As any business person knows, there are many times throughout your business life where you will experience less work or sales than you would like. In the brick and mortar world, this may pose a problem and cause you to start looking for a second job.
One of the benefits of the online world is the multiple streams of income available to be utilized. When business is running slow for me, there are a few avenues I pursue to add some extra cash. There are sites online that you can post content to and sell for any price you want to set(minus the fees incured by the site owners). You can also find blogging jobs, freelance work, or even go so far as to check into affiliate marketing and write reviews for affiliate commissions.
Once you have been online for a number of years and done some research, you will be amazed at the numerous choices you have to dive into. Some do not pay very well, others require more work effort, and others are income streams that you set up once and then run on automatic residual income.
If you are not a writer, most freelance service sites offer a wide variety of other jobs such as graphic arts, programming, and office administration. With many people searching for a way to stay home and still earn a living, more and more companies are deciding to offer telecommuting positions. Some of these telecommuting positions require you to check into a home office once a week, while others only require you to maintain contact through email or VOIP every day.
If you are thinking you would like to stay home and earn some money to help support your family. There will most likely be something you can find to do today. Boot up your computer, log on to the net, and get searching!
Another terrific reason for claiming that Article Marketing is one of the great website marketing strategies is because the effects are nearly instantaneous.
Quite frankly, when you submit your articles to well known article directories you have almost immediate results. This not only contributes to sales, but also, because of back links to your site, helps your website to be indexed by the search engines. Which, and this is most particularly true for new websites, makes this one of the most powerful website marketing strategies.
opposite of what some believe, there is nothing hard about writing articles. It is better if you pick a subject, (niche), that you are interested in and familiar with. But irregardless, people online are searching for information. Supplying visitors and readers of your articles interesting and even contentious information should always be part of your website marketing strategies.
Another common opinion is that you have to be a celebrated expert about a subject to write articles about it. That is a ridiculous idea! Many folks, including this author, are sometimes just looking for the comments and thoughts of others regarding a certain subject.
Just try to have fun with your writing. Be yourself and be original. You do not have to be an expert in a subject to write about it. It is misleading and even dishonest to encourage your readers to think you are an expert in a subject when you are not.
Get started right away putting an article writing campaign together. If your dream is to have tons of traffic to your website and see your sales skyrocket, don’t procrastinate! This is the perfect time to make Article writing and submissions a part of your proven website marketing strategies!
About the Author
|
Written by Doug La Londe. Please visit Doug and receive a free gift at; http://proven-website-marketing-strategies.com/ |
When you’re just getting starting in Affiliate Marketing, one of the most important things you need to learn about is traffic – specifically what it is and how to get it.
Why?
Because although it’s become somewhat of a cliche these days, the truth is, “the money is in the list” – but that means YOUR list, not the list of the people whose products you’re selling – at least not if you want to be successful.
Here’s why. As an affiliate, your job is to find people who want to buy the products you’re promoting, right? So to do that, you need to write an ad (or hire a copywriter to write it for you), and send people to a Website where they can buy the product.
BUT – there’s a serious problem with using this method. Do you see what it is?
Anywhere from 60 to 95% of the people you send to the sales page probably aren’t going to buy the first time.
1. Most people want to be certain that they’re making the right decision, so they usually need to see or hear from you between 5 to 12 times before making a buying decision.
2. If you’re paying for the ad and sending people to the seller’s Website, the ones who don’t buy disappear forever. (And neither you nor the seller will benefit.)
3. Of those who do buy, if you’re only sending them to the sales page, YOU still lose them forever because you have no way of knowing who they are.
Here’s the solution:
1. Write your ad and send prospects to a well-written squeeze page – YOUR squeeze page. (A squeeze page is a single page Website that has one purpose – to convince prospects to give you their contact information. Squeeze pages should be simple – no flash, no links, and if you use a graphic or photo, keep it simple and make sure it relates to the purpose of the page. How do you convince prospects to give you their contact information? By giving them information that is what they’re expecting to find and that’s useful to them.)
2. Offer them an incentive to give you their contact information. (This could be a free report, a free newsletter, an audio or video product – just make sure it’s related to the niche or affiliate product.)
3. After they’ve opted in to your autoresponder, send them to your affiliate sales page.
4. Follow up with them on a regular basis – mixing good information, free bonuses from time to time and additional affiliate products.
Lather, rinse, repeat. (Once you’re making money from your first affiliate product, move on to the next and then the next and the next.)
The best thing about this is that you can set most of it up on your autoresponder, so you turn it into a “system” and it runs “almost” on autopilot. (There is NO SUCH THING as a business that runs 100% on autopilot – and don’t believe anyone who tells you differently.) Any business – real business – takes work and effort. But by setting this system up this way, your autoresponder does the majority of the work, and you will only need to do simple updates and make sure you keep fresh information flowing.
Once you’ve written your E-Book, got your Website up and integrated your shopping cart, you can sit back and start waiting for the money to come rolling in, right?
WRONG!
