Thursday, July 3, 2008

Article Marketing on the Internet is a whole different story

Article Marketing on the Internet is a whole different story because of the way your articles reach humans who have an interest in them. Article Marketing will help you increase your link popularity, search engine positioning for your keywords and phrases, and it helps you reach more potential customers for your products or services.

Your positive Internet presence isn't just about being found in search engine results, or the number of contacts you have on various networking platforms. To a large extent it's about your approach, attitude, and philosophy about networking, or more specifically online networking.

One synonym for the word "presence" is charisma. Ultimately, someone's Internet presence is a transformation of a few basic ingredients: one's openness to new contacts (both with respect to approaching others you don't know, as well as others approaching you who don't know you); a willingness to accept some risk when it comes to helping or connecting with someone; combined with how well you project all of this in a visible way.

Unfortunately, many people - start - networking only when they have a need, and then they - stop - networking when their need has been met. This is only exacerbated by how some online networking platforms are actually set up to work. Unfortunately some networking platforms should be renamed "needworking" platforms. Most successful networkers would probably agree that networking is an ongoing process, and not one that is bound in time by an individual need.

I was introduced to a wonderful quote by a fellow networker the other day that caused me dig a little further to find the complete quote. What I found, in many ways, epitomizes the spirit of networking - and in the 21st Century - especially online networking.

From a Blog post by: John McNally Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University

"Model of a Letter of Recommendation of a person you are unacquainted with."

*****

Paris, April 2, 1777

Sir,-- The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person brings another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another! As to this gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him, however, to those civilities which every stranger, of whom one knows no harm, has a right to; and I request you will do him all the favour that, on further acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve. I have the honour to be, etc.

Benjamin Franklin

*****

Now that guy had presence.

So what is this supposed to imply in the context of your Internet presence and/or networking charisma? Be open to people who risk reaching out to you. Realize that everyone may not have the same experience and/or optimum polished approach that you do. As Benjamin Franklin's quote above implies be willing to take a chance on a new point of contact and give people the benefit of the doubt. For all you know, the next person that risks reaching out to you could translate into the beginning of the most fruitful relationship you'll ever develop, but if you aren't willing to take a chance on a new point of contact and give the individual the benefit of the doubt you'll never know let alone benefit.

An expert in mission critical retained executive search, Ron Bates is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. (http://www.executive-advantage.com).

Ron has also coached former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, WorldCom, et al. executives responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self-guided executive coaching process and resume development toolset.

As a recognized talent assessment, deployment and development expert, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, Business of Success radio, a regular on Netshare's "Ask the Coach", and most recently Ron's interview was included in Leadership Without Borders: Successful Strategies From World-Class Leaders, by Ed Cohen, 2007 John Wiley & Sons. With +34,000 direct on-line professional networking platform contacts, Ron has been referred to as "the most connected man on Earth."

For career info go to: http://www.job-search-campaign.com

Just what are the Benefits of Submitting Articles to E-Zines

E-zine advertising is perhaps one of the most underused forms of promotion. It is a good idea to do your homework, before launching your viral marketing campaign. Article writing and publishing has become the latest buzz in the internet website marketing world. The name of the game as far as Internet marketing

Have you ever heard about stories on those online entrepreneurs who hit it big after getting a #1 rank in several popular search engines? You must be wondering what it would take for you to achieve that #1 spot in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Search Engine Optimization, or commonly known as SEO plays an important role to ensure that your business gets the best possible search engine ranking. This will eventually leads to increased sales for your online company.

So, what is exactly Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search engine optimization is the process of amending the content and the meta-information (i.e. Meta-information includes certain HTML tags such as title, heading, emphasized text, keyword and description meta-tags, as well as the internal [links between pages on the same site] and external [links between pages on different sites] link structure of a web site). This is to improve the search engine ranking of the page.

What will be the sales impact if my website is being listed as one of the High Search Engine Rank? Do you know that Internet market research estimates that between 70% and 90% of online shoppers use search engines to find a specific product or service. As such, you can see how effective search engine optimization can boost your revenues.

There are a total of three metrics to forecast online sales. They are the average ticket, the conversion rate, and the amount of web site traffic. Lets me explain each of the metrics to you. The average ticket is the amount of money spent by a customer on a typical transaction. Typically, bookstores have low average tickets while on the other hand computer and electronics stores have high average tickets.

Web Site traffic is measured by the number of site visitors. It is normally expressed as the total number of page views per month.

Conversion rate is expressed as a percentage and was calculated through the number of sales divided by the number of page.

