How to write articles to boost sales 2

If you’ve been checking out this series of articles, you’ve seen how important it is for any serious affiliate marketer to have good web content. Good content can mean the difference between someone clicking onto your site and clicking away a moment later and someone staying for a while and then clicking through to buy the affiliate marketing product or service you’re trying to sell. But what if you just aren’t a very good writer? What if your mind is programmed for business, not English. Don’t worry, there are options for you.

• Search the public domain. There are millions of articles that are currently in the public domain that you can use on your web site free of charge. A simple web search can bring up hundreds of these kinds of articles. And the best part is you can edit them, change them, alter them or do whatever you want to them so that they sound exactly like you want them to. You don’t have to worry about paying any authors or stepping on any toes. This is an excellent way to go if you don’t want to write content yourself.

• You can pay companies to write content for you, and in most cases, it’s cheaper than you think, having in mind what the affiliate marketing payment are. When you consider how important good web content is, paying someone a few dollars to write exactly what you need isn’t such a bad idea. Of course, some companies charge more than others and it always pays to shop around, but don’t shut yourself off to the idea of paying for content. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money and this is one of those cases if you don’t want to write your own web content.

• Maybe the best choice of the three is to simply read and learn. Spend a week or two clicking around on the Internet and reading the web content on other affiliate websites. Take as much of that content in and then try to write in a similar style about the product you’re trying to sell. You don’t instantly become the best writer in the world this way, but studies have shown that the more you read, the better writer you’ll be. Experience pays and the more you know about how to write in this style, the easier it will be.

Having solid web content can’t be overstated. You will never have a truly successful affiliate marketing website unless you have good content for your affiliate marketing sites. If you can’t write it yourself, you do have other options, but the best thing you can do is to learn how to write in this style. It will be an investment that will pay off time and time again.

Affiliate Marketing – Can You Make Money With It?

Affiliate marketing is a wide-spread strategy used in Internet marketing where a merchant or webmaster rewards affiliates for their marketing efforts which direct potential clients to the website where they view a sales page and if sufficiently impressed with the product they may make a purchase. Affiliate marketing, AM for short, is the act of selling a product for a commission and if it is done correctly the rewards can be huge and of course you can work from home.

This type of marketing has made a terrific impact on the Internet marketing scene, particularly on those companies which started in the early years of e-commerce. It is the most cost effective sort of marketing there is, and is indeed incredibly efficient.

It has now become normal practice for companies to include affiliates in their marketing plans, as it offers a very attractive online channel with complete precision and accountability.

Affiliate organizations are varied and include individuals, organizations and businesses, networks, management companies, third party vendors, and other affiliates that promote the products and services of their partners.

Affiliate marketing really is an excellent system. You never have to touch a product, carry stock, or arrange deliveries. And when the customer makes a purchase you get paid. Network marketing is an extension of AM and also involves selling a product for a commission, but in addition it focuses on bringing other resellers (or affiliate marketers, distributors or representatives) into the program as well.

AM is not difficult work, but the marketer does need to have a clear understanding of what she or he is aiming to achieve. It is definitely a good way to build a business that can potentially become a full time job. To be an affiliate of third party companies like Commission Junction or Clickbank costs you nothing. The affiliate’s objective is to sell or get leads for someone else’s service or product. Because this form of marketing is attractive many people are drawn in to the business and it has therefore become very competitive

As an affiliate you begin by placing ads for your chosen product on your Web site and/or in suitable advertising sites. When a user clicks on the ad, your visitor will go to the Web site where the product is described and they can learn of the potential benefits the product or service will provide for them. The affiliate marketer is performance driven because he or she is paid only when the merchant has achieved the predetermined goal This goal can be anything that a merchant has to get done, for example getting conversions (convincing the customer to buy his product), accumulating data, leads generation, getting feedback or anything at all. The whole idea of affiliate marketing is based on the “No cure no pay “-principle.

Generating extra income has become much easier although very competitive. Thousands of the more popular products are marketed on the internet every day using affiliate marketing strategies. Most companies and vendors make use of affiliates to sell their product or service, there-by greatly increasing their turnover and at the same time the affiliate is able to earn money.

