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Internet Marketing Success

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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’

You’ve Launched Your Site: How to Get it Listed

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You’ve gone ahead and launched a Web site. How do you get anyone to notice you online, with the millions of sites already there? You need to be ranked on various search engines so that visitors can find you. More visitors means the potential for attracting more customers, which is why you went online in the first place. It’s important to get your page ranked as highly as possible (preferably in the top 10); Web surfers are notorious for having a very short attention span and want to find what they need quickly and efficiently. They simply are not going to wade through 100’s of sites to find what they are looking for.

When choosing keywords, try to put yourself in the place of a Web surfer: How would they find your site? What words or phrases would they use to search for you? It’s a good idea to start with a general category first and then add words that are more specific. Be sure to include your company name, a description of your product or service, and your geographic location when choosing keywords. Don’t be afraid to include alternate ways to spell words, if appropriate; and don’t be concerned about using initial capital letters on proper names. You never know how a person is going to search the Internet to find information.

So how do you actually get listed? Well, you can sit back and let the search engine spiders find your site or you can submit your site to search engines and web directories on your own. Most people use a combination of the two methods. The search engine spiders will go out automatically and put your site into their list of sites by examining the keywords on your pages or in your site’s meta tags.

When you get to the point that you are ready to have your site listed on search engines you can submit your information to one or more individually or you have the option of having a submission service look after this for you. If you use a submission service, your Web pages may well end up in places you have never heard of, but don’t be discouraged by this fact: someone is making use of the lesser-known search engines, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. So SEs submissions is not a good idea, just getting links to your site will do it right.

To promote themselves online, webmasters also have the option of submitting to a directory that has people acting as editors to choose which Web pages should be listed and where. There are not many of these types of directories; it is simply more efficient to have a piece of software crawl through cyberspace to perform these tasks. If you choose to submit to a human-edited directory, it may be several weeks before your site is approved; it then takes a bit more time for it to actually appear in the listings.

Marketing Tips for Web Site Owners

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Affiliate Marketing Site Benefits If you are the owner of a site designed to promote a product or service – such as affiliate marketing sites, the first thing you want to do is ensure that your site attracts an ever-increasing number of visitors. Even if a potential customer is not ready to make a purchase yet, if your site is easy to navigate and features helpful information, chances are they will “bookmark” it to return at a later time.

Be clear about the purpose of of your site. Web surfers do not take time to “dig” for hidden information. You may only have a few seconds to capture a visitor’s interest, so be sure to include a message on your home page that describes what product or service you are providing.

It’s very important that after you launch your Web site that you update its’ contents on a regular basis. It’s the kiss of death in Internet affiliate marketing to own a site with stale information.

Where possible, invite visitors to sign up for a house publication or catalogue, or to register to receive updated information from you. You now have a mailing list of prospective customers to draw from. Keep your company name at the front of a prospect’s mind by touching base with them from time to time with small nuggets of information, like helpful hints.

Using questions to peak interest is a good strategy to use. This immediately gets your visitor’s interest and gets them to start thinking that your product or service will be of benefit to them.

If you receive positive feedback from your customers, feel free to include them on your site (with contact information deleted, of course). Nothing builds credibility for your business like testimonials.

Keep in mind that a picture is worth a thousand words. Whenever possible, include photographs of available products so that your customers can see what your site has to offer. If you are selling a product, post a list of ways the product can be used or places where it can be used.

Invite visitors to your site to sign up for your newsletter or mailing list. If you have a new article or have reported on something newsworthy, make it easy for potential customers to find this information. Give them directions to navigate their way through your site. Internet Money

Make it easy for your customers to contact you and to do business with you. Provide a link to an e-mail contact, toll-free phone number, or contact form in a prominent location. This should be placed on the home page; some site owners choose to place contact information on each page. It’s also a good idea to include a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for your customers’ convenience. Make it easy for customers to order from you; provide an “Order Now” link – this is really common thing on the affiliate marketing sites. Let them know if you accept credit cards and/or Paypal. Have information about shipping options readily available, and be sure to set out your return/refund policy clearly. It will avoid many misunderstandings at a later date.

By following the suggestions set out above, you will make it easy for visitors to your profitable site to learn what it is that you are selling and to ultimately decide to move from the category of site visitor to (satisfied) customer.

Adding Color to Your Web Site

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Website Colors When choosing colors for your Web site, it is important to think through your choice carefully. The use of colors that are pleasing to the eye might well lead to visitors spending more time at your site or even an affiliate marketing website, which will lead to greater sales, but a poor choice of color combinations can also have an effect on an individual’s mood or prove to be distracting or irritating.

