes the report has the opportunity to make money on the backend. The more money they make, the more they’ll distribute the free report, which means more free traffic for you.
6. Turn your articles into videos and promote them on sites like YouTube. You can use services like Traffic Geyser to get your videos broadcasted on hundreds of sites that your audience goes to. Now, not only do you have articles bringing you free traffic, but you also have videos working for you as well.
7. Host a teleseminar. Ask an expert in your industry to come onto your very own teleseminar. You can host as many teleseminars as you’d like for little money with services like Instant Teleseminars. Ask the experts to promote the call to their list and have everyone sign up on your own squeeze page. This way, you capture everyone’s name and email. Make sure you gettranscripts, and then turn them into articles that you can submit and get more website traffic.
8. Become a teleseminar guest. On the teleseminars, promote a squeeze page where you offer a free special report or special incentive. For example, I often promote: http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com/ where you can get 3 free article templates. From there, I have an autoresponder series, which further educates prospects on article writing and articlemarketing. And, of course, I promote the complete article template product that you can get at: StartWritingArticlesFaster.com
9. Provide thought leadership content and share information that no one else is providing. This way, others will want to Tweet and retweet about your content. They’ll share it on their Facebook pages. And, email their list.
10. Promote other people’s products in your own articles and special reports. One of my new article marketing coaching clients has a walking shoe reviews site. The first thing that came to mind was to create a special report “The 2010 Top 10 Best Walking Shoes For Your Health!” Inside this report, he’ll reveal the best walking shoe brands and why. He’ll show you how to buy the shoes online (through his partnership link so he can get money!)And, more importantly, he’ll write articles that promote the special report as well as a press release so he drives traffic to his site. He’ll also write a press release for the shoe companies to submit as well for even more exposure and website traffic.

Now, if you like implement these ideas, you will begin to get more website traffic now without spending lots of time and energy.

If you like the information I just provided then check out my new article marketing coaching program where I will personally guide you toward writing your way to profits.

Go to http://www.getarticlemarketingcoaching.com/

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Article marketing expert Eric Gruber creates online marketplace opportunities for small business owners who want more website traffic, prospects and profits. Now you can learn how to write your way to profits wit Eric’s new article writing and article marketing coaching program. Try it risk-free at:

http://www.getarticlemarketingcoaching.com/

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Traffic Building Strategies: 10 Ways to Get Other People to Send You FREE Traffic

Any e-commerce application needs a good shopping cart to handle any purchases and payments for subscriptions. Of course you want the best shopping cart you can get for your blogs or websites, but there are so many options online, all promising you the world, that it can get confusing. Still wondering what a shopping cart is on website?

There are several points to consider, but the simplest description that all of us will recognize is the shopping cart in grocery stores. While that one has squeaky wheels and gets pushed up and down the aisle, the shopping cart on your website is a set of scripts that track what your customers buy so they can pay for the entire selection with one click.

All the shopping cart does is keep track of any items you have placed in it for purchase. Without a shopping cart your customers would have to pay individually for everything they want to buy. After your customers press the “Buy” button on your site, their transaction is transferred to a payment processor to collect the money owed, send it where it belongs and enables the download if required.

It’s not quite that simple, but it is a quick explanation of what happens behind the “Buy” button. There are several processes that are sending and receiving the request for payment on a mouse click that ends with the download instructions for your customer. It gets confusing when you start searching for a shopping cart for your own sites. A simple search will probably send you several hundred choices, all claiming to be the premier shopping cart for your needs.

An excellent choice would be PayPal’s shopping cart. For several reasons, using PayPal’s shopping cart will streamline your customer’s payment processes by letting you accept credit and debit cards and direct bank account payments. Some benefits for your customers include purchasing more than one item at a time and paying for them with a single click of the “Buy” button. It’s good customer service. You don’t want to irritate customers ready to spend money with you.

Other PayPal benefits for your customer include the ability to browse your entire collection of products and check out a list of what they bought before they click on your “Buy” button, which gives them the opportunity to modify the list. Ease of installation which does not require knowledge of CGI scripting is one big advantage of PayPal’s shopping cart. Opening an account is free of up-front costs and you are charged the same fees charged when you get other PayPal payments.

To find the fee schedule, check out the bottom of any page, even the log in page, for a link to “Pricing” or “Fees.” Some of the technical benefits of using PayPal’s shopping cart include being able to set shipping rates, if necessary, and tax rates. You can let your customers make donations to charities of their choice. You can easily convert your “Buy Now” buttons into “Add To Cart” buttons to make multiple purchases seamless to your customer.

