How Tagging and Pinging Work

A must read if you are using social bookmarking as part of your marketing strategy.

Tagging and pinging are common terms used in social bookmarking and web publishing, and it's important to learn how to do both effectively when you need the top rankings on sites and search engines. Search engines and social bookmarking aggregators work in very similar ways, and the most effective strategy for gaining prominence in either of these is to code your copy correctly!

TAGGING: WHAT IS IT?

Developing search-engine friendly copy has become even easier with the introduction of tagging widgets on a variety of web publishing interfaces. Tagging is simply a process of breaking down your submissions into keywords. Keywords of relevance are usually general in scope, and will make your copy fit into a variety of indexes and categories with a few simple tweaks.

Consider tagging to be a condensed version of your main idea. This is an effective approach when you are trying to make sense of the process, and the best way to do it is to start with your heading and title. Your title will serve as the main source of indexing by search engines, and you can make it stand out even more by adding relevant tags.

As a general rule, you'll want to make sure you are also using the appropriate tags and meta-tags in descriptions and heading titles. Both Yahoo! and MSN use these areas to index anything you publish, and it's important that they are relevant and free of spam.

Still, tagging within a social bookmarking site offers multiple benefits. Many social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Technorati make use of tag clouds that break out each article and section it off to different categories. Using keywords such as 'internet' or 'computer' for example will automatically list your article or submission in both areas. It's just another way for users to find articles or entries of relevance; whenever they click on one of these tag clouds, a full listing of articles with those tags will show up on their screen.

A growing number of portals and websites are offering tagging systems to index content. This is especially helpful for blogs and other larger resources where context is highly important. Think about the millions of articles and entries on the web today, and how difficult it would be for someone to find your specific article if they could only find you with a few keywords. tagging helps to create context and relevance within different categories, and once a user has reached the social bookmarking platform; it makes it much easier to find you.

More people are becoming comfortable and familiar with using tag clouds to group and find the information they need; your website can reach a much wider audience when it's easily found in a variety of areas, instead of just under one content page or index.

As each social bookmarking site indexes and aggregates the incoming data, patterns of tags start to emerge; the more popular a particular theme or idea becomes, the larger the tag cloud. You'll notice this as you review different tag clouds, and you'll see some words standing out far more than others. This means that more people are submitting articles with the same tags, and more people are viewing them. it's an easy way to monitor and review how well specific topics are doing at any given time.

TAGGING: HOW TO DO IT

Tagging each entry you submit will become a habit, but you do need to make sure that the tags are relevant and free of spam. Only use keywords that actually apply to your entry; if you start using extra words simply to gain exposure or search engine placement, another user may report it and you may be forced off the network.

Think of tagging as labeling all of your data; you are creating an easily index-able system so that search engines and social bookmarking sites can find and place your article. Breaking down your article into a 'notes' form is a very effective strategy for rising to prominence!

You'll need to break down your main idea into general topics, then narrow it down to more specific keywords. Titles in your article are a good way to start, and you do not need to include words such as 'the', 'it', or 'a'. If you do, the tagging system will usually just take them out. Be sure to pick keywords that classify your submission the best; while there are no limits to the number of tags you can add, it's important to limit them to only those of relevance.

PINGING: WHAT IS IT?

Pinging has quickly become a popular activity with the social networking boom, and in most cases it is an automatic process. Pinging is the process of identifying your IP address and making sure that it is a valid address for search engines. Pings identify the web address to various hosts, and once the address is verified, it can be networked and updated in search engines and indexes.

Bloggers make use of pinging when in cases where posts are not updated automatically. Pinging allows the user to update search engines and various indexes that a new blog posting has been submitted. This is necessary for indexing purposes only, and can help search engine spiders and indexers 'pick up' your submission much faster. Old search engine strategies required manually entering sites and submissions for pinging; today, however, most publishing platforms take care of this process automatically.

Sean S. Sampson provides valuable resources, and information to help the home business owner, and online business owner prosper with their business. For more information about Social Bookmarketing, please go to www.makinglotsofmoneyonline.com

How to Find Free Internet Marketing

Here are some great ideas that you can employ when marketing your website.

New ecommerce businesses are caught up in SEO and web optimization. They view Google as the holy grail of making profits via the internet. Their internet marketing budget is sank into buying traffic, optimizing pages, and establishing major PayPerClick programs with the major search engines. All the work, and expense, involved in following the pack, is virtually unnecessary in today’s ecommerce world.

Marketing the Website

Submitting to search engines is only the first step toward a strong Internet Marketing campaign – it should never be the full focus. There are several ways to market a website.

- search engine optimization
- Pay Per Click
- Search Engine Submission
- Generating Inbound Links and increasing Page Rank
- Building Content
- Adding Social Networking Tools such as forums

Each one of these tools have a benefit. Recently a blog community went from PR0 – PR4, and receiving 300 000 hits a month with a budget of $50 a month. The blog community invested $20 a month in a PayPerClick program to ‘boost’ their exposure on Google and be accepted and ‘ranked’ faster.

www.communati.com submitted the website to more than 3000 search engines, free, using www.webceo.com. Despite the ‘old’ search engine hype, this should only be done once or twice a year. They embarked on an article writing, forum promoting, and encouraging members to ‘put the word out.’ The inbound link campaign increased their Page Rank to PR4 within 5 months, an incredible feat.

Next, communati added social networking features like points and a chat. The important ‘trick’ to remember is that search engines give more rank to pages inside the website, not the index or home page. Building links to the home page is becoming a waste of time. Five articles with specific topics that contain high keywords, links to the rest of the ecommerce website, and ‘hooks’, will generate more PR than links to a buy now page, the index page, or a page with heavy images and graphics.

