Drive Massive Traffic With Article Marketing

By admin • December 23, 2008 • No Comments

Article marketing is a form on online advertising. Basically, you write short articles about anything related to what you are trying to promote. After completing the piece, you have to make it available for distribution and publication in article directories, in the company website and even on someone else’s site.

As a rule, each completed article contains a resource box which contains vital information like: the name of the author, a very brief background of the author, and contact information of the author, etc.

Essentials Of Article Marketing

1. Write Quality Articles

Quality content is still the best way to make article marketing work. You should remember that more than a million people log on to the Internet daily; and a good percentage of them post article after article about almost any topic.

When you write an article, try to incorporate all the information your potential reader may need or want. Internet users usually seek out valuable information like the ones that can help them solve their problems. If you can, write and post articles that have the same theme or subject of interest; and write as many articles as you can. This is a way of building up your reputation among your readers. Given time, (and if your articles are interesting enough,) you just may develop a following of readers who are interested in reading what you have to say.

2. Craft The Perfect Resource Box

As mentioned earlier, when you market your article, you should always have a resource box. Now, this is really important. This is the one place that can literally point your readers to your website. Here is how you should craft a perfect resource box:

The first thing that your readers should find in your resource box is your name and title, but more often than not, its just the name that people scout around for.

Do not forget to type in correctly your website address after your name.

After this, there is the compulsory USP or unique selling proposition: this is comprised of 1 to 3 brief and concise sentences as to what more you can possibly offer your readers.

Finally, you lead your readers into a call of action. This means that you are asking them to do one specific action: particularly asking them to visit your website.

3. Submit Your Articles

Obviously, submitting your article for publication is important, but where do you send them? The easiest choice is to send them to article directories or acquire article distribution services. Submission to article directories is mostly free, and these directories will allow you to add links to your website. Article distribution services have varying fees, but they allow your piece to be posted in more sites than article directories.

Categories: Article Marketing, Bum Marketing
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Is Alexa Ranking Important?

By admin • December 23, 2008 • No Comments

Alexa Ranking - A Web Site Monetization Strategy?

The main goal that almost all companies have today when dealing with online marketing is to improve their conversion rate. Everybody knows that there are various ways of attracting targeted traffic. Some go for a good place in the Search engine result page, others would be more satisfied with heavier traffic. Either way, everybody sets his goal usually in earning more money.

But, while having a high position in Google may seem to some companies the only way to make themselves known and thus reaching their goal, there are others that think that a good place in the Alexa ranking system might result quite beneficial in the end.

What is Alexa Ranking?

This is a ranking system provided by alexa.com (controlled by amazon.com) that basically evaluates and shows the number of visits on various Web sites. The algorithm according to which Alexa traffic ranking is calculated, is simple. It is based on the amount of traffic recorded from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed over a period of three months.

This traffic is based on some parameters like reach and page views. The reach stands for the number of Alexa users who visit a particular site in one day. Page view shows the number of times a particular page is visited by Alexa users. At the same time, Alexa explains that if some user visits the same page more times in one day, all those visits will be counted as one.

The first step in the ranking process is evaluating the reach and number of page views for all the sites on the Web on a daily basis. The Alexa ranking is obtained by performing the geometric mean of reach and page views, averaged over a predefined period of time (three months).

How Alexa Ranking Works

It’s quite easy to work with Alexa toolbar. All you have to do is visit the alexa.com site and download (and install) the Alexa toolbar . This toolbar provides a search feature but it mainly shows the rank (at a global level) of the visited site, as well as the sites that have been visited by Web surfers that are linked in some way to the site being visited.

Not only does Alexa toolbar shows information, but it also sends data to the central server. In other words, every time you might be visiting a webpage through a web browser (be it Internet Explorer or Firefox) that has this toolbar installed, information will be sent to the server indicating your IP and the page you are visiting. Such data is gathered from all the Web users who have the Alexa toolbar.

On the other hand, with Alexa the situation is a bit different: the smaller the numerical ranking, the better. Most people say that if you succeed in making to the top 100,000, it is a sign that your site benefits from quite a lot of traffic.

Is Alexa Ranking Worth Something ?