Internet Marketing Success

Internet marketing success could be defined differently for each and every person online, although I think that there are some very specific guidelines by which we can measure internet marketing success.

I think that internet marketing success has a lot to do with the original intent of each individual marketer. When you get online and decide you want to do something online, then that is your personal measure of success in your life, at least as it pertains to internet marketing success.

When you get started online, you might be thinking that internet marketing success is to make an extra $100 per month. Or maybe you think that internet marketing success is just getting a web site live and online – and that is a perfectly good measure of success online!

For me, online marketing success is that I can work 100% from the freedom of my own home – and with wireless internet, I can literally work anywhere my laptop gets a wireless signal. For me, that is success.

So you have to define for yourself what is your definition of success online. Is internet marketing success to have a web site live, or is it to have some set number of pages online. Or is internet success to you some amount of income? Or maybe internet marketing success is some combination of all of these. Maybe for you it is the freedom of working for yourself, but also incorporates a measure of income also.

What is internet marketing success to you?

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

Video Optimization

1. Make sure that your video clips are relevant and informative – For starters, ensure that your video provides useful and informative information. Videos that demonstrate step by step procedures are great, videos that express an opinion about a specific topic can be useful too. Videos that have nothing to do with your brand or service offering or are general or vague in nature will just confuse your audience. Save the viewer the trouble and don’t just upload a video for the sake of uploading a video.

2. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #1:
Give your video a Catchy Title – Video can be used to bring visitors to your site. One way to get users to view your video is to give it a catchy title that contains a related key phrase that is relevant to your product, service or brand.

3. Use Video as a Portal to other Content on Your Site – Upload a couple of videos to portals like YouTube and provide links back to related content and other videos on your site.

4. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #2: Optimize your video for Important Key Phrases – You might want to optimize your video for terms users are likely to be searching for. Tag your video with these terms, consider naming the file name of the video with these terms in mind.

5. Provide Transcripts of your Videos – Good old HTML content is still a favorite with the search engines. If you want your video to rank well, you need to give the search engines something to index and rank. Surround your videos with onpage copy that can be indexed by the search engines.

6. Keep Your Videos to five minutes or less – there is nothing worse than a boring video that goes on an on. If you have video content that is of long duration, consider breaking it up into smaller pieces and tag each accordingly. Not only does this make for better viewing pleasure, it also keeps the user looking for more.

7. Make use of a Video Sitemap –
For video that is native to your own website, make sure that users and search engine spiders can find your video content. The easiest way to do this is through the use of a video sitemap on your site. Use important keywords in the anchor text links to your videos featured on your video sitemap.

8. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #3: Tag Your Videos –
tag your videos with key phrases that are reflective of the content.

9. Brand your Video with your Logo – Video is a great tool to generate brand awareness with your prospects. Take advantage of this by incorporating your brand in your videos.

10. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #4: Remember Inbound Linking Factors – Link to videos using important keywords in anchor text.

11. Offer the Option to Embed Your Video – allow other users access to the coding that will allow them to embed your video on their website or their blog. Think viral marketing

12. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #5:
Add Descriptive Meta Data – optimize your video for relevant keywords and include a keyword rich description of your video content.

13. Allow Users to Rate your Video – videos that receive higher ratings from users are the ones that users tend to favorite and save. You can bet that the search engines will pay attention to this when ranking these videos.

14. Syndicate Your Video – Submit your video to RSS.

Business Opportunity – Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a very real home-based opportunity, especially when using your chosen business opportunity websites. To promote your website, you will need to get targeted traffic to it. One excellent way to promote your business opportunity home internet business is to write and submit articles to directories. That way you get free targeted traffic to your affiliate website.

The right business opportunity home internet business will propel any individual to have a lucrative income. Probably the easiest home based business opportunity is to become an affiliate. An affiliate is a person that signs up to sell the products for any affiliate program. These affiliate business opportunity websites let you promote the product or products you choose, and receive a commission on the sales that are made.

Literally thousands of websites on the internet are offering one kind of money making business opportunity home internet business or another. Business opportunity websites that offer multiple income streams have been proven to be a very profitable business opportunity.