Marketing the Blog

All websites should include a blog. Not because a blog is necessary, or because people read them. The number one reason for putting up a blog is to increase keyword density, but keep in below the 5% ‘red flag’ level. It also generates dozens of extra content pages, increases the number of ‘in house’ links which are also important to increasing page rank.

A blog can also be submitted to blog directories. The best way to submit is using a service. When an Internet Marketing manager submits a blog to a directory, they must include a backward link. When they use a service they can submit to about 1000 directories without back links. The price ranges from $200 - $500. http://www.lazyurl.com/, http://www.submitcomfort.com/

One advantage of a blog is that it is submitted to the blog directories every time someone writes a new post. Web sites that are submitted more than 4 or 5 times a year may find themselves banned. However, a blog can ping the search engine several times a day without risk of being banned.

In turn, the blog search engines ‘ping’ the big search engines who give the ‘new’ content high page rank for the first few hours.

Marketing The Podcast

No podcast on your ecommerce website? Why? Submitting it to the podcast directories is another way to generate free exposure. The podcast only needs a few streaming or downloaded files to qualify. Podcasts can also be listed on dozens and dozens of free services, each building links to the main site, as well as increasing the exposure to the website. AmigoFish.com, Digg Podcasts , Podcast Pickle , www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts or http://podcasts.yahoo.com.

The most popular podcatcher software is iTunes, which is available as a free download from www.apple.com/itunes/download.

Promote Video

Does your product Appeal to younger people? Then load video at facebook, youtube, etc and then submit those videos. Don’t make a dry workshop or seminar style tutorial, but make it interesting. It is amazing how many younger people click in keywords, and then use the ‘search video only’ link to view relevant videos instead of reading articles.

The list continues. Submit your newsletter, forums, and chat directories. A single article can be submitted to more than 50 000 article submission ‘free content’ sites. No cost involved, except time, and the exposure will create a ripple effect sending your message farther across the web than a $100 000 SEO, traffic buying, and search engine submission campaign.

About the Author:

Mark Walters is a third generation entrepreneur and author. He offers free training andinvesting videos designed to speed you towards financial independence at http://www.cashflowinstitute.com/videosignup.htm

Marketing Online for Your Business

A good overview of online marketing.

The Internet, as well as being a fantastic source of information, is also a tremendous platform for business and commerce. With that comes the development of many different business mechanisms, which adapt as they cross from the real to the virtual trading environment. One of those functionalities, which have been well adapted to form an entirely new discipline for online business is online marketing. By combining a diverse range of different advertising and promotional channels, website owners have effectively created their own rules when it comes to online promotion, and to have any chance of online commercial success, these must be fully embraced.

One of the fastest growing sectors of online business is pay-per-action marketing, primarily in the form of pay-per-click. Pay-per-click works by displaying an advert with a link straight through to the advertiser's site. Rather than charging per impression, or for the duration of the ad, the advertiser pays only for every click through, which means theoretically, the advertiser is only paying for each interested sales lead. This may initially sound like an attractive and cost effective way to go, but there are a variety of problems with the medium which could eventually lead to its downfall.

One of the most critical problems faced by pay-per-click is what has been deemed 'click fraud'. Click fraud is where competitors deliberately click on adverts to run up the PPC budget, which can result in advertisers paying for advertising that hasn't even produce a single interested visitor to their site. However, many PPC suppliers are working tirelessly to try to remedy the situation, and they seem to be beginning to get a grasp on how best to avoid the problem in future.

Another evergreen online marketing method is that of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of making modifications to websites and combining off-site strategies to boost search engine rankings, which will ultimately result in more coverage for the website in question. In fact, SEO is such a powerful tool, that it is possible to move almost any website to one of the top few pages on major search engine results under specific keywords very quickly. For this reason, SEO is big business, and many websites of all sizes reap the benefits of SEO spend in their sales and profit margins every single year.

Online marketing comprises a range of alien marketing concepts, which traditional businesses must grasp if they are to succeed online. All in all, online marketing is a highly lucrative area, and the potential rewards are very high for those that successfully come to terms with these new marketing methods.

About the Author:

Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Employment, Computers, and Business

Reciprocal Links - Yes Or No?

A great article on the topic of link exchange and their relevance to search engine rankings.

Reciprocal Link Exchange is a very popular and valuable practice. This can be a valuable tool for information sharing and it helps establish communication among web developers and creates strong on line communities.

A reciprocal link simply means that two websites are linking to each other. Both sites generate traffic for each other simultaneously.

Building links is a very good way to improve how high you rank on a search engine index. Links consist of your hyperlink of your web site that is posted onto another web site. The more links of your web site that can be found throughout the internet on other sites, usually the higher you will rank in the search engines.

You can't just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites.

Tips and recommendations for designing a Good Reciprocal Link Campaign

- Set a goal. Figure out how fast you can do it, then create a plan to increase and improve your Page Ranking. Start your own Marketing Linking Campaign;

- Choose your reciprocal links wisely. Connect only to websites that contain related information that readers will enjoy.

- Use your time collecting valuable information on your site, and then tell everyone you can! Offer a web site full of interesting details that similar sites' readers can't live without. The best way to gain readership is by offering a valuable resource! - If you want to improve your Page Ranking try to do not link to sites that are irrelevant to yours and avoid sites that have a "Links Page" that is hard to find.

- Write relevant articles and publish them for free. Make sure to include a Bio Box that includes a link to your site. Stipulate that the article may be reprinted for free as long as the Bio Box is included. This will instantaneously provide extra links to your page when people reprint your work.

- Email other webmasters and simply ask for a link and provide a pre-coded HTML link for them to cut and paste to their page.

- Do not link to sites with directories that are haphazardly arranged with no categorization and avoid sites that contain more than 40 - 50 links per page. Your link will be hard to find...