Their free 410-page PDF, “Website Payments Standard Integration Guide,” has all the in-depth information you might need about using “Buy Now” buttons included. You can find a comprehensive list of services on PayPal when you click the tab, “Merchant Services.” If you click on the tab, “Products and Services,” you will find a link to the ebook. For your business records, PayPal will keep detailed transaction records on their website for your use when you need them.

You will also find details needed to integrate PayPal with your site, including how to pre-populate your customer’s sign-up forms. It might be a good idea to download their free PDF User Agreement for your records. You can find a link to the document at the bottom of almost every page on the service. Look for “Legal Agreements” and click that link. PayPal is easy to use with whatever application you need. It has been time tested for a longtime as eBay’s payment processor.

Besides being highly recognizable as something that a lot of people use already and have a comfort zone with, another undocumented benefit of using PayPal’s shopping cart is your own peace of mind in knowing that your business income is in good hands.

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Kathy Dobson is a free spirited business owner and entrepreneur dedicated to helping others achieve financial and personal freedom through Internet marketing with an emphasis on membership sites.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Advantages of Using PayPal As Your Shopping Cart

Web video is a communication technique that provides a viewer-experience that delivers several big advantages over broadcast: first, the length of your presentation is for the most part a non issue other than the degree to which your content and delivery holds your audience’s attention; second, the cost to produce and present professional online video is far more affordable than broadcast; and third, Web video provides the opportunity to intellectually and emotionally engage your audience with a memorable viewing experience, and involve them physically by prompting direct-response action. On the other hand, broadcast does provide a mass audience, but not necessarily an attentive one like your website.

As we have seen in previous installments of Killer Campaigns, the commercial broadcast industry, despite its economic and time constraints, has plenty of good examples of techniques that can be used effectively in Web video campaigns, if you understand how certain elements affect an audience.

It’s easy to misread a commercial’s true marketing effectiveness and assume the big flashy special effects and grandiose production stunts are what makes a commercial work, but in fact those kinds of things generally only make a commercial more expensive. True the big-deal aspects of a production may attract attention, but it’s the small things that are the most important, the most effective and the most affordable. It’s the things you hardly notice like writing, casting, music, performance, and campaign consistency that have the most impact on a presentation’s ability to communicate, influence and persuade. It’s the production techniques to which the audience pays little attention that maximizes sale-conversions and increases the bottom-line. Take nuts for example.

Color Me Nuts

Nuts, the edible kind, not the irritating relative kind, are about as generic as you can get. So how do you go about creating a marketing campaign for something as mundane as nuts?

The Wonderful Pistachio “Get Crackin” video campaign and micro site got a lot of things right. This series of videos use the same format, style, message, and color in order to turn a nondescript, seemingly unbrandable generic product into a hip, sexy brand. Each element of the presentation re-enforces the other leaving a lasting brand impression without blowing anything up, or spending a fortune creating animated baby skateboarders.

One element that turns this campaign into a great campaign rather than just a very good one is its use of color. What could be simpler?

Pistachios Newly Weds Do It Video

he campaign’s consistent use of a signature color palette, green and black, combined with a great tagline and a series of clever sketches deliver the kind of memorable impression that prompts instant recognition and impulse-purchasing when seen on store shelves.

Pistachios Dominatrix Do It Video

One video is not a campaign, so Paramount Farms had seven different videos created, all following the same formula so the audience’s recognition and retention was enhanced and re-enforced every time they watched a new video segment.

Pistachios Mobsters Do It Video

This technique is not new; in particular Danone uses color co-ordination effectively in their television commercials to distinguish their various brands of yogurt: Activa uses a green color palette, DanActive uses yellow, and Silhouette uses purple. The Danone commercials don’t have the edginess of the pistachio campaign but their use of color is well thought-out and effective even though the messaging is pretty standard.

The edgy style, consistent format, and color branding definitely qualifies the “Get Crackin” videos as a Killer Campaign.

The Color of Money

Another campaign that makes an impression by means of its clever use of color is the Edward Jones “Join Us” campaign. If you’re not familiar with the commercials they are available on YouTube but unfortunately the embed option for them has been disabled.

These commercials were shot on a white background in black-and-white, a technique that draws special visual attention to the yellow-and-black Edward Jones logo. The whole package is very clever from the way the videos are shot, to the dialog, the music, and of course the clever use of color, or lack-there-of.