Web traffic is very important for your business opportunity home internet business. You can be sure that if a website does not have a lot of visitors on a regular basis, the website will not survive and stay in business for very long.

It is possible to make hundreds or even thousands of dollars online with Clickbank. If you get with the right business opportunity home internet business marketing techniques and strategies, your opportunity is just a click away. One of the very best marketing techniques, is to get a turnkey business opportunity website and get started making a great living online.

Daily Life Of The Affiliate Marketer

affiliate marketer dollarsThe affiliate marketer remembered that there are questions to answer from the visitors. This has to be done quickly. Nothing can turn off a customer than an unanswered email. To prove that the affiliate is working effectively and efficiently, inquiries would have to be paid more attention on. Nobody wants to be ignored and customers are not always the most patient of all people. Quick answer that should appear professional yet friendly too.

In the process of doing all the necessities, the marketer is logged on to a chat room where he or she interacts with other affiliates and those under that same program. This is where they can discuss things on how to best promote their products. There are things to be learned and it is a continuous process. Sharing tips and advices is a good way of showing support. There may be others out there wanting to join and may be enticed by the discussion that is going on. There is no harm in assuming what opportunities ahead.

The newsletters and ezines were updated days ago, so it is time for the affiliate marketer to see if there are some new things happening in the market. This will be written about in the marketer’s publication to be distributed to the old and new customers.

These same publications are also an important tool in keeping up to date with the newly introduced products. The marketer has put up a sale and promotion that customers may want to know about. Besides, they have to keep up with the deadline of these sales written in the publications.

It is that time to show some appreciation to those who have helped the marketer in the promotions and sale increase. Nothing like mentioning the persons, their sites and the process they have done that made everything worked.

Of course, this will be published in the newsletters. Among the more important information that have been written already.

successful affiliate marketerThe marketer still has time to write out recommendations to those who want credible sources for the products being promoted. There is also time to post some comments on how to be a successful affiliate marketer on a site where there are lots of wannabees.

Two objectives done at the same time. The marketer gets to promote the product as well as the program they are in. Who knows, someone may be inclined to join. Time flies. Missed lunch but is quite contented with the tasks done. Bed time….

Ok, so this may not be all done in a day. But then, this gives you an idea of how an affiliate marketer, a dedicated one that is, spends the affiliate marketing day.

Is that success looming in the distance or what?

Being in the affiliate marketing business is not that hard now with the internet at your disposable. It is much easier now compared to the days when people have to make use of the telephones and other mediums of information just to get the latest updates on the way their program is coming along. So with technology at hand, and assuming that the affiliate is working from home, a day in his or her life would sound something like this…

Upon waking up and after having breakfast, the computer is turned on to check out new developments in the network. As far as the marketer is concerned there might be new things to update and statistics to keep track on.

The site design has to be revised. The marketer knows that a well-designed site can increase sign ups from visitors. It can also help in the affiliate’s conversion rates. That done, it is time to submit the affiliate program to directories that lists affiliate programs. These directories are means to attract people in joining your affiliate program. A sure way of promoting the affiliate program.

Time to track down the sales you are getting from your affiliates fairly and accurately. There are phone orders and mails to track down. See if they are new clients checking the products out. Noting down the contact information that might be a viable source in the future.

There are lots of resources to sort out. Ads, banners, button ads and sample recommendations to give out because the marketer knows that this is one way of ensuring more sales. Best to stay visible and accessible too.

A to Z Guide to Getting Website Traffic

In September of 1999, Brett Tabke wrote “26 Steps to 15k a Day” in the Webmaster World forum. A lot has changed since then, and now is the time to consider a new 26-step plan that meets the current needs of webmasters in 2009. Some of the old ones still apply (writing new content everyday, for example), and some don’t (submitting to the search engines is no longer necessary), and we’re here to tell you which is which! As you probably already know, bringing in traffic is not easy – it takes hard work, determination and lots of elbow grease. So if you’re ready, roll up your sleeves and follow these 26 simple steps, and within just one year you will generate enough traffic to keep you busy for a long, long time!