- The fastest and most powerful way to make your website known is to submit it to as many relevant web directories as you can. Directory submission is the BEST way to gain targeted traffic to your site. - Celebrate each small success and keep in mind every small step in the right direction is bringing you closer and closer to your main target.

Choose wisely! And be patient, be persistent, be creative! Even if you only acquire one third of the links you pursue, your efforts will be well-rewarded.

Copyright © Anne-Marie Ronsen You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

About the Author:

Anne-Marie RONSEN is the author of many wealth and self development books. Download FREE eBooks from http://www.e-bestsellers.com, http://www.plrbestsellers.com or http://www.UniversalPublishingltd.com... You will learn about the best tips and recommendations to improve your health, weight and wealth.

Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity

Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativityis a must read for anyone wanting to put the power of the internet into their business site. From the review:

The emergence of Web 2.0 is provoking challenging questions for developers: What products and services can our company provide to customers and employees using Rich Internet Applications, mash-ups, Web feeds or Ajax? Which business models are appropriate and how do we implement them? What are best practices and how do we apply them?

If you need answers to these and related questions, you need this booka comprehensive and reliable resource that guides you into the emerging and unstructured landscape that is Web 2.0.

Gottfried Vossen is a professor of Information Systems and Computer Science at the University of Muenster in Germany. He is the European Editor-in-Chief of Elseviers Information SystemsAn International Journal. Stephan Hagemann is a PhD. Student in Gottfrieds research group focused on Web technologies.

• Presents a complete view of Web 2.0 including services and technologies

• Discusses potential new products and services and the technology and programming ability needed to realize them

• Offers how to basics presenting development frameworks and best practices

• Compares and contrasts Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web

If you really want to understand what is happening on the web today, Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativityis a great place to start.

Understanding Web Analytics- What You Should Know

Web analytics are an important tool for anyone with an online business presence. It is essential to know where your traffic is coming from and what they are looking at. Read on and discover how to put web analytics to work for you.

Then most difficult aspect of marketing a new product or web site is to find enough people that are interested in it so that they are ready to buy. Mastering Google AdWords will enable you to drive traffic to your web site and start making sales immediately. You can create a Google AdWord campaign in a matter of minutes and be making sales within 24 hours.

So you've launched your website and you're happy with the content, the design, and with its placement in cyberspace. Now, it's time to track your traffic. How many people visit your site each month? Where are they coming from? What do you need to know to be an informed analyzer so you can beef up your site traffic? And what tools can help you along the way? Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy the following answers to all these questions.

Why You Should Know Your Dinner Guests

Knowing where your visitors are coming from and knowing where they go on your site are the two most important pieces of acquisition arsenal you can obtain. This is because on one hand, knowing where people are coming from will help you focus your offsite advertising and marketing plans. On the other hand, and knowing how visitors navigate within your site will help you gauge what pages work and which ones need to be revamped. Maybe you have important content that would be most appealing to your visitors but it is difficult to get to due to poor design choices and hence no one is going to that page. You can use metrics to figure out what pages are most popular. That is the best way to understand what type of content and design works and will guide the future development plans for your site. The main goal is to reduce what are know as the dreaded "bottlenecks," pages of your site where visitors exit before they reach your purchase or sign up page.

Know the Ingredients

First, acquaint or reacquaint yourself- as the case may be- with the terminology so that you know what you are actually analyzing. If you know that unique visits is distinct from unique visitors, for instance, you will have a better grasp of what figures to use for reporting purposes, setting advertising rates, and a host of other options specific to your company's needs. Learn what an entry point means and where people travel to once on your site. Some tools, like Webalizer, allow you to see what URL people visited before coming to your site. This is an excellent way to learn more about your audience and perhaps point you towards potential advertising or link exchange opportunities.

Know the Recipe

Analytics tools can be tricky. The most important research you can do is to find out how each metrics system calculates its findings. For instance, the company I work for employs several reporting tools to track traffic to the site. When we first started using these tools, we were very confused. Google Analytics told us a very different figure for unique visitors than Webalizer did. In fact, Google's figures were just about half that of Webalizer! After further investigation, we learned that Webalizer was picking up on traffic behind our paywall where Google was unable to track. Some worthy reporting tools that you should check out include AWstats and WWWstats. AWstats presents their data in an easy-to-digest format and tells us things like usage by the hour and a breakdown of what countries our visitors are from. WWWstats presents the data in a pretty raw format, but allows you to track things like transfers by client domain and transfers by URL or section. Both of these services provide fairly reliable information.

Google Analytics is an extensive - and free! - program that can help you measure just about anything on your site. This includes conversion tracking, which allows you to follow a visitor from the point of entry on your site to each subsequent page that he/she visits. This is an outstanding way of gauging your site's navigability index and where work needs to be done to maximize the user experience (and attract more traffic to places on the site where you want visitors most). You can also track how your keywords are performing on the major search engines. Google's reporting tools, though respectable, can be confusing to use. It is not entirely clear how to access certain tools and, although they offer video instruction for some of their services, if you have specific problems or questions, an actual customer service person is difficult to nearly impossible to contact.

Crazyegg.com is another lesser known tool for tracking your traffic. Though there is a fee to participate, you can try their services for free. They offer a full service program for setting up, deploying and tracking tests, advice on how to properly track click-throughs, live reports, and easy-to-read results. Hey, you have nothing to lose so it's worth trying a free test. Be sure to also check out these other good sites that offer reporting and analysis for your traffic: Clicktracks.com, Fireclick.com, NetTracker.com, and WedTrends.com.

Taste the Results

Perhaps the best way to gauge your traffic more accurately is to look at several different reporting tools and make an educated guess. More likely than not, the actual number of visitors to your site- much like the truth between the claims made of two feuding parties- will lie somewhere in between.