The same visual style was repurposed for a companion print ad campaign further establishing and enhancing the brand image in the minds of the audience.

Edward Jones Companion Print Ads

The Audacity to Believe

Is on Board With the Crazy Idea

Signature Color Branding

Colorcom is a color consultancy located in Hawaii and New York. According to their website, color branding increases recognition by up to eighty percent; it aids memory processing and storage; and it attracts attention, increases comprehension and mentally engages the viewer. That’s pretty powerful stuff, and you don’t have to be a mega corporation with deep pockets to implement color effectively.

Color Affects, a London-based color consultancy, explains how color affects perception on a physiological level through the electrical impulses that pass from the retina to the hypothalamus area of the brain that controls our hormones and endocrine system. The hypothalamus controls behavior patterns, sex and reproductive functions, metabolism and appetite among others.

Color By Association

Color by itself is not enough to get the job done. The pistachio campaign added the format, style, messaging and performance elements in a consistent campaign that re-enforced the message and the brand.

In the end, Web videos are not as much about making a sale as they are about making contact: contact in the sense of connecting to an audience on an intellectual and emotional level. Web videos designed merely to flog some product or service have built-in limitations, and an abbreviated shelf-life, whereas video presentations designed to engage can become eternal.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Killer Campaigns Volume Four: The Color of Branding

Reverse SEO fits seamlessly within the context of your online reputation management (ORM) program.It is the quickest, most effective solution for dealing with bad press that has surfaced on the search engines about you or your company. By pushing negative listings from the front page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing, reverse SEO shields you from the damaging commentary of others.

Negative publicity online has become one of the most frustrating challenges for companies. It is typically anonymous. Names are often unattached to forum threads, blog posts, and even entire websites. Therefore,it is difficult to track and address the source of the complaint. Moreover, the growing popularity of social networking platforms has made it easier than ever for anyone with a mild grievance to give weight to their grudge. If you or your company have been the target of bad press online, it may be time to launch a reverse SEO campaign.

In this article, we’ll clarify how negative publicity gains traction within the search engines, and how it can lead to a public relations nightmare. We’ll also provide a working blueprint for executing a reverse SEO campaign and controlling the damage.

Controlling Bad Publicity With Reverse Search Engine Optimization

To appreciate why reverse SEO is effective, you should understand how negative press takes root within the top search listings in the first place. Google, Yahoo, and Bing rank pages based on a large number of criteria. If a website and its individual pages satisfy the most important of those criteria, those pages will rank well.

A lot of the bad press that targets companies (possibly even your own) is placed on websites that meet key ranking parameters in the search algorithms. That means the negative publicity can climb into the top positions and gain exposure. When people search for you or your company, they’ll see the bad press. That damages your reputation.

Reverse search engine optimization is an ORM strategy that pushes negative publicity from the top search positions. By moving the bad press off the first page of listings, reverse SEO limits its exposure and stifles its impact.

Ingredients For An Effective Reverse SEO Campaign

Like search engine marketing, reverse SEO uses a methodical, multi-pronged approach to protect your online reputation. The first step is to identify the sites and pages that contain negative publicity about your company, and are ranking for important keywords. Those keywords might include your name, that of your company, or key employees.

The second step of reverse SEO is to analyze those sites and pages for their respective ranking authority. That will help you determine the effort and tools you’ll need to use in order to move them from the first page of listings within Google, Yahoo, and Bing. A negative PR blitz that is spreading across the social networking sites is more difficult to remove than a single blog post that is on a non-authoritative domain.

The third step is to gather the necessary tools and execute your reverse SEO campaign. Utilization of optimization tools such as press releases, a new network of competing sites and blogs, social media profiles, and social bookmarking programs. Reverse SEO may also include heavy content syndication to build high-quality links. A search engine marketing specialist will have these tools at their disposal.

Reverse SEO Begins Before Negative Press Emerges

The best time to launch a reverse SEO campaign is before bad publicity appears in the search engines. This is due to the way that the pages link. A page will rank well within the search engines if there are enough thematic links pointing toward it. However, once it ranks, it will gain exposure. That exacerbates the problem.

Negative press can spread rapidly as people attach the press to their own blogs, sites, forums, and social media accounts. That creates a growing portfolio of links pointing toward the damaging press, cementing its position in the top listings. It becomes more difficult to address. By launching a reverse SEO campaign upfront, you can prevent the negative publicity from gaining exposure in the first place.