A) Keyword Research

Before you do anything else, use a keyword research tool and do an extensive job researching the right keyphrases to use for your site. What keyphrases are your direct competitors using? Are there any keyphrases that create a potential for market entry? Are there any that you can put a spin on and create a whole new niche with?

B) Domain Name

If you want to brand your company name, then choose a domain name that reflects it. If your company is Kawunga, then get www.kawunga.com. If it’s taken, then get www.kawungawidgets.com. No dashes, and no more than two words in the domain if appropriate.

C) Avoid the Sandbox

Buy your domain name early, as soon as you have chosen your keyphrases and your company name. Get it hosted right away and put up a quick one page site saying a little about who you are, what you sell, and that there will be more to come soon. Make sure it gets crawled by Google and Yahoo (either submit it or link to it from another site).

D) Create Content

Create over 30 pages of real, original content on your site. This will give the spiders something to chew on. It will also give you more opportunities to been seen in the search engine results for a wide variety of keyphrases.

E) Site Design

Use the “Keep It Simple” principle. Employ an external CSS file, clean up any Java Scripts by referring to them off the page in an external file, don’t use frames, use flash the way you would an image, and no matter what, do not create a flash site. Do not offer a busy site with lots of bells and whistles to your visitors. Keep things nice and simple. Make it easy for them to find what they are looking for and they’ll have no reason to look anywhere else.

F) Page Size

The less kilobytes your page uses, the better – especially for the home page. Optimize your images and make sure the page loads quickly. Most people and businesses in the Western world may have high speed, but cell phones and other countries might not. If your site loads slowly, you may have already lost your visitor before they’ve even had a chance to browse around.

G) Usability

Make sure that your site follows good usability rules. Remember that people spend more time on other sites, so don’t violate design conventions. Don’t use PDF files for online reading. Change the colors for visited links, and use good headers. Look up usability for more tips and tricks, it will be worth your while.

H) On Site Optimization

Use the keyphrase you have chosen in your title (most important), your headers (when appropriate), and within the text. Make sure that your page/content is ABOUT your keyphrase. If you are selling widgets, than write about widgets. Don’t just stick the word widgets into the text.

I) Globals

Globals are the links that remain the same on every page. They are the reference for new visitors to keep them from getting lost. Sometimes they are on the left of the page, sometimes they consist of tabs at the top. Often they are in the footer of the page as well. Make sure that you have an old style text version of your globals on every page. I usually create tabs at the top, and put the text versions in the footer at the bottom of the page. Find out what works best for you.

J) Headers

Use bold headers. On the Internet, people scan they don’t read. So initially, all they will see are the headers. If your headers don’t address their concerns, they won’t stick around long enough to read your content. Use appropriate keyphrases when you can.

K) Site Map

Build a site map with a link to each of your pages. Keep it up to date. This will allow the spiders to get to every page. Put a text link to the site map on the main pages.

L) Content

Add a page every 2-3 days: 200-500 words. Create original content, don’t copy others. The more original and useful it is, the more people will read it, link to it, and most importantly of all – like it enough to keep coming back for more.

M) White Hat Only

Stay away from black hat optimizing techniques. Black hat optimization consists of using any method to get higher rankings that the search engines would disapprove of, such as keyword stuffing, doorway pages, invisible text, cloaking and more. Stick to white hat methods for long-term success. People who use black hat optimization are usually there for the short-term, such as in porn, gambling, and Viagra markets (just look at your email spam for more black hat markets). These black hat industry sites are usually around just long enough to make a quick buck.

N) Competition Analysis

Who is linking to your competition? Use Yahoo’s “link:” service to see the back links of your competition. For example, type in “link:http://www.yourdomain.com” into Yahoo search without the quotes). Try to get links from the same sites as your direct competitors. Better yet, see if you can replace them!