As such, achieving a high search engine rank will definitely increase the number of page views, and could therefore increase sales. Bear in mind that a high search engine rank will produce a measurable increase in traffic only if there is significant marketplace interest in your product / service. Note that search engine optimization is not going to help to produce measurable results if there is very little demand on your product or service. Lets us look into this way, the #1 spot in search engine result pages is not particularly impressive if only two people search for your product or service each month.

What is the role of keywords being used in the Search Engine Optimization?

Keywords are words or phrases users provide to search engines to locate information. Search engines examine page content to determine whether a specific page is relevant for a particular search word or phrase. Thus, effective keyword selection is one of the keystones of search engine optimization.

Each keyword is characterized by supply and demand. Supply refers to the number of search engine result pages and demand refers to the number of searches.

The easiest way to improve search engine rank is to select keywords that have favorable supply-demand characteristics; that is, ones with a relatively high demand and a relatively low supply. It is much more difficult to improve the search engine position of a page on a high supply, competitive keyword.

Good keywords should be relevant to your product line and your line of business. For example, a #1 rank for health supplement product is worthless if you sell Health equipment. A potential customer will find your page, quickly discover that you don't sell any Health supplement product, and promptly go elsewhere. In effect, the conversion rate for irrelevant search engine hits is very close to zero.

Choosing a set of target keywords is the first step in search engine optimization. The second step is using them in the body, title, headings, and meta-tags of a page.

Do not overdo it by including target keywords in the text of the page. The keywords should fit smoothly into the surrounding text. Search engines are smart enough to detect excessive keyword density, or too many keywords stuffed into very little supporting text. It will definitely reduce your page ranking accordingly.

The title tag should contain information that describes the page. Unless you operate a multi-national corporation that is already a household name, your company's name should not be a descriptive title. Most search engines use the title tag as the first line of your listing in the search engine result pages.

Incorporate keywords into the headings on the page, as well as into emphasized sections (bold or large text). Even though search engines are de-emphasizing descriptive meta-tags, include keywords in them nevertheless. The description meta-tag should have an accurate description of your page, and the keywords meta-tag should contain a set of keywords (separated by commas) that list key concepts mentioned on the page.

This will help you to understand the basics of search engine optimization and it is an important first step in creating an optimized, well-positioned web site.

Patrick Sia is the man behind Income-Internet-Business.com. He's a passionate believer in the power of technology to better the lives of everyone and his passion and drive are hallmarks of his attitude to doing business.

Check out more about him @ http://www.income-internet-business.com/blog and http://www.income-internet-business.com for his step-by-step guide to startup a successful internet business.

Making Money with Your Blog!

A place for finding the Nuts and Bolts for Making Money Online with Affiliate Marketing Business Opportunity!

While serious search engine optimization remains a difficult and often daunting task for your average website owner, there are many simple things you can do to optimize your site for the search engines. These simple tasks are relatively easy to perform and can be very beneficial to any search engine optimization campaign.

Page Titles

One of the most important aspects of on page optimization is to optimize all your page titles. Very few homemade websites and even those made by far more costly amateur and even professional web designers forget, or just don't know, that you should place your most important keyword phrase or two in your page title. If your #1 most important keyword is "orange cat figurines", then your page title should look something like this:

Company Name - Orange Cat Figurines

Simple as that! As long as you don't repeat one word more than several times in the title, you can place more than one phrase in the title, like this:

Company Name - Orange Cat Figurines, Feline Figurine Store

Notice we didn't repeat a single word more than once, fit in 2 important keyword phrases and also fit in the official company name? This is a good title. You can also move the company name to the end of the title to place greater importance on your phrases, like this:

Orange Cat Figurines and Feline Figurines at Company Name

All three formats make good page titles for just about any website.

Body Text

Next, we have the body text of the site. So often, you see sites that have very little or no text on their sites at all. Your main page especially, needs to have some good descriptive text that incorporates the purpose of the website and your most important keyword phrases. Flash sites, sites with splash or entrance pages and sites that are graphics heavy, too often miss this important step.

Your text should read naturally and explain what your site offers and can even include a summary of your products, services, direct links to important pages on the site and contact information.

Page File Names

The file names of each page of your site are also important and can be optimized. Here are some examples of appropriate optimization of page file names:

orange-cats.htm
orange-cat-figurine.htm
cat-figurines.htm
blackcatfigurines.htm

It's quite simple, name the pages that you have these products on with the most important keyword phrase for those products. Avoid using too many words here, just 1 short keyword phrase works best. There's still an argument as to whether the hyphenated version or the non hyphenated version is best. You can also use underscores as well. If your site is already built, you may not be able to change the filenames easily, but if you add additional pages, you can certainly use optimized file names like above.