Remember, the web is still in its infancy in many ways and there is no one, overarching, epistemologically respectable reporting tool currently available that beats out all the rest. The existing tools may change as our understanding of the web becomes more comprehensible or if sites become standardized or regulated in some way. But for now, use the tools I've recommended coupled with your best judgment and you will be on your way to making your site the best it can be.

By mastering Google Adwords Ads, you can confidently expand your marketing campaign to include other PPC advertising companies ie Overture, FindWhat and also try offline advertising.

About the author:

Download a Free AdTracking Guide and to learn how Adtrackz will improve your http://www.squidoo.com/AdTrackZ-Review/. Read my AdTrackz Review.

Traffic Conversions In As Little As Hours With These Revealed Secrets

The following is a great article that looks at converting your online visitors to customers. I found it very helpful and easy to understand.

This is a list of website conversion tools that I use and recommend to my clients so that they can add "bells and whistles" quickly, easily, and inexpensively.

If you're a website owner who's unhappy with the business your Internet presence is generating, I wouldn't be surprised if you think your copy is the culprit, too. A lot of people think that if there's a problem with conversion that the sales copy must be at fault.

This is WRONG THINKING...and potentially fatal to your website's success.

The world's most brilliant sales letter for the world's most incredible product won't necessarily generate the through-the-roof results you might expect. The truth is that turning a casual site visitor into a "here's my credit card take whatever you want" buyer takes MUCH MORE than just effective copywriting.

Converting prospects into clients and customers takes more than a super headline... More than a list of "what's in it for you"... More than an ironclad guarantee and more than a page of testimonials from celebrities and authorities.

This isn't a war that will be won with words. You need more...much more.

If you think of your website as a high-powered sports car, your sales letter is the engine. But as any racer on the NASCAR circuit will tell you, without the right fuel and other essential components, an engine can't run smoothly and a car will never be first to the checkered flag.

I don't care if you have the most powerful "engine" in the world...the greatest sales letter ever written. If you're not taking advantage of technology and leveraging human psychology in your sales and marketing efforts, you're simply out of the race.

I usually wear my copywriter's "hat" when I do the rant and load you up with lots of ideas for creating great sales messages. The how's and why's...the do's and don'ts... the nuts and bolts.

But this time around, I don't want to focus on the engine. Instead, we're going to make a "pit stop" to look under the hood of "killer" websites and talk about everything that's working to power their success.

Conversion Secret #1 - Less Can Be More (Why the QUALITY of Your Traffic is More Important than the Quantity)

The number of people that visit your website is meaningless if they don't buy anything when they're there. You can have ten thousand people hitting your site a month, but if they're looking for camping equipment and you're selling baby strollers, you're not going to convert a single visitor.

And if you're paying per click, this will kill you. Your marketing dollars are going up in smoke.

On the other hand, you can have less traffic, but if they're targeted, you'll have a very high conversion rate. If your baby stroller site has a banner ad at a baby formula store, chances are the people who click through will be more likely to buy from you.

Here's something you MUST keep in mind: "more likely to buy" doesn't mean that they will buy. That's why tracking your traffic is so important. You have to know exactly where your traffic is coming from.

Are they from Per-Pay-Click? Are they from affiliates? Are they from offline marketing? What percentage is from what promotion? Unless you know the answers, you can't build on your success.

You can't improve something you can't measure." says W. Edwards Deming, a management expert.

A steady flow of QUALITY traffic and information about where it comes from will affect your conversion rate just as much as the quality of your sales message.

Conversion Secret #2 - Don't Let A Good Answer Get away (Exit Poll)

No one expects a 100% conversion rate, of course. You may dream about it, but, depending on what you're selling, if you're getting a 2-3% conversion, that's pretty damn good.

Okay, you're not converting 97% of the people that come to your site... But does that mean that their visit has to go into the "lost cause" column? No way!

If you paid to have those people visit, you can't just let them get away! You need to get some kind of return on your investment. Why not do an exit pop-up survey, asking them why they're not buying?

Want to really get a visitor's attention. Use an audio pop-up. When people leave your site you can have a pop-up with an audio portion like this:

"Wait, before you go, could you please help me out? I'm not trying to sell you anything, I just need some information. Could you tell me the single biggest reason that you're not giving us a try today? What's the ONE reason that's stopping you from purchasing (my product name)? Just fill out the box below and click on the submit button. Your opinion matters to me..."

Boom! You've just created your own "consumer feedback forum" and you haven't spent a penny on some high-priced focus groups. Once you get a bunch of responses to your exit poll, you'll be able to identify patterns in what people say. Use what you learn to make the changes that you know for certain will bump up your conversion rate.

Success and failure shouldn't be based on guesswork or assumptions. It doesn't matter what you think is the reason people aren't buying. It doesn't matter what I think is the reason people aren't buying.

The only thing that matters is what your customers think...that's the "pulse" of the marketplace and the lifeblood of your future business. And with an exit survey, your customers will tell you what you need to do in order to convince them to buy your product!

People consider me a marketing wizard because I'm so good at market research. Well, I may be a "wizard," but I'm not a genius, and I certainly didn't earn my Ph.D in marketing. That's because you don't have to be a marketing genius to get your finger on the pulse of your industry.

Here's the secret: I am not the marketing wizard. You're not the marketing wizard. Your CUSTOMER is the marketing wizard.

All you have to do to learn the "mysteries" of more sales is ASK your customers... And make sure you ask the people who decided not to be your customers, too.

Just ask and they'll tell you. Then take what you've learned, incorporate it into your sales message, and watch the "no sales" turn into "sales" so fast that you'll get a speeding ticket for all that fast-moving, fast-buying traffic!