Protect Your Online Reputation With Reverse SEO

Reverse SEO should play a key role in your online reputation management program. It is far too easy for unsatisfied customers, resentful employees, lazy journalists, and malicious competitors to tarnish your name. And when it happens, it is usually done under the cover of anonymity. Anonymity makes the complaint or grievance impossible to address in private.

Launch your reverse SEO campaign now – before trouble strikes and the damage begins to gain momentum in the search engines. In a year’s time, you’ll be glad you did.

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Rostin Ventures principals have extensive experience in restoring reputations online, using Reverse SEO among other tactics to provide positive Online Reputation Management Services (ORM Services). When an individual or company name is being searched in Google, Yahoo, Bing and an undesired page or website appears, Rostin Ventures can push the negative page back in the search results where it will rarely, if ever be found.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Reverse SEO: Restoring Online Reputations

No system is perfect. There are always flaws and breakdowns that will occur, for any number of reasons. This holds true in the world of online marketing and especially in the realm of the most common web practice, copywriting.

Now we are not talking about the obvious mistakes here. Errors of grammar, syntax, spelling or revision are fairly obvious and can be averted with a simple double-check by running your article past a colleague for critique. This article addresses broader errors of philosophy or doctrine that can cripple an otherwise technically strong piece of copywriting.

Five Copywriting Mistakes You CAN Avoid

Mistake #1 – Missing your target audience

One of the most important points of any piece of writing is to address your intended audience. This is true for absolutely every type of writing out there, without exception. Consider for example that you’re a writer specializing in culinary writing. You could submit the most well-written, elegant article on coconut cream pies ever composed. You still would not get very far with this article if you tried to sell it to someone with a coconut allergy.

As is often the case, understanding your audience happens before and after you do the actual writing, making it a ‘meta’ principle (outside the actual task itself, but still related). Avoiding this mistake takes effort. Get in the habit of asking specific questions of your clients, and researching related material on their sites if available. Information will help you avoid targeting a piece to the wrong audience.

Mistake #2 – Going on and on and on and on…

The web is a fast-paced environment. Technology has increased the speed at which machines can present information, and as a result people expect to be able to process that information faster. With so much out there available so quickly, why would anyone linger on an article that takes too long to get to the point?

Write concisely, focusing on your topic and keeping the content to a targeted word count. Ensure that each section is no longer than necessary, to prevent boredom and disinterest.

Again, research is your greatest ally in this case. Knowing your audience helps, as does being very familiar with your subject. Examine your sentences and see where you can cut down words without destroying meaning.

Mistake #3 – Missing the call to action

A great deal of copywriting is done to promote products and services of every stripe. Similarly, a great deal of copywriting doesn’t do much beyond presenting the basic information. Good copywriting should include a tangible call to action. Don’t just offer the user more information, invite them to ‘Learn more about it here.’

Wishy-washy language is the weakness in this case. Most people confuse simple statements such as ‘You can learn more’ with powerful calls like ‘Learn more.’ The first is just informative. All right, we can learn more, why should we? ‘Learn more and take control’ is an imperative that gets people responding.

Mistake #4 – Getting fancified and highfalutin

Contrary to what some people may think, there IS a place for jargon and technical terminology. That place exists within a common frame of understanding. When two engineers trade talk about ohms, resistance, current and capacity, these terms are intended to speed up understanding and improve their overall efficiency.

For example you could refer to ‘the practice of using keywords, precise writing, and meta tags to improve search engine results for websites.’ This is cumbersome, so among those who understand your reference, instead you can use the term Search Engine Optimization, or the acronym SEO.

The problem with jargon is that it is not universal. Mention Newtons to the average person, and you’re talking about a snack cake. Mention them to a physicist, and you’re discussing concepts of universal gravitation. The term is valuable to the latter, irrelevant to the former. The danger in copywriting is the use of jargon in inappropriate contexts. In a generalized piece, jargon does not make you look clever, but rather arrogant or showy.

Restrict your use of jargon to appropriate times. If you have a reasonable basis to believe others can understand it, go for it. If you find yourself thinking ‘everyone SHOULD know what I mean,’ stop and ask for advice.

Mistake #5 – Skipping the Headline

Attention spans are reducing even as our ability to process information increases. People want quick, catchy information and they want it now. Too late, they’ve moved on. A headline is a key point in catching someone’s attention, and all too often is neglected or slapped on without consideration.