O) Submit

Submit to five groups of directories:

1. Dmoz.org and Yahoo (local, such as Yahoo.co.uk, or Yahoo.ca, etc… if you can).

2. Find directories in your field and get into them. Pay if you must, but only if the price is reasonable.

3. Local directories that relate to your country or region.

4. Any other directories that would be appropriate.

5. If you are targeting the local market, make sure that you are in the Yellow Pages and Superpages (because search engines use these listings to power local searches)

P) Blog

Start a blog about your industry and write a new entry at least once a week. Allow your visitors to comment or, better yet, write their own entries. This will create even more content on your site and will keep people coming back regularly to see what is new.

Q) Links From Other Sites

Simply submit your website to appropriate sites, asking that they link to your site as a reference because it will benefit their visitors. Don’t spend too much time on this, if your content is good and original, they will find you and link to you naturally. Remember that Linking is Queen (http://www.redcarpetweb.com/promotion/0409.html#feature). Stay away from bad linking partners, links farms, link scams, and any other unnatural links. They may not necessarily hurt you, but Google tracks when you get a link, how long you have had a link, who links to the site that links to you, where you live, what you had for breakfast, and more (not really… but kind of).

R) Statistics

Make sure your server has a good statistics program. Use it! If you don’t have access to a good program, then pay for one. Without the knowledge of who is coming to your site, from where, and how often, you will be missing out on some essential tools to improve your site.

S) Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Sign up for Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Spend money getting people to your site. Use it for branding too. This will create a steady flow of visitors to your site, and will make your site more accessible to your potential clients. You don’t have to be #1, you don’t even have to be #5… just make sure you are on the first page of search results for most of your keyphrases, when the cost is right.

T) Look Ahead

Stay informed of what is coming up in your market. If a new product will be out next season, write about it now. Take advantage of being a first mover. The search engines, and linkers, will reward you.

U) Articles

Write an article once every week and get it published in as many online publications as you can (with a link back to your site). Include the article on your site. Not only will this create many links to your site, but it will also get people to click to your site, and most importantly you will become an expert in the eyes of your visitors. They may even begin looking for your site by querying your name!

V) Study Your Traffic

After 30 to 90 days you will have enough results to analyze in your statistics program. Go over them with a fine tooth comb. Get the answers to these questions:

– Where are your visitors coming from?

– Which search engines do they use?

– What queries do they type in?

– What pages on your site do they visit the most?

– What are the entry pages on your site?

– What are the exit pages?

– What path do they follow when they browse your site?

Use this information to tweak your site.

– Use the most popular page to encourage the visitors to make you money.

– Adjust the paths they use to send them where you want them.

– Figure out why they leave from the exit pages.

Also, see what search terms people use to find you, and fine tune your keyphrases. If you targeted “green widgets”, but your visitors are finding you with the query “green leather widgets”, then start creating content about “leather widgets”!

W) Verify Your Submissions

After 3-4 months, check that you got into Dmoz.org and all of the other directories that you submitted to. If you have not been included, then submit again, or better yet, write a polite email to the editor and ask why. Also, find any new directories that would be worthy of your submittal time and submit to them.

X) RSS Feeds

RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is becoming a powerful tool for Internet marketers. You can quickly and easily add fresh content to your website. Article feeds are updated frequently, so you can give your visitors (and the search engines) what they want – fresh content! You can use RSS to promote any new content, such as new pages, articles, blogs, press releases, and more!

Y) Press Releases

A press release is a written communication that you submit to journalists in the media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines) which are used to make announcements that are newsworthy. Create press releases announcing publication of any new articles or new company information or products. If it is interesting/original enough, a journalist may pick it up and write an article about it. Before you know it, your website address may get published in the NY Times.

Z) Keep Your Content Fresh

Remember to write a new page every 2-3 days. I only mentioned it briefly, but it is probably the most important point in this article. Keep writing! Without fresh content, your site will gradually drop in the search engine results. To stay on top, your content has to be the most up-to-date, freshest, and most interesting and original content in your field.

Follow these 26 simple steps and I assure you that within one year you will call your site a success. You will bring in a massive amount of traffic from within your industry and watch as your business grows!

So start writing, and write yourself to the top!

A Complete Guide to Free Website Traffic

When it comes to traffic generating, many affiliates and other website owners tend to get stuck in a comfortable rut. We often use a small number of favorite techniques and rarely venture beyond them.