Conversion Secret #3 - Take a Tip from the Tortoise (slow and steady wins the race)

Far too many Internet marketers try to close the sale with one step. Are you one of them?

Do you run an ad in some ezines, post a couple of Pay-Per-Click ads, then sit back, relax and wait to enjoy "the show"? Do you assume that people will notice the ad, read the ad, get excited by the ad, go to your site, read your sales pitch, pull out their credit cards and buy from you?

Do you expect to accomplish all that with ONE STEP? Give me a break. What are you thinking?

That's like you're trying to have sex on the first date.

You might get away with it. (You might get some sales and be profitable). But chances are, without a little coaxing from you at every step in the process, you'll be going home alone.

Take it slow, will ya?

Show some class. Have some manners. Get to know each other. Share some stories. Make a connection. Develop a relationship before you try to close the "deal". People buy from people they trust. So you'll make a lot more sales if you take the time to develop a solid relationship.

How do you convince website visitors that you're one of the "whit hats"? Start building that relationship. One way is by giving more than you get.

Give them a free report. Give them a free mini-course. Give them a free ebook. Give them a free chapter. (Are you getting the idea that "free" may be the most important word in relationship-building on the Internet?)

Bribe them and get them to give you their name and email so that you can follow up with them using an auto-responder. And don't forget to make it simple.

One easy-to-use option is a hover ad that drops down on your visitor's screen when they visit your site, inviting them to "opt-in" to your free offer. Why a hover ad? Testing shows hover ad gets more attention than traditional pop-ups.

A more advanced way...and to some a less "savory," but extremely effective way...to capture contact information is to make your home page an opt-in request.

Basically, a visitor can't get to the rest of your site without providing contact information. You qualify them before you let them read your sales pitch! That's pretty brilliant if you ask me!

The opt-in doesn't have to be fancy. And it definitely shouldn't be very long. Just a killer headline and some equally killer benefits. That'll do it.

Don't blow it! When you follow up with them, you don't just want to pitch them. You want to deliver value in your auto-responder messages. Educate them. Teach them something. Then just have a little plug at the end.

Remember I said that people buy from people they trust. If you're constantly selling things, then you're a salesperson...and your motives are immediately suspect.

But if you're constantly giving things away, sharing ideas, giving more than you're getting, you're a valuable resource...a good friend...a trusted adviser. (There's the secret password -- trust!)

And the beauty is...what you give away doesn't have to cost you a penny.

Let's say you're selling an ebook, you can actually take the first 3 chapters of your ebook and turn them into a series of auto-responder messages. This is a great way to give them a taste of what you're selling and to prove that you're the "real deal."

Conversion Secret #4 - Hear Ye, Hear Ye (Audio on the Internet)

When I talk about copywriting, I often talk about how important it is to engage the reader's senses. Make them see with word pictures... Make them feel with hot-button language. The more senses that are involved, the more likely it is that your prospect will be sold.

Using audio on your site is a sense-sation.

With audio, you appeal to a completely different sense than the average site. The web is full of visual appeal, but with audio, you suddenly connect with a visitors ears with a whole new component -- a verbal component.

Your spoken words will strike an emotional chord with visitors and connects on a "human" level in an otherwise electronic world.

And here's something that every website needs: excitement. Because it's rare, audio is unusual and attention-getting. It's brand new, instead of the "same old," same old."

(This won't be true forever, of course, but for now, you can take advantage of audio's scarcity.)

Don't let your fear of the unknown or a fear of failure hold you back. You don't have to be a techie to utilize and implement these technologies. If you've got the will, I'll show you the way:

Okay, now my secrets are your secrets. The same tricks and techniques that I've used to achieve astronomical traffic conversion levels are now at your disposal.

They've been tested and refined and re-tested. They've worked for me...and they've worked for my clients (who, by the way, paid me a fortune to implement them on their behalf).

I know they'll work for you. Let me know when they do. I'd like to add your success story to an upcoming issue of the Rant.

Stay Lok-ed and loaded for success.

About the Author:

Nickolie Greer

Download a Free AdTracking Guide and to learn how Adtrackz will improve your sales. Go to http://www.squidoo.com/AdTrackZ-Review/ and read my AdTrackz Review.

No Money Down Marketing (Audio CD)

No Money Down Marketingis a breakthrough program for virtually any business owner who has long thought that the only way to succeed is to have piles of money sitting around. From the review:

If you think the only way to market a product or service is using your own money, you re going to love what you hear in this powerful program!

Discover the steps you can take right now to find marketing opportunities that bring you thousands of sales without investing a single dime of your own money!

If money has been your excuse for not succeeding in business, you MUST listen to what top marketing expert Robert Imbriale has to say in this powerful, information- packed program!

You'll discover the most effective no money down marketing strategies he uses daily to build his business using none of his own money.

This double-CD set is one you'll refer back to again and again as it's filled with strategies and techniques for most any business type, and most can be used immediately.

Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands

Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brandsis a must read for those of you that wish to know more about the process of creating a brand identity. Large corporations spends millions on this process attesting to the importance of creating brand identity with consumers. From the review:

From translating the vision of a CEO and conducting research, through designing a sustainable identity program and building online branding tools, Designing Brand Identity helps companies create stronger brands by offering real substance. With an easy-to-follow style, step-by-step considerations, and a proven, universal five-phase process for creating and implementing effective brand identity, the book offers the tools you need, whether a brand manager, marketer, or designer, when creating or managing a brand. This edition includes a wealth of full-color examples and updated case studies for world-class brands such as BP, Unilever, Citi, Tazo Tea, and Mini Cooper.

How To Incorporate A Sense Of Buying Urgency in Promo Ads

A good article outlining the use of promotional advertising in your marketing campaign.