A good headline should convey just enough information to let them know what the article is about, yet be vague enough to generate their interest in reading further. Humorous headlines can be very effective, as can dramatic or ironic statements. Practice with headlines, and make them an essential part of your writing, rather than an accessory.

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Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Beyond Grammar: Easily Avoided Copywriting Mistakes

In a single day, Bing has increased the number of fans of their Facebook page by 500 percent. How? By using clever social media advertising embedded within the popular Facebook application Farmville.

The advert appeared yesterday inside the game Farmville, encouraging players to become a fan of Bing in exchange for free farm cash (the virtual currency used within Farmville). As an incentive for players to act, Bing positioned themselves as the ideal search engine to help them win the game with tips and solutions for how best to use their crops and animals. Probably the cleverest part of the promotion was the fact that users could fan the Bing page without interrupting their game.

As a follow up, Microsoft’s social media team then set about creating dedicated updates for Farmville users on the Bing Facebook page.

The Bing Facebook page started the day yesterday with around 100,000 fans and that figure is now well above 500,000.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Bing Proves Power of Facebook Advertising

Thousands of free online marketing tools clamor for attention, with new ones popping up every week it seems. You know you should be doing more to reach out to your customers, but just researching which tools to use can be a vast time investment, even if they don’t require a big financial outlay.

Below is a compiled a list of the most popular (or most useful) low-cost or free small business marketing tools. You might be using some of them already, but you’re sure to find a couple that will round out your small business marketing toolkit nicely. And, if you’re just starting out marketing a new business online, this list may help point you in the right direction.

Directories

The Open Directory – A staple of the SEO crowd, this directory can be tricky to get into but well worth it for the link juice it passes along to your site.

Yahoo! Directory – It’s not free – this directory will set you back a couple hundred bucks a year – but it’s well worth it for inclusion.

Best of the Web Directory – This directory has been around a while and can pass along some good PageRank to your site.

Niche Directories

Find the directories in your industry that pass along good link building opportunities. Some examples to get you started: SBDGraphics.com for ad agencies, web developers, printers and other graphics professionals; sbdpro.com for small businesses and businesses that serve them; Cpapro.com for the accounting industry; SEOAlpaca.org for alpaca breeders, and so on.

Press Release Distribution Services

Marketwire – The most bang for your buck from an actual wire service, Marketwire’s prices are lower than PR Newswire and Businesswire. This newer service is built for powerful online exposure, and you’ll enjoy the full online distribution with any geographical AP wire distribution. (Sometimes you can get statewide wire distribution for nearly the same cost as only your local metropolitan area.) It’s great for building inbound links – just choose the SEO Enhanced option.

PRLog – A good-performing free press release distribution outlet, PRLog press releases rank really well and for a really long time if they are written with SEO copywriting best practices. Press releases include three links, though they are URL based (starting with http) rather than text anchor. PRLog also lets you create your own newsroom where all your press releases reside, as well as an “about us” page and product showcase area.

PitchEngine – A relatively new PR-for-social-media site that promises to let you create and share press releases easily and for free and syndicate content to Google News. Lets you include HTML in your press release, so you can use keyword text anchor links. The site is marketing itself quite aggressively and will likely build a big presence quickly. The only catch is your release will disappear off the site after 30 days if you aren’t a paid member ($50/month for your own press room).

Email Marketing

AWeber – AWeber makes it easy to start building your email marketing list, if you haven’t already. For less than $20/month, you can build unlimited newsletter lists, send unlimited email blasts, and email unlimited autorespond messages to up to 500 subscribers/list. (Then it’s $29/month up to 2500 subscribers.) Also offers a recurring 30% commission – a pretty good affiliate program for a service you’ll appreciate enough to recommend to others. (Disclosure note: the link above is our affiliate link. We’ve been using the service for 3 years now, after trying out Constant Contact and researching about 20 other providers! Most either do autoresponders or email blasts/newsletters – not both.)

Content Sharing Websites

Squidoo – Create a lens around your business area. A good one with lots of information will even rank in the search engines and can bring traffic to your web site.

Scribd – Share your expert content like white papers and articles. You can make them available for free or sell them. You can submit documents in PowerPoint, Word, PDF and many other file formats.

SlideShare – Post your presentations and documents online for others to view and share. This is a great way to get exponential exposure for your sales or marketing materials – or share documents privately. See some tips for getting more visibility with SlideShare: http://bit.ly/aNXmS2

Flikr – Does your product or service translate well visually? Use this popular photo sharing site to get more eyeballs.