I’m hoping this report will encourage you to look beyond the techniques you’re using and try a few new ones. By using a wider variety of techniques, you’ll attract new visitors from new places.

The wider you cast your traffic net, the more you future-proof your online affiliate marketing business. You probably won’t use EVERY method listed here. Choose the ones which best suit your affiliate site, your skills, your interests and your temperament.

Traffic tip #1

You MUST have high quality, unique content if you want long-term, free search engine traffic. This is the most important tip of all. Sadly, it’s one which many website owners ignore. Provide LOTS of information-rich, keyword-rich, useful content for the search engines and humans to find.

You know that search engines are being clogged with junk at an alarming rate. The other day, we came across a marketer who was boasting that he owned more than 20,000 blogs – and he’s not the only one. Consider the scary effect of this exponential increase in low quality Blogs and websites. Old, large, well established sites will inevitably become more and more important and trusted by the search engines. Owning a large, well established, high quality site is a very solid investment in your future. These days, even Google’s webmaster guidelines advise affiliates to publish “unique and relevant” content.

If you spend time thinking of ways to provide truly USEFUL content that people will talk about, you’ll automatically end up with lots of free, one-way links to your site as people recommend it without even being asked to do so. We’ve been building information-rich websites ever since we created autosurfmonster.com . This method has worked extremely well for us and continues to work very well. If your website helps solve people’s problems, they’ll love you for it.

Traffic tip #2

Keep ADDING fresh, relevant, useful content. According to Google, about half the 2.5 billion searches done a day at Google are for unique, one-off phrases. The more pages you build full of on-topic material, the better the chances your site will be found. When it comes to keywords, think big. You want your site to be found via THOUSANDS of different phrases every month. Then you can lure that traffic to your best money-generating pages or to your newsletter sign-up page.

Also, search engines prefer fresh sites which keep gradually adding new content. Don’t let your site go stale. “Our own rule of thumb is this: Add a minimum of 1 article per week, 2 preferably. Adding an article daily is euphoria and adding 1 every six hours, well, that’s the best.”

Traffic tip #3

Choose a memorable domain name. If you’re launching a new site, choose a name people will remember easily. Ask yourself: “Will people remember my domain name?” Try to choose a name which won’t be confused with similar names. You don’t want people typing your competitor’s domain name when they’re trying to find your site.

NameBoy.com has a handy tool to help you choose domain names. Also, you can find a surprising number of good deleted (expired) domain names at Whois.net. Both those tools are free.

Traffic tip #4

Buy the wrong domain name, too. If you think people may confuse your domain name with a similar name, try to buy that name, too. A good domain name registrar will make it very easy for you to redirect one domain name to another.

Traffic tip #5

Make your domain name easy to read – especially if it’s a .NET Which of the following is easier to read and understand? www.whiskybeach.com or www.WhiskyBeach.com See how using a capital letter at the start of each word makes the second domain name easier to read – and easier to remember.

Whenever you mention your domain name anywhere, ALWAYS present it in its most readable form. A good place to start doing this is in your email signature file. If you’re unfortunate enough to have bought the “.net” version of a domain name because someone raced you to the “.com”, help people to remember your site by writing it like this…

Example.NET

Being MEMORABLE helps you get more repeat visitors.

Traffic tip #6

Use appropriate keywords in your image file names. searching for images. We are not sure how valuable those visitors are, but we didn’t have to do anything very special to get them. Google Images – http://images.google.com – makes it easy for people to search for graphics online.

To take advantage of this, when choosing the file name of an image on your site, use an appropriate key phrase, for example, “book-ends.jpg” if you’re promoting book ends.

Here’s a tip we just discovered… When we searched in Google Images for “book ends” we discovered that the very first search result was for a page which did NOT contain a graphic of book ends! Instead, the page contained a “book ends” LINK to a book ends graphic on a second page. It if suits the design of your site, you may want to experiment with this technique.

We are not sure how much use traffic to images is, but if it’s ADDITIONAL traffic you can get simply by choosing image file names carefully, it’s worth having.