Heading Tag

This is the very simple H1 tag that makes the text look very large on the page. When the heading tag is used in a page, the search engines tend to think that the phrase contained inside it is very important. The heading tag should be used at the top of a page to highlight one important keyword phrase that is describing the content of the page.

Alternate Image Text

While some search engines don't bother to read this text, some major ones still do. You can optimize the alternate image text to describe an image, but don't stuff it with keywords. Here are some examples of good alternate image text that incorporates keywords:

Orange Cat Figurine (to describe an orange cat figurine) Cat Store Logo (for the logo) Cat Figurine Catalog (for button linking to the main catalog page showing cat figurines)

The alternate text names of each image will also show up when you hover your mouse over an image or for people who are on low speed connections and whose images don't load or take a long time to load.

There you are, 5 very simple and easy ways to optimize your site for search engines.

Lydia Quinn writes for SearchTheWebLive!, an up and coming search engine portal. Visit us at: http://www.searchtheweblive.com/

Just what are the Benefits of Submitting Articles to E-Zines

E-zine advertising is perhaps one of the most underused forms of promotion. It is a good idea to do your homework, before launching your viral marketing campaign. Article writing and publishing has become the latest buzz in the internet website marketing world. The name of the game as far as Internet marketing

There are a lot of ways and means that you can amplify your article marketing in order to achieve better results. However, the three elements stated below are exceptionally recommended because of the proven record of success rate that they have brought to many online businesses.

1. Outline your article material to produce a well-structured content. The success of the marketing plan largely depends on the quality of your articles. Therefore, it is essential that you give extra time and effort to make the whole article material worthy of everybody's attention. Make sure that it goes beyond what is acceptable. It has to bear excellence in all aspects: style of writing, grammar, punctuation, quality of information, relevance of the subject matter, and coherence of ideas.

2. Plan your marketing strategies on how you can make these articles be attention-getter. You need to make sure that these highly qualified article materials get the attention of the majority of readers. You can engage into promoting these in some online gatherings and discussions to allow for people to talk about them.

3. Evaluate your articles based on another set of standards - the standards of publishing sites. Make sure that you are able to surpass the common standards set forth by these publishing sites if you want to make sure that your works will be published and promoted.

4. Polish your articles from time to time to make sure that they do not convey the same sets of ideas. People are looking for an exceptional set of information. Thus, you need to make sure that you present fresh, new ideas on every article that you write and post to publishing sites.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Just what are the Benefits of Submitting Articles to E-Zines

E-zine advertising is perhaps one of the most underused forms of promotion. It is a good idea to do your homework, before launching your viral marketing campaign. Article writing and publishing has become the latest buzz in the internet website marketing world. The name of the game as far as Internet marketing

Are you wondering what you can say in your articles that will bring your readers back to your site, ready to buy? Give them informative content that answers their questions.

1. User Information & Directions

Tell your reader how to use products you sell. Offer detailed directions that improve results of using the products you sell and promote good relationships with the users of the product. How often have you heard someone mention an NEW idea and said, "Gee I wish I'd thought of that?" Well, now you can. And when you publish those ideas, you get credit and new customers for your ideas.

2. Details of Understanding

Don't you just find it easier to use a product you know something about? You could give the reader user friendly directions that would promote their ability to use your products. Perhaps the history of your product is interesting, or you have a unique story to tell about how beneficial the product has been to someone? Add in some flair or an amusing tale and you've got a great article that encourages customers.

3. News & Announcements

Has your product saved a life? Perhaps it's been beneficial to a group of people who help others? Maybe your products were used to help a family in need? Or did you donate products to the needy for the holiday celebrations? Let your reader know of these newsy events, or send them an announcement of an event they can participate in. Give them an opportunity to get to know your products better.

Are you ready to learn more about Article Marketing?

Obtain 2 FREE Article Marketing Templates at http://advertizeyourbusiness.com and learn more about the SECRET of Prospering from Online Marketing. Advertize is an online business owned by Jan Verhoeff, an Internet Marketer who believes Content is King. You may visit http://janverhoeff.com about online marketing and a wealth of information.

Just what are the Benefits of Submitting Articles to E-Zines

E-zine advertising is perhaps one of the most underused forms of promotion. It is a good idea to do your homework, before launching your viral marketing campaign. Article writing and publishing has become the latest buzz in the internet website marketing world. The name of the game as far as Internet marketing

A friend of mine recently started an online venture. He hired the best team of designers and created a website that will beat the best. He paid a big sum for a fancy branded domain name and he launched the website. Today after a month of his launch, he is all disappointed because all that investment has not converted into traffic for him.

Yes, no matter how appealing your website might be, it is useless unless people can reach it easily. Search engine optimization or SEO is a set of tools and techniques that are used to optimize your website for the internet. It will enable people looking for your services to find you via search engines.