Blip.tv – A video-sharing alternative to YouTube, blip.tv lets you embed links in your descriptions and create a TV station showing all your videos in one spot.

Social Networks

Facebook – Create a page for your business. Feed your blog in. Start a group. Get fans. Advertise to targeted users if your products appeal to the Facebook crowd (which is basically everyone nowadays). See using the new Facebook business page layout to learn more. Stop by our page and become a fan, too!

MySpace – Take a second look at this medium for social networking. According to MarketingProfs, more than half of MySpace.com users are 35 or older. Explore using MySpace for your business.

LinkedIn – Like a virtual Rolodex. Build your professional profile, link up with other professionals, join groups or even start a group. Participating in Q&A’s related to your profession is a great way to build credibility and visibility.

Ning – Build your own social network around your business. You may even get your network into the search engine results pages. Learn more about using Ning for business. (http://bit.ly/amLKcE)

Read “Utlize Social Media to Gain Additional Exposure for Your Site” (http://bit.ly/bcoWEQ) for more information about social networks and how they can drive targeted traffic to your site.

Social Bookmarking

Digg – Getting your content on the home page of Digg is one way to bump up your web site’s traffic by thousands within minutes. This can result in valuable links to your site. Start with this beginner’s guide to Digg.

StumbleUpon – Build friends and send them your articles to rate. More thumbs up will get your article shown to more people outside your network and can result in thousands of visitors every day. Tips for using StumbleUpon.

Reddit – Even if your content gets buried on Digg, it can flourish on Reddit – which can be a catalyst for jumping to the home page of other social bookmarking sites. Learn more about the types of topics that do well on Reddit.

Blogs

Your own blog -

Write great content relevant to your business area that people will find useful. Use it to link to deep pages on your site to help them get indexed in the search engines. Build your thought leadership and let your customers get to know your business better. Try WordPress for an easy-to-use platform that’s also search engine friendly.

Others’ blogs -

Read and comment on other blogs in your industry. Use your comment signature to link back to your blog or web site. Build relationships online and spread the link love from your own blog to others’.

Twitter

Micro-blogging. Update your status daily or a couple times a week. Use keywords in your posts and profile to help gain followers on Twitter quickly. Link to your unique content in your updates and take advantage of the multitude of new applications created to help you manage your Twitter experience.

Affiliate Marketing

Post Affiliate Pro

Traditionally links generated through affiliate marketing have not been helpful for search engine optimization – until Post Affiliate Pro, that is. This easy-to-use affiliate program lets you set up a referral program in minutes and keeps your links simple and search engine friendly.

Technorati

Claim your blog at Technorati to make sure it’s indexed in the blog search engines and have your updates broadcast across the network.

Your Own Web Properties

Create A Knowledge Center

Build a content area on your site where you can add articles regularly. This can be as formal as white papers or case studies, but it can also work with less formal articles, as long as they further your company’s thought leadership position and credibility. They will also boost your search engine rankings if you contribute regularly and ensure your site architecture is optimized. See how we’re doing this with SEO Advantage’s new knowledge center.

PowerReviews

People are going to look up user reviews whether on your site or elsewhere – might as well take advantage of the user-generated content for additional search engine visibility. You’ll also rank higher in trust with your efforts at transparency.

SurveyMonkey

Voting/polling/surveys. A tool of engagement that lets you gauge interest, measure customer satisfaction or just provide some fun. (People love to give their opinions.)

Awards and Contests

Enter them and host them. Winning an industry award can add to your credibility, and giving them out can get you lots of press coverage and links. Get creative.

Search Engine Optimization

Make sure your site architecture is optimized for maximum exposure in the search engines. Create link-building campaigns. Add to your content regularly. Enlist the services of a search engine optimization company to guide your efforts or handle implementation completely.

Research

Google

Designate the keywords you’d like to keep track of, and Google will send you alerts of news and pages indexed on those topics “as it happens” with Google News Alerts. You can also enter multiple terms at Google Trends to compare the general level of buzz around those terms.

AllTop

An “online magazine rack”, this site aggregates content and organizes it. Select your topics and have the latest content delivered to you, or just browse the site when you’re in research mode. Also, be sure to submit your site so it shows among the related content.

WordTracker

Find keywords with a more comprehensive tool than free pay-per-click research tools, which may skew results. A free trial will give you an idea of how it works.