Traffic tip #7

Do REALLY SERIOUS keyword research. If you want to get LOTS of traffic from search engines, you need to find out the exact phrases which people are typing into search engines. There are free tools available for this, but they’re not nearly as useful as the more comprehensive paid tools.

For example, if you’re using the Overture keyword tool for your research, be warned, its results can’t be trusted. The Overture tool shows you the SAME number of searches for all these searches:

bikini girls

girls bikini

bikini girl

girl bikini

bikinis girl

girl bikinis

This is obviously nonsense. The Overture tool is useful to give you a quick rough guide, but NOT for, serious research.

“The harder it is to discover a certain search phrase (getting traffic), the less competition you will have in the SERPs (for that search phrase). If a keyword research tool is free and popular, how many competitors will you have for the phrases you discover there?”

Traffic tip #8

Try this page titles experiment. Here’s a good way to increase your traffic. Go to Google and type any phrase into the search box. Look at the titles of the websites in the top 10 rankings. Which ones catch your eye and tempt you to click on the link? Some are dreadfully stodgy, boring. Some are merely a long list of keywords. Some are good. Some are junk. Good titles are written for search engines AND humans.

Now look at the titles on your site. Start with your most important pages. Rewrite them to make them more eye-catching.

Now go to Google and do a search of your site like this…

site:example.com

Study the page titles. If you own a large site created over many years, you may be horribly embarrassed at just how BAD some of your page titles are. Do you want to find some examples of good titles? Simply go to Google and do some more searches. Don’t stick to your industry.

Type in all sorts of different phrases and study the titles that appear in the top 10. You’ll soon be brimming with ideas on ways you can improve your page titles. Checking how enticing the information is in your meta description tag can help, too. Some search engines display this information in their search results. If you have a well established site, you may have written many of your page titles and meta descriptions years ago when you knew less about marketing than you do now. If so, it’s time for another look at them.

Traffic tip #9

Organic SEO – a few key points. Search engines are getting cleverer all the time. You can try to outsmart them but to us it makes more sense to work WITH them.

They’re gradually getting better at sifting out low quality websites and ranking them poorly. So build high quality websites containing genuinely useful material that other people want to link to.

The basics of good search engine optimization are fairly simple. Here’s a very quick summary:

· You need to make it easy for a search engine to figure out the topic of your page.

· Find appropriate keywords or key phrases and use them in the title, in the page heading, in the introduction, throughout the article, in the meta description, in alt tags, at the end of the article, in links on the page, in bold or italics, and perhaps in a list on the page.

· Use key phrases in your file names, for example: keyword1- keyword2.html.

· Use synonyms and word variations naturally throughout the page.

· When linking to your pages, use appropriate keywords in the anchor text (the words people click on). Do this for links throughout your site, and also on other people’s sites which link to yours. Vary the anchor text.

· For internal links, it’s better to use text than graphical links.

· Create a logical navigation system so that humans and search engines can easily find the content on your affiliate marketing site.

· Get links from other sites to internal pages as well as to your main page.

Traffic tip #10

Submit to the main directories. The more high quality links you have to your site, the more impressed the search engines will be. Start with major directories such as…

Yahoo!

DMOZ.org

Marketing tips and tricks for newbies

You have joined a few affiliate programs and now you wonder what to do…As a newbie you may have various options:

Article Marketing
Write great positive reviews of the products you are promoting, Include your affiliate links at the end of the reviews. Post yours reviews on sites such as Goarticles.com or Ezinearticles.com

Blogging
Create a free blog using a blogging platform such as Blogger.com. Write posts (reviews) of the products you are promoting. Include your affiliate links at the end of the reviews. Then ping your blog at a site such as Pingomatic.com. Your posts will be picked up quickly by search engines

If you want to host your own blog, read this: From Blogger to WordPress (tutorial for newbies): http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=8270241

Social Bookmarking
Welcome to the Web 2.0 era! In order to make it easy for your readers to save and share your content you may add social bookmark links to your blog – Link: SocialMarker.com

Forums
Join popular forums, go into your forum profile and edit your signature. Make a signature that includes your affiliate link(s), or links to your own reviews. Make frequent relevant contributions – Don’t spam! Depending on what you are promoting and the forums you are joining you will target direct sales or subaffiliates

Social Networking
Use social networking sites to promote your relevant reviews blog if any. Don’t spam with affiliate links!