Ups

Alexa Traffic can be used as a competitive intelligence tool but what you should take into account, is the fact that the audience sample size can be easily labelled as small; Your only task is to enter your competitor’s site URL in the “Compare Sites” section and assess the results of your web marketing efforts in comparison with your competitors’.

In contrast with Google PageRank, the lower your ranking number, the better.

It helps Webmasters and advertisers observe the real marketing potential of your Web site. The better your Alexa rank, the higher they will be willing to bid to purchase space to advertise on your Web site.

Personal pages or blogs also ranked in the same way as ordinary Web sites. They will even get a distinctive mark (*)

Because Alexa ranking helps you with information about your Web site, it is a good instrument for search engine optimization.
competitive-traffic1

Downs

Not all internet users have the Alexa toolbar installed ; so, there might be many Web sites that, even if they have a lot of traffic, will not be ranked (or not high enough) by Alexa. Consequently, the whole process might be rather relative.

Rumours say that Alexa results are quite inaccurate and that Alexa traffic could be tricked in some way.

Neither subdomains nor subpages within a domain are ranked separately. The overall traffic is calculated for the top-level domain only.

Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking

If you want to increase your Alexa traffic ranking, you just have to follow some quite simple rules, such as:

Download and install the Alexa toolbar ; afterwards go to your own site.

Place the Alexa widget on your Web site in order to lure visitors ; after all, you know that each click is important.

Provide visitors with useful, top-quality and webmaster-related content. Advertise content on webmaster forums and on social networking sites. The main goal is to get as many computer and Internet lovers as possible to visit out your site ; it is very probable that some of them might already have Alexa toolbar installed.

Promote information about Alexa through blogs and articles. You will get the links you need in order to improve your site. Some of the most improtant blogs or sites where you could post information are digg.com , del.icio.us , or stumbleupon.com

Optimize your site (or relevant pages of it) for Alexa related keywords.

Spread the news about Alexa toolbar among your friends, convince them to download and install it on their computers, and then, tell them to visit your site.

Employ Alexa redirect. This means placing http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect? in front of your Web site’s URL. This way, Alexa will certainly take into account clicks on redirected links even though visitors might not have Alexa toolbar installed.

In all likelihood, Asian people are quite fond of Alexa. As a result, many people suggest posting in Asian social networking forums.

Whenever you might publish content on webmaster forums, make sure to include your site’s URL in your signature. It is very likely that most webmasters have the toolbar installed on their computers, and there’s a great probability that they’ll come to your site.

All in all…

From what you might have seen above, one can easily conclude that there are both upsides and downsides with Alexa toolbar. The main idea is that most people consider it valuable only for direct advertising. Unfortunately, the results can be inaccurate sometimes due to the fact that Alexa ranking for a site is calculated on the basis of the number of visitors with the Alexa toolbar installed who have visited that particular site.

Nevertheless, it may prove useful for sites with heavy traffic that attract highly targeted leads, since Alexa focuses more on the traffic that Web sites have, rather than on the number of backlinks. As a Web site monetization strategy, we can safely say that Alexa ranking might be the right solution.

Categories: Alexa Ranking
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5 Common Marketing Pitfalls By Affiliates

By admin • December 23, 2008 • No Comments

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Many small business ideas and Internet based affiliate marketing opportunities look as if it will be easy money and fast money if you join them.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. It will take time and money to build an online business the same as it does for any type of business online or off.

By understanding some of the most common mistakes made by new Internet marketers you can shorten the time it takes to build your business and often lower the cost. No one can guarantee your success.

By understanding some common mistakes you can lesson the odds of failure and increase your chances of success.

1. Joining an online business based on the look of their web site and banners is a major mistake. Many online opportunities try to entice newbies with fancy web pages and banners but offer very little else.

Researching each opportunity you are interested in is the key to making a smart decision. Searching for products that offer a wide consumer base and are in a Niche market will promote success.

2. Do not spread yourself to thin. Attempting to promote to many affiliate products can ultimately destroy your business. While it is good to have a variety of products attempting to sell too many will be hard to control. Choose products that relate to each other and will help build upon each other. Offering your business partners an opportunity to join free link exchanges and other free promotional products that you have joined will help you grow your business.

