work smarder not harder
http://www.bigtopbusiness.com
Though the topic of “search engine optimization” deserves a lot of discussion, today I just want to touch on a few points. Anyone can slap together a website, but few can get a website to rank high in the search engines. Contrary to popular belief, just having a website is not enough to successfully market your product or service. Many a business owner thinks that having a website and getting it indexed by the search engines will bring them all the visitors they need to make money online. When it comes to SEO, there is no set it and forget it button. Many website owners believe this common misconception. To rank well in the SERPs (search engine results page) and to stay ranked well, will require continued effort. I would like to highlight three key factors that will bring a website to the top of the SERPs and to keep it there.
Every website owner should know by now that good content is number one on anybody’s list; especially the search engines. It only stands to reason that, if you don’t have the content that people are searching for, your website would be of very little use. Part of your content is your keywords. Or your keywords are part of your content. Either way just having keywords in your meta tags, is not enough. The more keywords, within reason, you have in your content the better. Search engines like good keyword density. Keep in mind, however that your content still needs to be readable to your human visitors. That being said, beware of keyword stuffing. Part of maintaining your position in the SERPs is updating your content every so often. It’s all about pleasing the search engines. Don’t let your content get stale.
The second most important factor in SEO, is link building. It is commonly said that the search engines view a back link as a vote for a website’s content. The more quality sites you have pointing back to your site, the better your site looks to the search engines, thus improving it’s pagerank (PR). PR is based on a scale of 0-10 or unranked. There are many ways to acquire back links, but I’ll only list a few. You can post on forums or comment on blogs, while leaving your link in the signature line. Be sure to make useful, relevant posts so you are not accused of link spamming. Writing articles can be useful in creating back links as well. Most article directories will allow you to leave a link in the bio box. You can also exchange links with other sites in your niche. Though frowned upon, you can also buy links. Just be sure not to buy too many at once because the search engines will penalize your website if out of nowhere you have thousands of sites pointing to yours.
The third most important, and often overlooked aspect of SEO is website design and structure. The first thing about design is that you want as much of your important content to be above the fold and in the line of sight of the visitor. You don’t want a visitor to have to scroll way down to the bottom of the page to find out what your site has to offer. You also need to provide direction, do this, click this etc. Whether they know it or not people like to be given direction. When I say structure, I am referring to the internal link structure of your site. Try to avoid having dynamic pages. In other words pages with URLs that contain http get variables. Search engines have a hard time spider these types of pages. If you can use relevant keywords in your URL files, not only will this help the search engines spider your whole site, it will increase your keyword density as well. Always register your sitemap with Google and also with Yahoo and MSN if possible so they know what to index. I said earlier that your content should be updated from time to time. However try not to change your website’s structure if possible. It can take a while before the search engines will reindex your updated pages. One way to avoid this is by not using a product as your page title. If you do, you strap yourself to always promoting that product, which limits you if markets change.
In summary, SEO is an on going effort. Exposure is key to your internet marketing success, and without SEO you will severely limit your website’s exposure.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Creating a brand for your online business
work smarder not harder
http://www.bigtopbusiness.com
Creating brand awareness is key to your marketing success. Many marketing techniques from big businesses can be applied to small businesses as well. The first thing that comes to mind Is branding your business. What is your business all about? What makes your business stand out from other businesses in your niche? No one knows your business better than you do. Don’t be afraid to be a little creative when trying to create your business’s identity.
Continuity between your website, logos, letterheads, business cards, and packaging is often overlooked. Your logo is a customer’s first impression. A professional image not only looks nice, but it can help to create a bond between you and your customers. This is another way to help you stand apart from competitors.
When it comes to marketing your brand, it pays to give something away that identifies your brand. This can be highly effective in making your customers remember you the next time they need a product or service that you have to offer. Be sure to put your logo on it and make it something that can be used for a long time after the initial purchase. It can be as simple a nice pen or a desk clock or even a tee-shirt.
Article marketing is an effective tool for creating brand awareness as well. Writing useful information can help you to stand out as authority in your niche. It can also help to create interest in your brand. Articles not only help to create exposure, but can also give your business some personality, furthering your brand’s awareness. It is always a good idea to solicit positive reviews. People writing about you will help further your efforts to distinguish yourself from others, as well as boost your credibility. Present your business to reputable business review sites and blogs. You can even write a positive review of your business on your own blog. All of this great, but Remember, without exposure, your brand means nothing.
http://www.bigtopbusiness.com
Creating brand awareness is key to your marketing success. Many marketing techniques from big businesses can be applied to small businesses as well. The first thing that comes to mind Is branding your business. What is your business all about? What makes your business stand out from other businesses in your niche? No one knows your business better than you do. Don’t be afraid to be a little creative when trying to create your business’s identity.