PR
Once every few weeks you may post a press release at sites such as PRweb.com. Your press release will be a favorable review of the product you are promoting, alongwith your affiliate link

Email marketing
If you own a list of subscribers (people who have opted in to receive email offers from you), you may send them an email telling them about the products you are promoting and include your affiliate links in the email Once again, don’t spam!

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
You may easily generate incomes with affiliate programs and PPC like Google Adwords You may also loose a lot of money before making your first sale. So be careful if you do use this way to drive traffic to your sales pages. Learn how it works before!
Learning centers: http://adwords.google.com + DP + PPCdiscussions.com

Make your own tools, write your own texts and try to think like a visitor or a potential buyer, study competitor tactics (use Google!), experiment, upgrade yourself all the time…It’s a matter of creativity, trial and errors, time and dedication

Never give up

Five REAL ways to make $100 or more per day

make money onlineI decided to toss up a post with 5 ways to make $100+ per day. I’m not selling an ebook or trying to get you to read my affiliate marketing blog. These are just good ideas to keep in mind.

I’d love to hear your opinions, feedback, and ideally to hear some of your suggestions/methods in the comment box!

1.) Freelancing. Offer a service, such as writing (content creation), design, coding, SEO, etc. I know many people who don’t even have sites that exclusively provide services and make well over $100/day.

Can it be scaled? Outsourcing is key to scaling.

2.) PPC. You all know what it is. Don’t listen to ANYONE who says “that market is way too saturated.” Keep this in your mind: there is no such thing as an oversaturated market. Yes, this includes things like ringtones, nike, dating, adult, etc.

PPC-Coach is fantastic for learning, but there are so many resources on how to properly optimize PPC campaigns you shouldn’t have trouble learning, even without PPC-Coach.

A final note: Yes, PPC does require an initial investment, but it isn’t nearly as much as some would like you to believe.

Can it be scaled? Yes, nearly endlessly. Paul Bourque wrote an excellent article on scaling, despite his recent criticisms.

3.) The Shotgun Approach. This is a fairly popular method and you’ve probably heard of it before. Design 100 (or more) sites for which the goal of each is to make $1/day. $1/day is NOT difficult to achieve on nearly any site by means of CPC (adsense or others), ebay (phpbay, BANS, etc), and/or CPA offers.

Can it be scaled? Yes. Just keep building sites. Make 100 sites that each earn $1/day over the course of a year. Tweak them as you go to hit the $2/day mark.

As you can see, the “shotgun approach” will quickly add up your revenues. You are also highly diversified (one site dies/goes down/stops performing – oh well, no big deal). It’s a lot of work, but very possible to make $100+ daily.

4.) Classifieds Marketing. I know a lot of you play in this arena. Classified sites like Kijiji, Gumtree, and quite especially Craigslist are all goldmines. Most people think that doing anything regarding online sales for these sites is “spamming” or “blackhat”, when in fact it’s very possible to do entirely whitehat marketing and profit handsomely. I, personally, don’t subscribe to any particular hat color, so I do a bit of everything with these kinds of affiliate marketing sites when it suits my needs.

Can it be scaled? Yes, quite so. Consider the number of classified sites and the many, many automation tools available. It’s possible to make well over $100/day – even automated.

5.) The “Super” Affiliate Marketer. No, I’m not talking about everyone’s favorite bloggers (cough). I’m talking about building a downline (2nd tier, 3rd tier, etc). Essentially people who sign up through your link for various affiliate networks or affiliate programs. I have to admit that this will certainly not be your fastest way to $100/day, but it’s a good little “side project” to keep going. Once a few heavy hitters are under you, you’ll see the effects. Have a friend who does very well in a certain niche? Get him to sign up under you and test the offers at your network – he just might like it better.

Can it be scaled? The more people sign up through your link, the more you’ll make (provided they make money).