Having 4 -5 affiliate opportunities and products including the promotional opportunities can help assure not only your success but that of your affiliate partners as well.

3. The biggest mistake I have seen is to think Internet based affiliate marketing is a free and easy way to make money. There is no need to be a fully trained Internet marketer before you start but you need to plan the time to learn the business. The opportunities you join should have a training area and a step by step plan for success.

Also, take the time to search out online training materials. The Internet is full of free training that will help you build your marketing knowledge. Once you have found the training materials you need take the time everyday to study and to learn as much about online business marketing as you can.

4. The majority of online business opportunities will supply you with free web pages designed to promote your business and gather new customers. You will need more than these pages to be successful. Having your own web site and personal domain name will give you much more credibility and is a must for an online business. When building your web site you want it to have a professional appeal by being neatly organized.

Your content should be full of knowledge and fact that will establish you as an expert in your business. This will not only help to build your consumer base it will also help to build your affiliate partner base. A neat well organized web site is a must for any online business.

5. The failure rate with Internet based affiliate marketing is very high. The unfortunate fact is, most of the failures could be avoided by simply not giving up to soon. People spend a lot of time and money trying to build their online business only to give up before it has a chance to start making them money.

Building an Internet based affiliate marketing business is going to take time. You may have small victories at first and even some small monetary gain. But, it will take time to build a serious income. Understanding that from the start is a key to success.

You should set a goal for how long you will give your new business to start seeing success. One year should be the minimum amount of time and longer would be better. Another extremely important item is to set a budget. It is very easy to spend yourself out of business and the Internet is full of businesses that will gladly help you go bankrupt.

By setting a monthly budget and firmly sticking to it you can avoid the financial mistakes that many new people make. While success may at times seem impossible, Internet based affiliate marketing continues to offer the greatest return for time and money invested. Having set goals and a set budget and by avoiding these mistakes it will definitely help to assure your success and often it will secure it much sooner than expected.

Categories: Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Online Marketing
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Beating Adwords - How To Win The Adwords Game

By admin • December 23, 2008 • No Comments

Are you using Google Adwords in your affiliate marketing efforts? Are you beating Adwords or is Adwords beating you?

Here is the most common and most gargantuan mistake I see affiliates making with Adwords.

They don’t target desperate buyers! A desperate buyer is a buyer that is looking for a solution to not a small problem, but a big one…or…a problem that has to be dealt with every day or a frequent basis.

Here’s an example:

If you are promoting ebooks and courses that teach people how to train their dogs, you’re conversion rates are going to be horrible for keyword phrases such as:

dog training
train dog
puppy training
etc,etc

Why?

You have to ask yourself–How many people are losing sleep over “training their dog”? Probably not a whole lot. Plus, most of those folks are more than likely looking for “dog trainers” in their area.

What you need are dog owners that have problems, pains and need solutions. The bigger or more annoying or more embarassing the problem you can bet the faster that “dog owner” will pull out their wallet and credit card…and buy the solution you are recommending.

So, what is an affiliate marketer to do?

Okay, what problems may keep dog owners awake at night? How about:

dog barking
dog chewing
dog behavior problems
dog potty training (and related keywords)
dog biting

And hundreds of other variations of those type of keyword phrases are the type of phrases that are begging for a solution! These are problems that are constantly on the mind of a dog owner with a misbehaving pup.

All you need to do, is match the problem with the solution and you will really see your conversion rates soar.

Here are a few more tips that will increase your conversion rates dramatically and make you a lot more money with your adwords campaigns:

-Three and four word phrases convert twice to three times as well as one and two word phrases.

-You need to take your base keyword list and “customize” to what you are selling, for example, if you are selling “dog training videos” then your “dog potty training” keyword can become “dog potty training video”. (Lower traffic, but extremely high converting.)

-You can find a lot of great converting keyword phrases right from the merchant site itself. I am amazed at how many affiliate marketers using Google Adwords have never thought of generating ideas here!

Another huge and welcome benefit is you will find your competition for these type of keyword phrases are much lower. So you will have more sales at less cost. Now that is an affiliate marketers dream!

Categories: Adwords Tricks
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