These days it’s getting harder than ever before to be able to get people to notice you – and just because “you build it” doesn’t mean they’re going to come.
So what’s an author to do?
Actually, thanks to all the tools that are available to you – including Web 2.0 – marketing your book – and ramping up your sales – is not as hard as you might think.
In fact, here are a few ideas to get your juices flowing. Add them to your sales plan, and use them as a jumping off place to help you make even more sales.
Create a long-term plan before you write even one word of your first book. The truth of the matter is that you’re probably never going to get rich from writing one E-book. So before you start writing your first book, start thinking about your second book. And the first product that will tie into your first book. And the second. And then the third.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Come up with as many different income streams as you can and plan to build them into your plan. For example, can you create a workbook from your E-book? What about recording some audio files that go into further details or give more information. What about doing a joint venture with other experts in your industry?
Sell more books at one time. If your book covers any one of a number of popular subjects – self-help or development, home improvement, business, religion – there are probably corporations, organizations or niche markets that are always on the look-out for inexpensive gifts or bonuses for their employees, clients or associates. Your book could be just the ticket. Although you might have to go down in price – what do you think sounds better? Selling one or two books at a time or selling box loads of them?
Once you’ve built up your credibility as a published author, it’s time to take things to the next level. Have you ever dreamed of attending seminars or workshops as a presenter? What about having a speaking career and being flown all over the world speaking to people in your niche market? If you don’t like traveling or crowds, consider putting together teleseminars or holding intimate bootcamps.
Create joint ventures. This is the fastest and easiest way to leverage your expertise and start raking in the cash. Find people who are in similar – but not competing industries as yours. Explore ways for you to provide value to both of your customers while you’re cross-selling or upselling. For example, if you own a restaurant, what about creating a special Valentine’s Day promotion with the local florist.
Offer free drinks or desserts to any of the florist’s customers who bring in a special card (that you’ve provided to them) when they come to your restaurant. And your joint venture partner (the florist) gives you roses or carnations that can be given out to any women when their companion gives you the special dessert card. See how simple that is? Real value that makes your customers happy, and builds loyalty and trust – and positions both of you as the first people your customers think of when they need flowers or want a romantic restaurant or a place to eat during a special occasion
Copywriting, the core of an internet marketing business, most internet marketers fail because they fail to master the two basic skills essential for success. Generating traffic and monetizing the traffic. Follow these copywriting tips and stand a much better chance of monetizing your targeted traffic.
Create an attention grabbing headline. A good headline will state a benefit and then a measurable result for example “Discover How To Lose 20 Pounds In 10 Days”.
You need to make the visitor aware of a problem. So for example you can make the visitor aware of all the health dangers of being overweight.
You need to present a solution to how they can solve there problem. So say for example to lose weight you can explain scientifically how a high protein diet builds up more muscle and increases the metabolism to burn fat.
You need to present your unique solution to solve the problem based on the scientific evidence you presented so far. So to lose weight this could mean protein shakes that will increase the protein intake thereby increasing the metabolism and burn more fat.
You need to tell your visitor what to do next. Use words like click here or call this number. People like to procrastinate. A time sensitive offer will make them more likely to take action.
In the PS section you would describe a wonderful life without the problem.
With so many scams and junk on the internet a no questions money back guarantee will set a prospective buyer’s mind at ease and make them more likely to purchase.
Use these copywriting tips and watch your profits increase. Master the skill of copywriting and you can become very wealthy.
About the Author
Are you really interested in driving massive traffic to your website?
Here’s the answer:
Secrets Of Article Marketing - Download your free ebook now.
Mark Abrahams is a full time internet marketer who has helped others to earn a living online.
There are many software programs being created on the market today to help the average business person with the ease of creating articles and business content for their websites. Are these programs a benefit or a waste of time?
I have personally used some of these programs myself. There are article content spinners that take an article and using words you select, spin the article into a completely new original article you can use. There are a few problems I found with this software.
First off, you are selecting words that a program is going to randomly throw in the sentence where it feels it is appropriate. There is no grammar or english structuring capabilities, so the result is often a mess of sentences that do not make much sense in the comprehension area.
Secondly, it takes so long for you to go line by line and decide on the appropriate words to use to have the system change the content into something new. I found it rather monotonous and annoying actually.
So, I guess that is why a new concept was born and the article wizards were created. These are much better of an improvement and a preferred choice if you opt to go this way. With the article wizards, you enter keywords, and the system then goes out into the internet and finds information based on the keywords. It compiles a list of many sentences that you can use to re-create your own unique article. This is a good time saver for when you do not have time to research and would like to create a relatively fast article on a specific topic. You then just re-write and re-organize the sentences to create your own article. But you still have to WRITE. This software to me is just a benefit in helping you cut down on time spent to create articles, by compiling some research topics for you.
There are also software programs out there called Niche Content Finders. Much like the article wizard, you type in keywords specific to the niche you would like information on, and the system then searches the Net for you, bringing you back website information it has found. If you are good at researching yourself and skilled at finding and typing keywords into Google, this software is not really that much of a time saver the way I see it.