Today, if you are looking for success on the World Wide Web, then you need to have an SEO campaign in place. There is so much competition amongst SEO vendors today, that it has become much easier to find affordable seo services.

Defining affordable

How do you define affordable in the real sense? For some people, $100 a month for SEO might seem too much. But for others, $1000 might seem like a reasonable amount for a high Page Rank on google. So the definition of affordable changes from one person to the other.

According to me, every webmaster has a budget for marketing and web promotion. If the SEO services can be accommodated in that budget, then it can be called affordable. On the other hand, if the SEO service expands way beyond the budget, then it can be termed to be expensive.

Thinking beyond the price

When you are aiming to beat about one million websites to the top of the search engine listings, you have to think beyond the price. I am not saying that you sign up for any SEO company even if it is too expensive. But you can definitely spare a thought for the reputation of the company before you sign up.

For more info visit : Affordable SEO Services

Viral marketing is a methods of list building

There are multiple methods of list building, and if you are just getting started, until you have gained mastery over one or two methods, it is advisable to use multiple methods of list building strategies. You’ll see every step of the process, no matter how small, in exacting detail so

If you're new to affiliate marketing online, you may not have much money to spare for marketing and advertising efforts. Thankfully there are some great alternatives that cost little to nothing, other than your time. One of the best known is Article Marketing.

Article Marketing is the process of writing quality articles which are then given out free to various places around the web. These articles have your name and information on them, along with a link or two to your website. Your website should then have some kind of information available about the affiliate program or product you're promoting.

When you give away your articles at no cost, more people will read them around the web. And each person that reads the article could potentially click your website links and visit your site. If you've done a great job of introducing your affiliate product on your website, they may then click the affiliate link and make a purchase. This of course earns you money.

Not all affiliate marketers promote a product on their website though. Instead, they use article marketing to get visitors to an email sign up page. When the visitors sign up for the information you're offering, they'll start getting regular email messages from you. And your email messages are the ones that will promote the affiliate products for you instead. This allows you, as an affiliate marketer, to build your own targeted prospect list around certain topics. And over time you'll be able to promote additional affiliate products to that list which are related in topic, so you can make even more money from the same people.

Whichever way you decide to use it, article marketing can be one of the simplest, most inexpensive ways to start making money as an affiliate marketer. And there are just four simple steps:

1. Find a great topic. Sometimes this is called finding a niche, but the point is the same: Figure out what people are really interested in - or even desperate for - on any given topic. If they're really itching for information about something, they're more likely to buy without thinking twice about it.

2. Find a great affiliate product. The affiliate product you choose of course should be related to the topic you found in the previous step. Make sure the product has an excellent sales page, so the traffic you send to that page will be more likely to convert. Also of course, make sure that product is as great as it seems, so you don't end up with lots of sales that end up being refunded.

3. Start writing articles. These don't have to be perfect and they won't be graded by your English teacher either. Just write the article about small pieces of the topic you chose in step one. Write as if you're talking to just one person, and that will make it more conversational and engaging.

Your articles don't have to be long essays either. Most good web based articles range in size from 300-500 words, but you can make it as long as 1000 words if you have that much to say. A better option though, would be to break a longer article into two parts because that will give you two articles to distribute instead of one.

4. Distribute your articles. This is the easy part. Once you've finished writing, be sure to create a signature style area at the end of your article which has your name, copyright, a bit of information about you or your website, and a link. Then simply submit the articles to various directories and distribution sites around the web.

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Three Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills.With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is

The thought of writing articles for some is not a pleasant one, people believe article writing is too hard and never even give themselves a chance. That's the worst thing you can do. I know because it held me back for a long time. When I finally summoned up the courage to start thinking positively about writing articles, it was not as hard as I was making it out to be.

I am assuming if you have read this much of this article, you want to write articles as a way to market your business online. Let me tell you that it is one of the best ways to market online from my testing and experience. In order to make your article marketing easier, there is one important asset you should already have or want to have.

That is a good knowledge of the subject matter you will be writing about. Once this is in place, article marketing will become a breeze. Article marketing is nothing more than you talking to someone about a topic or subject, that's all there is to it. That's the reason it is so important for you to have a good background of your topic or subject matter.

Now that we have that out of the way, the next thing we want to do is research. Research other authors in your field and see how they are writing their articles? What are they talking about? Keep in mind you will be submitting your articles to directories online so you want to visit these directories prior to writing your first article.

I wasted 17months trying to drive profitable traffic to my website, but you should not do the same. Instead click here to get a copy of my "Quality Traffic Report". In it I will show you my results after testing article marketing vs. google pay per click, you can use the results to start driving profitable traffic to your website.