Your promotional ads would be a waste of your time and money if it does not get you what you want – that is, to get your prospective clients to buy your products.

To have effective marketing collateral – be it flyers, posters, brochures, or postcards – you have to convince your readers to become buying clients. The only way to do that is to give your clients the feeling that you understand them perfectly. Even a trained sales representative would be hard put to close a sale if he does not understand his clients in the first place.

Motivating your clients means encouraging them with the benefits of buying from you. It differs from pressuring as it lets your clients to decide on their own…with a little push from your end. The push comes from knowing who your clients are and their needs.

Understanding what your clients need is the beginning of a successful marketing campaign for your business.

A study of who your target clients are lets you to create a promotional ad that is tailor made to the individual’s personal buying habits. For instance, some people would make a purchase based on emotions. While others are motivated by their logical characteristics.

Studies have shown that there are different personality traits that determine how people would be persuaded to make a purchase.

Let’s take the vacuum cleaner as an example.

Customers who make their decision based on emotion would be convinced to buy if the salesperson would show him the benefits of the vacuum cleaner to those that he cares about, like his health or his family’s.

Instead of a sales pitch that talks about the processes and methods, you talk about what appeals to the emotions. Clients with these attributes tend to buy intangible items such as safety, comfort, security, or perhaps the chance to make a change for their families.

On the other hand, a person who is more inclined to use his logical characteristics would be convinced more by the details – all the features and the engineering parts and how they work.

By using this approach, your marketing collaterals can be modified to adapt a particular target market.

Generic brochures just don’t work. Your marketing materials should be designed to suit the different types of your target – will they be convinced when you use facts? Or would they be encouraged if you use more testimonies? Or would they buy if you appeal to what they cherish most?

Graphics and designs are essential. But what is more important is the substance. Substance comes from understanding your clients. Substance is what defines a successful marketing campaign.

About the Author:

Janice Jenkins

For comments and inquiries about the article visit: www.printplace.com/printing/printing-flyers.aspx,
www.printplace.com/printing/poster-printing.aspx, www.printplace.com/printing/brochures-inserts.aspx

Write Great Ads: A Step-by-Step Approach (Paperback)

You don’t have to be especially "creative." And you can forget about writer’s block. Because now, even if you’ve never written advertising before, there’s a simple proven way to write ads. Great copywriters aren’t born. They’re made! That’s because writing isn’t a talent you’re born with—it’s a skill as learnable as driving a car or typing. Write Great Ads takes the mystery out of copywriting and shows how to write effective advertising copy for print ads, direct mail packages, radio spots, and television commercials. Write Great Ads: A Step-by-Step Approachtakes you, step-by-step, through every aspect of the process. You’ll learn:

* How to zero in on the key features and benefits of your ad
* How to write a headline that really sells
* How to come up with an original, effective selling concept
* How to put all the facts together and craft an irresistible call to action—guaranteed to pull in sales!

This one-of-a-kind workbook breaks advertising down into simple steps that anyone—no matter what your level of experience—can master and enjoy. Write Great Ads is also packed with fill-in exercises and self-tests so you can practice each step immediately. "This is a practical, straightforward, and instructive book with heavy emphasis on fundamentals—all in good, clear, no-nonsense English—and an overall good reference for anyone interested in better communications."

Social Marketing and Your Business- The Basics

A great article that looks at the basics of social marketing.

Social Media – Who’s In Control?
by: Scott Lindsay

Social media allows individuals to connect by means of identifying common interests and forged cyber-based friendships. If there are negative aspects to social media they may be offset by potential marketing possibilities.

Please remember this article is intended to demonstrate the marketing potential for social media for online business owners. I understand some have concerns about social media as it relates to children, but this article remains focused exclusively on the on marketing possibilities associated with social media.

That being said, one negative related to social media for some online business owners is the addictive nature of participating in social networking. Time spent on the site corresponding with other ‘friends’ could chip away at the time you may really need for other business related activities.

If you have spent any amount of time on social media then you know it is possible to post a blog entry and be alerted to new posts to your blog whenever a new post is made. You may find yourself heading back to your social media page to read updated comments several times a day. This will probably lead to the desire to thank the individual for their comment. Of course all of this is done under the notion that you are working to market your business through social media, but the truth is there comes a point where you can spend an inordinate amount of time corresponding with people you don’t really know for one small facet of marketing potential. When you’re having fun online the balance between work and play gets a little blurry.

Another negative that may sound somewhat similar is that social media can keep you from face-to-face contacts that may benefit your business. The face-to-face contacts may be in the form of business-to-business networking or meeting affiliates, but social media can, and sometimes does, minimize time for events that are often of equal or greater importance.

One of the keys to effective online marketing is attempting to keep things balanced.

Obviously it can take some time to develop your social media page and it may be hard to fully determine what your goals are in relation to social media, but then you may want to commit to only a certain amount of time each day to the social networking and resist coming back to the page repeatedly throughout the day. You may even want to configure your email box to send all emails from the social media site to a special folder that you can easily review on a daily basis without the need to revisit your page multiple times each day. You may even want to turn the feature off that alerts you to new posts and messages if the distraction becomes too pronounced.

Remember, your social media page is there to help you market your business and connect with prospects while directing them to your primary site, but far too often individuals come to view the social media page with something akin to an addiction.

Allow social media to be useful without coming to a place where it is using you.

About the Author:

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com or BuildAGreatSite at: http://www.buildagreatsite.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

5 Reasons Why Social Marketing is a Must

A great video if you are using or plan to use social marketing for your business.

Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business

Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Businessis a great book outlining the basics in setting up an effective social network marketing campaign for your business. These sites are a huge source of potential online traffic and cannot be ignored.