Choose to use warm colors like red to attract attention to a certain portion of your site, to have the person stop at a certain portion, or to give them a warning. If you have a Web site selling candy products, personal care items, or anything to do with romance, you would do well to consider including the color pink. We tend to associate this whimsical color with all things soft, romantic, and girly.

Orange, another warm color, is naturally associated with the fall harvest and trick or treating. Web sites concerning themselves with foodstuffs and nature might find this a good choice. Yellow, used in moderation, is certainly an eye-catching choice. It conveys warmth and energy to a site visitor.

If your taste runs to cool colors, green can be a wonderful choice. It can symbolize many things: money, the environment, natural products, growth, rebirth, starting over, etc. Use green if your site offers financial advice, vitamins, fitness products, garden tools, seeds, and the like.

Yet another choice in the realm of cool color offerings is blue. This classic color gives a certain formality when used. It makes us think of the natural landscape (sky and water) but the word “blue” can also describe a certain type of music or feelings of despair. Those who are drawn to all that is mystical might choose to include purple. The lush, dark shades bring royalty to mind; lavender is a much more whimsical choice.

Black, white, and grey can also be used for Affiliate Marketing Web sites, but are probably too stark to be used exclusively. They would be best if combined with some other complementary color.

Keep in mind in choosing colors for your site that both Macintosh computers and personal computers (PC’s) have a palette of 216 colors that they share. Site owners will want to ensure that the site will appear the same no matter what type of computer someone is using to access the Internet.

When choosing colors for your site, here are some suggestions to keep in mind:

Consider the purpose of your site when choosing colors.

Try to choose two or three colors that complement each other; any more than that, and your site will look sloppy.

In considering color choices, go to your local paint store and help yourself to some color samples. Then you can use them to experiment with different color combinations.

Remember, the goal is to keep visitors on your Web page longer, which is more likely to lead to a sale, which is why you are on the Internet in the first place!

Using an Affiliate Program to Generate Cash Flow

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Affiliate Marketing Money If you are a Web site owner, it is a very good idea to consider participating in one (or more) of the affiliate marketing programs available on the Internet. Basically, affiliate programs are straight commission sales opportunities. You promote a certain vendor’s product or materials on your Web site. When visitors to your site buy the product or materials, you get rewarded with a percentage of the value of that sale.

If you have already launched a Web site, you can add an affiliate program to whatever products or services you already offer online. You can also choose to start a site for the specific purpose of promoting the affiliate program or programs of your choice.

Affiliate Marketing Programs

A variety of programs are available to site owners. An advantage of choosing to take the plunge into affiliate programs is that it helps you create more than one source of income from your Web site. You can be in the business of selling a product without having to concern yourself with the logistics of storing inventory, billing, or shipping.

While you may be tempted to choose the programs that offer the highest payout, keep in mind that if your customers don’t buy the product, you will not make any money. You would be much better advised to choose a product that is somehow related to what your Web site already offers your customers. That way you can tag team your product or service with the affiliate program you choose and have a greater opportunity to generate income.

When trying to decide which of the many affiliate programs to become associated with, here are some suggestions to keep in mind:

1. Be sure that the program you choose pays a minimum of at least 25% commission per sale. A variety of program that pay well that will complement many types of Web sites are available.

2. Find out whether you will be able to access information about the number of site visits and sales you have generated so you can track your progress.

3. The best programs offer several ways to advertise the program on your Web site. Consider those with banner ads, buttons, graphics, and text links.

4. Be clear about how often you will be paid and what payment method will be used.

5. Educate yourself about what type of assistance is available, should you need it. Do you contact the affiliate company by email, by filling out an online form, or do they provide a toll free number for support?

Once you get your affiliate program up and running, you have the potential of generating quite a handsome income. If you take the time to educate yourself well about the nature of affiliate marketing, you will greatly increase your chances of making this venture a great success.

How Do Search Engines Work – Web Crawlers

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There are basically two types of search engines. The first is by robots called crawlers or spiders.

It is the search engines that finally bring your affiliate marketing website to the notice of the prospective customers. Hence it is better to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the customer initiating a search.

Search Engines use spiders to index websites. When you submit your website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index your entire site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spider visits a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site’s Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link you have on your website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on your site, so don’t create a site with 500 pages!

The spider will periodically return to the affiliate marketing website to check for any information that has changed. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine.

A spider is almost like a book where it contains the table of contents, the actual content and the links and references for all the websites it finds during its search, and it may index up to a million pages a day.

Example: Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and Google.

When you ask a search engine to locate information, it is actually searching through the index which it has created and not actually searching the Web. Different search engines produce different rankings because not every search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.

One of the things that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency and location of keywords on a web page, but it can also detect artificial keyword stuffing or spamdexing. Then the algorithms analyze the way that pages link to other pages in the Web. By checking how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about, if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page.