Yahoo! Pipes

See who’s talking about your company or brand by pulling together RSS feeds from different sources around the Web using the beta Yahoo! Pipes. This handy video shows you how.

Analytics

You need to measure all your online marketing efforts. If you’re looking for a free analytics package, try Google Analytics or Yahoo! IndexTools. (Which is better?) However, you’ll probably want some help implementing and interpreting your analytics package to get the most from it – ask your SEO company if they offer this.

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Stone Reuning is president of SEO Advantage, a search engine optimization company that helps businesses harness the revenue generation potential of their websites. Referenced in books such as “Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale” and the BusinessWeek bestseller “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”, http://www.seo-advantage.com/ offers information to help small businesses compete online.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

39 Free/Low-Cost Tools for Marketing Your Small Business Online

There are a number of important factors that go into the production of a first-class blog. Quality of content, the layout of the page, how best to integrate video, formal versus informal tone, each of these is a decision that must be made during the creation of the project. That all comes before more esoteric concerns, which include the integration of meta tags, link building, traffic generation, and keyword/SEO implementation.

Yet underlying these important issues is one that many people wrestle with: How often should the thing be updated? Innocuous as it sounds, post frequency is actually vital to the success of any content project, and especially to blogs. Equally, it is a surprisingly complex decision that can involve numerous factors. Time, place, and availability of content all have parts to play in determining just how often you need to update your blog.

Finding the Right Frequency

Blogging is an extension of the principles of marketing. You want to get your content the exposure you feel it deserves, so you market it as best you can to cultivate an audience. This involves doing the legwork and research necessary to act on good information, and testing your ideas while allowing room for adjustment as you work and grow. Chances are you will not hit the right rate of posting immediately, and that is all right as long as you’re prepared to adjust when it’s required.

No single article can cover every eventuality of course, but we can break down a few core principles to get you thinking in the right direction. The key is to consider these ideas and extrapolate from them, using the other lessons you’ve learned, to build a solid, whole-picture approach.

1 – Make content king.

More than almost any other community, web users are keenly attuned to fluff pieces that don’t really say much. This isn’t true for 100% of the community of course, but those who can pick out an airy, pointless piece will almost invariably be sure to point it out, leading to some word of mouth you probably didn’t want. Don’t pick an update schedule that can’t live up to the content you have available. Stick to a schedule that you know you can provide a quality post for, every single time you sign on.

This has a twofold effect. One, it keeps the ‘pressure to post’ at a minimum. Content drives the posting, and you aren’t struggling every third day to come up with more information, or worse to rehash the information you’ve already posted. Secondly, it shows you have respect for the community, and keeps them interested and coming back.

2 – Set the time and day.

Even though the web never sleeps, a great part of the world still functions on a Monday to Friday, 9-5 schedule of sorts. Taking these rhythms into account can help you build the ideal web traffic for your project. For example, a blog focusing on home and family concerns and selling books related to it might not find as much of an audience during traditional business hours as during the time when people are at-home with their families. Granted this is only a rule of thumb, as many people surf the web for their favorite blogs during lunch breaks.

Another part of this element is the Monday-Wednesday-Friday cycle. Many business blogs and publications settle on a three-a-week update schedule, and the MWF routine works out very well for this. They’re all business days, and the schedule covers the start, middle, and end stretches of a workweek.

Of course since this ends up being something of the default, it means that Tuesdays and Thursdays end up with comparatively little content for people to peruse. Sundays suffer a lack of content as well, for the obvious related reasons. If you find yourself preferring less frequent, longer posts, consider a T-Th routine to take advantage of the ‘gap’ between other updates.

3 – Have a conversation.

One of the most interesting contributions to modern marketing is the blog comments section. Every blogging software out there has some feature for allowing or disallowing comments. As we’ve discussed before, consumer input can have an incredible effect on any brand, and blogs are no exception.

Taking advantage of this resource requires a certain amount of patience. Conversations develop in the comments section as people discuss, dispute, and debate the merits of what you’ve posted. In short, you need to not just let this happen, but cultivate the effect. Allow reasonable discussions to grow, and comment yourself on the more relevant points. Let the consumer know their input is being seen, and that you care enough to respond to it. Posting new blog posts too frequently overruns this tendency, and could rob you of vital feedback.

4 – Be nimble.