The future of marketing is a two-way street, not a one-way message.

Marketers must look to the Web for new ways to find and communicate with customers, rather than at them. From MySpace and YouTube to blogs, social media on the Internet is the most promising new way to reach customers.

Marketing to the Social Web helps marketers and their companies understand how to engage customers, build customer communities, and maximize profits in a time of marketing confusion. Author and social media guru Larry Weber describes newly available tools and platforms, and shows readers how to apply them to see immediate results and growth.

In order to use the Internet to its full marketing potential, executives must open their minds to new possibilities, embrace social change, and rethink best practices. Rather than broadcast messages to audiences, savvy marketers will participate in, organize, and encourage social networks to which people want to belong, striking up a dialog with and between customers. Networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and even Flickr are the perfect forums for this new dialog; Marketing to the Social Web shows you how to tap into it.

Today, marketing is exploding with possibilities and complexities as it reaches out into new forms, media, and models. Marketing to the Social Web presents an exceptional opportunity to use these new tools and models to reach new markets, even in today's fragmented media environment.

Ebooks Are Promotional Powerhouses

Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace. They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge. Each day the number of people accessing the Internet grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase incrementally. It's obvious why electronic self-publishing has become so popular so quickly.

The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend to forever banish the printed word to the dustbin of history. Books in print have their own special qualities and merits, and the world would be diminished by their disappearance.

Having said that, let's look at what makes ebooks so important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities and qualities that other mediums do not possess.

For example, ebooks are fairly easy to produce, and their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about it: you don't need a publisher, an agent, a printing press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor. You just need a great concept, the ability to write it or to hire a writer, and the right software.

Additionally, ebooks are easily and rapidly distributed online. They are also easily updated; they do not require a second print run. All you need is to go into your original creation and modify the text or graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can change and grow as fast as you can type.

Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You don't have to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download it from a website, and presto! It's on your computer, ready to be read.

Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for customers to purchase your products or goods, sound and video that draw your reader into the virtual world of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites that will expand your ebook outward. The potential is virtually limitless.

Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks remain on your computer for as long as your choose, and they can be read and reread whenever you choose to. They can even be printed out and stored on the shelves of your traditional home library.

Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no barriers in terms of publishing. You don't need to go through the endless process of submitting your manuscript over and over again, and then once you land an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript over and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands of dollars for printing a self-published book. All ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software. Figure out your market, write your book, post it on your website, and with the right business savvy, your audience will come to you.

Finally, you have creative control over your ebook. You don?t have to compromise with an editor or the publishing trends of the time. You don't have to haggle with a designer or wait for copyedited galleys to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control of the design and the text.

How to Use ebooks for Marketing and Promotion

There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote your business and drive quality traffic to your website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them into a daily course, which brings your customer back to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free gift for making a purchase or for filling out a survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by inserting the disc into your sales packages.

The most effective marketing products are those that are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can offer to the public. People will have to visit your site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow of quality traffic and the potential of sales and affiliate contacts.

Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it frequently as the market and trends change. Add new advice and techniques to show your prospects how your goods or services can enrich their lives. By constantly keeping abreast of new trends and techniques, you can continue to see profits from your ebook for years after your original creation.

Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can test their marketing potential without putting out hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook one copy at a time, each time you receive an order, eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By this method, you can gauge the saleablity of your ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn about your market and customer habits and motivation over a period of time, without risking your precious financial resources. They also provide you with an invaluable way to gather marketing information, which you can use in many different facets of your business.

Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and problems are in your specific industry. Then figure out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook with this invaluable information. This will increase the value of your business, upgrade your reputation, and get you known as an expert in your field.

You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking the book down into chapters for a serial course, into special reports available on your website, or into audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into several different promotional materials by excepting some of the articles and using them to promote your product. You can include a catalog in your ebook to promote all the products or services you sell. You can include a thank-you note for reading your book and an invitation to download a trial version of your product. Or you can include a form for your audience to contact you for further information or with questions, thereby building your business relationships and your mailing list.

Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of individually producing separate promotional materials. You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and to sell new products to your current customers.

No other medium has this kind of flexibility and ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go and create that web, and see how many customers and prospects you can catch!

About the Author:

Karen Walker assists individuals, entrepreneurs, network marketers, and independent professionals generate substantial incomes within 5 years so that they may live the life they want, fulfill their passions, and achieve their dreams! Visit her informational web sites: http://www.cashflowquest.com and http://www.income-directory.com

Article Source: www.iSnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=12417&ca=Marketing

Finding Profitable Niche Markets - 5 Step System

Watch this video to learn more about niche marketing.

First, Best, or Different: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know About Niche Marketing

First, Best, or Different: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know About Niche Marketingis an excellent resource to help you understand the dynamics of niche markets.

First, Best, or Different is one of those exceptional books that changes the way you think about marketing and entrepreneurs. I highly recommend this book." Manny Fernandez, Chairman Emeritus, Gartner Inc. Innovative Marketing and Sales Strategies for Niche Markets.

Are you an entrepreneur, small business owner, or corporate marketing executive with questions like these?. 'What viral marketing methods are most successful?'. 'What direct mail marketing tactics create the most new leads?'. 'How can I optimize my website and increase traffic?'. 'How can I motivate and retain my top sales reps?'. 'How do I choose the right Public Relations firm?'. 'What is podcasting and how do I get started?'. 'What outdoor advertising techniques work best?'. Get answers to these questions along with practical advice on over 100 topics. Written in plain English with short easy-to-read chapters, this book demystifies niche marketing by delivering easy-to-understand definitions and practical suggestions.

About the Author John Bradley Jackson brings street-savvy sales and marketing experience from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. His resume also includes entrepreneur, angel investor, corporate trainer, philanthropist, and consultant.