Continuity between your website, logos, letterheads, business cards, and packaging is often overlooked. Your logo is a customer’s first impression. A professional image not only looks nice, but it can help to create a bond between you and your customers. This is another way to help you stand apart from competitors.
When it comes to marketing your brand, it pays to give something away that identifies your brand. This can be highly effective in making your customers remember you the next time they need a product or service that you have to offer. Be sure to put your logo on it and make it something that can be used for a long time after the initial purchase. It can be as simple a nice pen or a desk clock or even a tee-shirt.
Article marketing is an effective tool for creating brand awareness as well. Writing useful information can help you to stand out as authority in your niche. It can also help to create interest in your brand. Articles not only help to create exposure, but can also give your business some personality, furthering your brand’s awareness. It is always a good idea to solicit positive reviews. People writing about you will help further your efforts to distinguish yourself from others, as well as boost your credibility. Present your business to reputable business review sites and blogs. You can even write a positive review of your business on your own blog. All of this great, but Remember, without exposure, your brand means nothing.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Affiliate marketing at a glimpse
If you are willing to work to get traffic to your affiliate website, you can make money on line. Take a look around the internet and you will find all kinds of websites and blogs that are making money thanks to the opportunities provided by affiliate marketing. Even small personal sites can be monetized. If your website has been monetized for sometime, there are ways to boost your affiliate marketing sales and earn even more income.
First, you will need to find a niche. Competition is tough in the affiliate marketing industry, but if your niche doesn’t have any competition, there probably isn’t a market for it. Try to think about what people want, and give to them. Three big markets are related to wealth, health, and weight loss.
Next, you will want to find the right affiliate products to promote. Look for affiliate programs with commission rates of at least 30%. Some affiliate programs pay up to 75% commission, which is great, because you can sell less and make more. Try to stay focused on one or maybe two products. If you are too diversified, you will have a hard time getting truly targeted visitors.
Website design is an often overlooked element to affiliate marketing. It is true that an ugly website can make money, but a well designed website will make more. Simple things, such as placement of key elements can play a vital role in your website’s ability to convert your traffic into sales. You don’t want unnecessary graphics and fancy flash to distract your visitors from seeing what you want them to see, your products. Having a forum is a great way to interact with your visitors, and to capture there Email addresses for later marketing efforts.
Now it’s time to get traffic to your website. Not just any traffic will do. In order to get long term targeted traffic you will need to do some SEO (search engine optimization).A well optimized site is not only much more visible, but its visitors are extremely targeted. Targeted traffic is what you want if you want to be a successful affiliate.You can’t be everything to everybody, so not every visitor will be of the targeted variety.
Just because someone has found your site, doesn’t mean that you have what they were looking for. What is important is that when they are looking for what you have, they find it. In my opinion it is best to start out with free traffic strategies. Submit your site to as many free directories and classifieds as you can. Visit forums and make intelligent and useful posts. Write useful articles about your niche and submit them to article directories. Once you learn to convert free traffic, than you can move on to ppc campaigns, and really boost your sales.
Now that you have your niche, your product, your well designed website, and a swarm of highly targeted traffic, the only thing left to do, is to go to the bank and cash your checks.
First, you will need to find a niche. Competition is tough in the affiliate marketing industry, but if your niche doesn’t have any competition, there probably isn’t a market for it. Try to think about what people want, and give to them. Three big markets are related to wealth, health, and weight loss.
Next, you will want to find the right affiliate products to promote. Look for affiliate programs with commission rates of at least 30%. Some affiliate programs pay up to 75% commission, which is great, because you can sell less and make more. Try to stay focused on one or maybe two products. If you are too diversified, you will have a hard time getting truly targeted visitors.
Website design is an often overlooked element to affiliate marketing. It is true that an ugly website can make money, but a well designed website will make more. Simple things, such as placement of key elements can play a vital role in your website’s ability to convert your traffic into sales. You don’t want unnecessary graphics and fancy flash to distract your visitors from seeing what you want them to see, your products. Having a forum is a great way to interact with your visitors, and to capture there Email addresses for later marketing efforts.
Now it’s time to get traffic to your website. Not just any traffic will do. In order to get long term targeted traffic you will need to do some SEO (search engine optimization).A well optimized site is not only much more visible, but its visitors are extremely targeted. Targeted traffic is what you want if you want to be a successful affiliate.You can’t be everything to everybody, so not every visitor will be of the targeted variety.
Just because someone has found your site, doesn’t mean that you have what they were looking for. What is important is that when they are looking for what you have, they find it. In my opinion it is best to start out with free traffic strategies. Submit your site to as many free directories and classifieds as you can. Visit forums and make intelligent and useful posts. Write useful articles about your niche and submit them to article directories. Once you learn to convert free traffic, than you can move on to ppc campaigns, and really boost your sales.