As we’ve mentioned, you are not likely to get it right just out of the gate. You may bite off too much to chew, or update too infrequently for people to care. Evaluate the data, ask your consumers questions, and be prepared to change as needed. Flexibility is the ultimate survival tool on the web, and your blog will benefit if you approach the affair with an open mind and a willingness to try several approaches. Pick an update schedule, observe it, and then experiment with others until you have the one that best fits your needs.

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Enzo F. Cesario is an online brand specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Hitting Your Stride: Four Keys to Timing Your Blog

Return On Investment (ROI) is the relationship between the total amount you spend and the total amount you earn from a certain internet marketing campaign.

If you are doing any online marketing campaign, then Return On Investment (ROI) is the most important measurement to estimate your success and the one metric that you must work hard on to improve over time.

Generally speaking, Return On Investment (ROI) is a performance measurement used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment and to compare the efficiency of one investment to the other or over a certain period of time.

Return on investment is a very popular metric due to its versatility and simplicity. That is, if an investment does not have a reasonable positive ROI, or if there are other opportunities with a higher ROI, then this investment should not be done. Return On Investment (ROI) is the final measurement of success for any advertising campaign.

How To Calculate your Return On Investment (ROI)?

Return On Investment (ROI) for any advertising campaign is very simple to calculate. There are only two variations in the calculation formula:

1. Total cost of advertising campaign including all expenses related to this specific campaign
2. Net Profit of this specific advertising campaign.

The Net Profit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

Why should you constantly monitor your Return On Investment (ROI)?

Constant monitoring of your Return On Investment (ROI) either daily, weekly or both will guarantee 5 vital goals

1. To ensure that you are not losing money on any advertising campaign on a daily or weekly basis.
2. To detect any sudden decrease in the performance of any campaign and to take necessary actions to put it back on track.
3. To detect any sudden improvement in the performance of any campaign and to take necessary steps to exploit the situation for your advantage.
4. To assess the effect of changing different elements of the campaign to keep the best elements as in split testing and other testing methods.
5. To detect if the campaign is achieving its goals or falling short.

How To Increase Your Return On Investment?

The two most important factors to improve your Return On Investment (ROI) are:

1 – Professional Search Engine Optimization.
2 – Website Conversion Rate Optimization.

First: Website Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is one of the best internet marketing strategies to improve your Return On Investment. SEO if done properly will bring your pages to the 1st pages of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other major search engines. This will simply give you much more exposure for a long period of time.

Once the initial cost of Search Engine Optimization is paid, you do not need to pay much money to keep your publicity or exposure on the internet.

Other traditional online and off line advertisements require continuous payment to keep your ads running. These payments accumulate to a huge amount of money over time that will far exceed the total cost of Search Engine Optimization.

Proper Search Engine Optimization can be in the form of a combination of any number of the following factors:

1. Meticulous keyword research, analysis and selection to find and use the most profitable keywords for your business.
2. SEO copywriting your main website pages and your landing pages to make them more Search Engine Friendly and more easily found by search engines.
3. Link building to improve your link popularity and to achieve a top search engine placement.
4. Social Media Marketing to create more brand loyality and to reach more targeted visitors.
5. (YOU DON’T PUT POINT #5 LIKE IN THE OTHER FILE??)

Second: Website Conversion Rate Optimization

When you increase your Conversion Rate, you will get more leads and more sales from your targeted traffic.

A variety of improvements can be applied to increase Conversion Rate:

1. Find what are your Unique Selling Points (USP) and make them clear and obvious in your website and your landing pages.
2. Improve your website design to be more search engine friendly and to better communicate your message to your visitors.
3. Improve your website usability and accessibility to make navigation and finding information, products or services easier for your visitors.
4. Improve your sales copy to clearly present the benefits of your products or services to be more convincing and compelling to your visitors. Such a Sales copy will encourage and entice your visitors to convert.
5. Improve landing pages to accurately match your advertising campaigns and the keywords used in them.
6. Ensure that your landing pages are closely relevant to the content of your website.
7. Track your campaigns and analyze results to improve performance.
8. Experiment with different ads, and split test every element and every step of your campaign to fine tune your marketing campaign and improve your return on investment (ROI) results

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Nashat Mostafa is a Montreal SEO consultant and the founder of SEO 7 Services. During his long career as a SEO consultant, Mostafa has worked with many small and medium sized companies to plan and execute different search engine optimization and internet marketing campaigns to increase website conversion rate and improve return on investment (ROI).

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

12 Methods to Improve Website Return on Investment (ROI) Using SEO and Other Strategies