Blogging for Business- Use you Blog for Marketing

If you are serious about using a blog to market your business, Blog Marketingis a valuable resource containing loads of information to help you get started.

What if you could listen to millions of people--customers, employees, competitors, partners, even the media--as they candidly discuss your company, your products, and your advertising? And what if you were able to use this real, up-to-the-minute feedback to determine exactly what your customers want and how to improve your business exponentially? Sound too good to be true? Then you haven’t tapped into the power of the blog.

Today, 50 to 100 million bloggers are communicating on the Internet, expressing their thoughts on and experiences with products, and sharing industry information. With millions of voices being heard, this revolutionary medium is now a worldwide forum. No business can afford to be left out of the conversation.

In Blog Marketing, leading blogging consultant Jeremy Wright explains how and why companies of all types blog and reveals strategies for effectively interacting with customers. You’ll find out how authentic feedback from customers can lead to potential new marketing strategies, innovative new product ideas, and new concepts that will completely transform your business.

Get an exclusive look at some phenomenally successful companies currently taking advantage of blogs including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Google, Disney, General Motors, and others, and find out how you can reap the rewards in your own organization.

Blog Marketing is filled with real-world examples of how blogging can

• Extend company branding

• Create positive experiences with your customers

• Provide real feedback on your company and its products

• Transform the way your company does business

• Simplify a variety of project management tasks

• Impact the bottom line

The business world is undergoing profound changes, redefining marketing, public relations, and customer communications. If you aren’t inviting this change into your own business--and keep in mind, your competitors are--then the writing is on the wall. No matter what your business, blogging is essential to your success, both now and in the future.

Using a Blog for Marketing Your Site

Blogs are a perfect way to market your online business and the beauty is that it costs you nothing. Using blogs, you can introduce new products, announce special promotions and, most importantly, increase your site traffic. If used correctly, blogs can bring you highly targeted traffic that can, in turn, result in increased sales. The following is a basic overview of how blogs work and includes tips on how to make it a success.

The Old New Tool That Can Improve Your Internet Marketing Online Business

Technorati is the largest blog search engine online. According to their recent statistics, there are now over 94 million blogging web sites online with 175,000 being created everyday. Very impressive growth for this new/old technology but the most impressive number and the one which affects your business the most is the one from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. They estimate that 57 million adults read blogs on a regular basis. That's a lot of potential customers for your internet business which is why you should start setting up a blog right now.

Quite of few of the mega online companies have taken advantage of this phenomenon. Instead of going the traditional route, these companies have put their trust in blogging and been rewarded with business growth and profits rivaling anything they did previously.

Of course you do not have to have to be a multi-national corporation to jump into the blog pool. The fact that blogs are usually an all in one package, easy to set up and easier to run makes it ideal for small and home based businesses. Also considering blogs are loved by search engines, you can go a long way to raising your online visibility.

Now this does not mean blogging is a set it and forget it enterprise. The money and site traffic is not going to come rolling in without some serious effort on your part. They include:

a. Regular updates

You have probably seen those blogs which have not updated their content since Eisenhower left office. Okay I'm exaggerating but the point is if you do not add fresh content to your blog website on a regular basis, search engines will not visit.

Try to post to your blog at least three times a week. If you can do more, fine, It's also going to help if you write most of the content yourself. People want a fresh unique perspective they can't find anywhere else. A good resource to assist you would be staying up to date with current affairs. It can be the latest political news or which celebrity is on their way to the hoosegow. Whatever it is, try to incorporate it into your blog content.
If you are unsure about writing, you can always outsource the job to any number of article writing companies. Either or, the point is to update your blog website frequently.

b. Sound off

No matter your topic, you must have a place for your blog readers to express themselves.
This can help you in targeting your desired audience. Even if just one person comes to your blog at least they are showing up. Invite criticism and suggestions. Use them as a gauge to find out how to attract more people to your blog.

One other major benefit to having a comment section is that every time a person provides feedback, the search engines view it as fresh content on your blog website; meaning they will crawl your site more often.

c. Linking

There are a couple of ways you want to do this. The first is getting one way links to your blog website. This is usually done in the form of writing articles. When you submit an article to the many directories, other bloggers may see it and post it to their site. By having a link in the byline of your article pointing back to your blog, this will provide you with one way links.

Another way is to just start contacting other blog owners and trade links with them. While not as valuable as a one way link, reciprocal linking is still effective. Just make sure the blog you are link exchanging with is within your niche but not in direct competition with you.

Monetize your blog by linking to different tools and resources that your blog readers can utilize. Also, it is okay to point them to a resource which has no connection to your site. People will appreciate the additional information

Blogging is only going to grow and become more interactive. Do yourself a favor and setup your blog now, update it frequently with unique information, invite feedback and implement your linking strategy. By doing this you are bound to see better marketing results for your online business.

About the Author:

Daryl Campbell invites you to get more free tips, video, step by step coaching and up to the minute information to help you grow your business into a long term success at Internet Marketing Guide.

Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords

The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords (Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords)is a great resource if you use or intend to use Google AdWords as part of your online marketing strategy.

Never before in the history of advertising has it been possible to spend five bucks, write a couple of ads and get instant access to more than 100 million people in 10 minutes. But that's exactly what Google AdWords does. It's an awesome concept-but you can lose a bundle if you don't know how it works.

Learn how to:

• Build an AdWords campaign from scratch

• Identify keywords that entice people to click on your ads

• Get the lowest bid prices on your keywords

• Defeat click fraud and other scams

• Use search engine optimization techniques

• Turn clicks into customers

Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords (Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords)is on sale for just $16.47. That's a 34% savings. Your AdWords improvements will pay for this book many times over.