Now that you have your niche, your product, your well designed website, and a swarm of highly targeted traffic, the only thing left to do, is to go to the bank and cash your checks.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Making money in a bad economy
With soaring gas prices, rising food prices, home foreclosures at an all time high, and a weak dollar, it is obvious that we are in an economic downturn, if not a recession. This does not mean that an entrepreneur cannot prosper in tough times. It just means that we must adjust our tactics a bit. Because most businesses are both suppliers and customers at the same time, you need to think outside the box when trying to meet the needs of your customers while having your needs as customer met too. Keep in mind that your suppliers are affected by the economy as well. So, more often then not you can find a middle ground where everyone’s needs are met.
Price cuts aren’t the only way to go about this. In fact they aren’t the best approach at all for entrepreneurs. It is my feeling that you must compete on service, quality, or something else, other than just price. The reason that I feel that way is because in a poor economy, competition is much stiffer due to less demand. Not only that, but during a recession, people look for other means of income, and because the start up costs for small businesses goes down, the number of competitors goes up. So it is even more important to focus on quality or service in order to have a competitive edge in a bad economy, even more so than in a good economy.As an entrepreneur, you need to realize that just because demand for one thing may be down, doesn’t mean that there is no demand at all. You may just need to shift your focus, and be more open to your customer’s needs. For instance if you are a grocer, demand for beef may be down, but demand for chicken may be up. Should you take beef off the shelf all together? No. Should you increase your supply of chicken? Yes. You will have customers who will still want to eat beef no matter what it costs, but chances are that you will sell more chicken than beef. My point, as obvious as it may be, is that people need to eat. In order to meet the needs of your customers, you need to be aware of what their needs are, and adjust accordingly
Price cuts aren’t the only way to go about this. In fact they aren’t the best approach at all for entrepreneurs. It is my feeling that you must compete on service, quality, or something else, other than just price. The reason that I feel that way is because in a poor economy, competition is much stiffer due to less demand. Not only that, but during a recession, people look for other means of income, and because the start up costs for small businesses goes down, the number of competitors goes up. So it is even more important to focus on quality or service in order to have a competitive edge in a bad economy, even more so than in a good economy.As an entrepreneur, you need to realize that just because demand for one thing may be down, doesn’t mean that there is no demand at all. You may just need to shift your focus, and be more open to your customer’s needs. For instance if you are a grocer, demand for beef may be down, but demand for chicken may be up. Should you take beef off the shelf all together? No. Should you increase your supply of chicken? Yes. You will have customers who will still want to eat beef no matter what it costs, but chances are that you will sell more chicken than beef. My point, as obvious as it may be, is that people need to eat. In order to meet the needs of your customers, you need to be aware of what their needs are, and adjust accordingly
Internet marketing for your online business can be confusing, especially if you are not familiar with all of the different aspects of website marketing. There are literally hundreds of different approaches to marketing your website. This is why it can seem daunting to choose a particular method of marketing. with all the options out there, many business owners get frozen, like a deer in the headlights. Others don't care and are willing to try virtually anything, and not focusing on one aspect or another. No matter which category best describes you, you will have to eventually make a choice. Every online business needs to advertise in some way if they want their business to survive. At some point, you will have to decide to take a chance. It is only after you have developed and implemented a website marketing strategy that you will truly be able to determine whether or not it was a success.
Though there are many different website marketing techniques, the only way to determeine if your campaign is a success, is to Follow-up. If you never follow-up on your marketing decisions, you will never know whether or not to continue with one strategy or another.
A website marketing campaign is kind of like a football game. Once it is over, the game need to be reviewed, and analyzed, so you can determine which strategies worked and which didn't. Follow-up is key when it comes to Internet marketing for online business, because of the many methods of advertising. By tracking your results, you can determine If you need more offense or more defense, in a manner of speaking. After careful analysis, you can adjust your methods accordingly. The bottom line is make a decision, and go for it. If it fails try something else. No matter what follow-up. You will never know if you don't try.
http://www.bigtopbusiness.com
Though there are many different website marketing techniques, the only way to determeine if your campaign is a success, is to Follow-up. If you never follow-up on your marketing decisions, you will never know whether or not to continue with one strategy or another.
A website marketing campaign is kind of like a football game. Once it is over, the game need to be reviewed, and analyzed, so you can determine which strategies worked and which didn't. Follow-up is key when it comes to Internet marketing for online business, because of the many methods of advertising. By tracking your results, you can determine If you need more offense or more defense, in a manner of speaking. After careful analysis, you can adjust your methods accordingly. The bottom line is make a decision, and go for it. If it fails try something else. No matter what follow-up. You will never know if you don't try.
http://www.bigtopbusiness.com
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