Call me old school, or just call me a true blue writer, but I take pride and enjoyment out of researching topics myself, creating the content for the articles myself and finally adding a little bit of my personality and style into the completed creation. To me this is what defines a true work of art from a “quick anyone could do it piece of content”.
Don’t get me wrong, some of those softwares, especially the article wizard are a great tool that can help you out immensely. There are many ways, you can create articles and content if you find you are working with a limited budget or time for content such as this. You can also get yourself some Private Label Rights material and re-write these with your article spinner tool if you wanted. Be weary though, the english, sentence structure, and other parts of these PLR products are often very poor to begin with, some even being made with softwares such as the article wizard. You may find yourself better off just re-writing the PLR articles sentence by sentence on your own.
Some people feel they can always just run their articles through the spelling and grammar checker tool in Word but this is not reliable, as I have found the tool does not always know what to look for and gets confused in areas a human would not.(for ex. when you have a fragmented sentence-the tool will tell you it is fragmented but does not have a suggestion to offer since it is a program and out of its scope of programming).
As a writer, I have to say; I believe the style and personality as well as the skill in providing keyword rich researched content is a talent that no software will ever be able to duplicate effectively, thus I do not fear the competition of these article software tools.
Try new word of mouth viral marketing system. Highly relevant, efficient and distributed advertising. Drive large number of visitors to your website in a short period of time. Guaranteed ROI. This is not a pay per click system. http://widecircles.com
I have recently been employed to write several technical reviews of software that is available on the market. There are many blogging software programs that can be found to use for your business depending on the specific needs and goals you have in mind to achieve. Most often though if you were to ask what software is recommended, it seems more and more people now adays are applauding Word Press and it’s wonderful array of plug-ins and templates. Another blogging software that is becoming a close second is Nucleus.
For the e-commerce software programs that are out there for free and for paid, there is still speculation on which is the preferred software although I have found oscommerce is more widely known than Cube Cart which is simpler and easier to install and configure for a newbie.
There are still yet other shopping carts common such as Zencart, and Agora. Depending on what types of products you would like to sell, some softwares work better or have the capabilities(ex. Agora does not have a digital download product option).
When you write an article, you need to research the product/service/topic as well as you can so you will have a good understanding of all the principles behind it. You then need to make sure that the keywords are adequately used through the article in an easy to read format that is fluent and not just looks like as many keywords thrown into an article for search engine optimization.
You want a quality article with useful, pertinent information, not just a bunch of gibberish mixed in with keywords. You may want the benefit of search engine ranking but you are also writing for a reader to understand, gain knowledge and maybe have a little laugh.
Technical review writing is based on a different format. You want to highlight the pros and cons of a software. You want to give a little background on the product for how it was created, and by whom. Then you want to describe how one could install the software and what to do if problems were encountered.
You want to make comparisons of other similar software programs so the reader can make an informed decision on whether or not he would choose the product for the most benefits of his own use. You will want to add links for additional resources, forums, community help or technical support from the company where available.
Finally, you will want to conclude with a recommendation and a general overall summation of the product being reviewed. There is no emphasis on keywords, or any other SEO related points. You are writing based on knowledge, experience, and professional opinion to help others who are not aware of the product to be able to determine if it is something they could use to help their business grow.
I have been in business online for approximately six years now. When people ask me what I do for a living and I respond “I am an Internet Marketer.” They always have that certain look on their face to say “Uh huh. Meaning…you’re a dreamer who works real hard for little or no pay.” Quite often the response I get back is “So why don’t you get a real job?” To this comment I am always offended. I have a real job. I am my own boss. I have to work twice as hard to find my own work and get paid, but the benefits are all mine to reap.
Although, I admit the first five years of my online business was spent more in trial and error, with not much money to see for my efforts, I saved all of my knowledge and am now compiling it into lessons, and articles for other newcomers to benefit from. I have persevered and diligently plugged away when all of the nay sayers were laughing behind my back. I have a dream. I know this dream is a reality. It is just one that needs to be fostered and cared for over time.
I believe it takes a certain type of person to make a living online. Being in business for yourself is not for everyone. I personally think that the pros outweigh the cons. I enjoy having the freedom to learn something new every day from research. I thrive on being able to complete the tasks I set for myself instead of having to do the mundane work delegated to me by a boss. Every accomplishment I make is done for my own self enlightenment and growth. Everything I do becomes a benefit to me and my future, not for the sole purpose of putting money in someone else’s pocket from my hard work. It is for these reasons I continue down my own path.
Sure I may not be making the big bucks yet, but I am gaining more ground and prestige with every step I make. I am happy following my passion. I am able to stay home to be with my baby and I am making new connections along the way. I know the money will follow. I never started this journey with outlandish fantasies of expensive cars and luxurious mansions. That is not me. I am content to spend time with my family, make enough money to pay my bills, and to keep on gaining as much knowledge and education as I can.
So the next time someone asks me what I do for a living I will say with a big smile “I’M AN INTERNET MARKETER!”
