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How To Use Your Blog to Market Your Business

2011-06-28T12:07:00.001-07:00

Have you just started blogging? Or have you been blogging for a while? As you may already know, a blog is an excellent tool to let the world know about your business or your product, to connect with potential customers and promote your expertise. But how can you maximize your blog's impact? Here are five tips to do just that:

- Blog Consistently. Many business owners get excited about blogging, post 3-6 times, and then promptly forget about the blog. I have seen many blogs that were started a year or two ago, have a grand total of five posts, and haven't been updated since sometime last year.

To get the desired effect (search engine and human traffic), you need to update your blog on a regular basis. Search engines love new content and keep coming back to index it. Potential customers also like new content; it's what keeps them coming back to read your blog.

- Use Your Blog For Branding. Your blog is an extension of your business, so make your blog have a look and feel that mirrors that of your business web site.

If your blog is hosted on the same domain as your web site, you should match the look and feel of your web site exactly. This will be more difficult to achieve if a third party provider hosts your blog. However, you should still aim to present the same brand image.

- Use Search Engine Optimization To Optimize Each Blog Post. The purpose of your blog is to get people who are in your target market to read your posts and enter your sphere of influence. Traffic from search engines does not cost any money, and it is a great way to get potential customers to your blog.

Basic Search Engine Optmization (SEO)

2011-06-28T12:06:00.001-07:00

Search engine optimization is not as difficult the way many people make it out to be. It seems mysterious, but let me reveal how this simple thing can be done without a line of code, without breaking any law, and still generate a ton of extra traffic to your site.

Basically, search engine optimization is about getting higher rankings. But that's beside the point. That's the end result of what you DO that actually gets you those rankings. In Singapore SEO trainings are hardly seen but I often do it for my clients on a private basis.

There are basically 5 things you need to do in order to accomplish better search engine rankings, even if you are complete novice at it. I call these the 5 Pillars of search engine optimization.

Pillar #1 - Multiple Backlinks

Create as many links back to your site as possible. How? You can use submission software that post to multiple websites all at the same time. I prefer to use those that are a little more reputable and I do not spam, especially blogs. Backlinks can come easily, but you will need to do it properly to prevent the backlack. The easiest way to do it is to collect a list of places where you can submit to. I have a directory listing of ping servers that you can find at www.StuartFreeTools.com. That should get you started. The rest need to be Googled as "submit your url" or "submit your article". The more backlinks, the better.

Pillar #2 - Frequency

Even if you are building backlinks, you need to have a regular frequency. If possible, every day, if not every other day. You need to be consistent in your efforts to build backlinks. Now, this may be tedious, but it probably won't take you more than an hour a day to maintain this. You don't have to write articles at all. You only need a robot that works 24/7 for you. I've got some recommendations that I've put up on my blog at www.InternetMarketingSingapore.com/blog and you can see how in Singapore, SEO elements are just as easily implemented by me compared with experts who have many years of experience.

Pillar #3 - Multiple Hosting Accounts

I recommend this because search engines look at IP addresses. with multiple hosting accounts, you get better inbound links from your own site. If you're smart, you'll start creating a whole ton of these to boost your own link popularity from other sites.

Getting Blog Visitors

2011-06-28T12:03:00.001-07:00

This article will cover one of the unique methods of getting traffic to a blog that doesn't work for regular sites. Remember that every blog is a web-site, but not every web-site is a blog. My top methods of getting traffic to a web-site are still my top methods of getting traffic to a blog. Those include: article marketing, link building and content creation/ranking factors.

But blogs are a special breed of web-site. There are additional methods of getting new visitors to your blog that are very effective. The first one I played with was linking to others. For your blog marketing efforts to work, you must understand that bloggers are part of a community. Those of us old-timers on the 'net remember when the entire 'net was a small, close-knit community… when it was OK to send an email telling others in your topic area that you just set up a site and would like a link on their site.

That isn't what I'm suggesting with the blog community. The days of sending even a personal email to someone you haven't met are nearly over. The spam problem has made that more and more difficult. However, it is still OK and still rather expected that you introduce yourself when you come into a community. It is also a good idea to let your new community know that you are a friendly guy and are willing to help out in the community.

This post will tell about one way to do that when you enter the blogosphere. First, you should find your neighbors. The Alexa toolbar is going to help you find out who the leaders are in your new community. Start by searching for "______ blog" on Google, Yahoo or your favorite search engine. Fill in the blank with the topic of your blog. Take a look at the blogs you see.

Do you like them? Good; these are leaders in your new community. Link to them in your blog roll. Read them daily to find out what is going on in your community. Do you not like them? No problem. Don't link to them then. Don't read them. Don't introduce your visitors to them. It isn't required that you like everyone in your new community, but you do want to be a part of the community you now live in…

Now as you read those blogs daily, notice their blog rolls (links they have to other blogs in your community). Go visit them. This is where the Alexa toolbar comes in. You will find some new leaders (those with blogs showing less than 100,000 on your Alexa toolbar). Check out their blog and if you like it… add it to your own blog roll.

I recently moved to a town of about 300 way up in the top of the Utah mountains. It was a new community. I had never lived in a rural area before, so it was critical for me to go through this exact same exercise as I became a part of my new community up here in the mountains. Sure; it didn't involve Alexa or linking to others… but the concept is the same. When you enter a community and want to be a part of that community, get out there and get to know people. This is one way to do that in the blogging community.

5 Top Tips for Maximizing Your Adsense Profits

2011-06-28T12:02:00.001-07:00

1: The ideal Google AdSense page should have great content about a very specific topic. Take pains to be very clear about what the topic is, and carefully choose the keyword (or key phrase) describing the topic. Users don't like vague pages that don't make it very clear what the page is all about.

Don't even think about trying to 'trick' AdSense. (They have penalties, including getting kicked out.) Don't create a page on one topic and give it a file name about a different topic-that's too confusing.

In a nutshell, you want to make sure the page you create offers great value to people interested in the topic. When you provide excellent information on a specific topic, your visitors will benefit and will be more likely to click through to relevant AdWords.

2: Everyone's seen way too many horizontal banner ads up top. Thus, Google recommends you choose the vertical -- not horizontal -- format to display your AdWords. I agree. People have become "banner blind" to a horizontal format. Plus, Google has "trained" us to click on relevant text ads on their own site and they use the vertical format.

3: It's to your financial advantage to put the AdWords near the top of your page on the right. Make sure there is enough "breathing room" -- i.e. white space around the ads -- so that they will easily attract your visitors.

4: The latest marketing tests have revealed that placing pictures beside, or above you're a ads can have a massive impact on click-thru rates. This is because the eye is immediately attracted to the picture, once they see the picture, they see the ad!

5: I know it's tempting, because it seems so easy and it's just sitting there waiting for you to do it, but do not click on the AdWords displayed on your own site to increase your revenue. Google (rightfully) frowns on this.

Plus, Google has some of the smartest engineers around, and they are very good at detecting this kind of fraud. And really, for an extra $1, is it worth getting kicked out of a money-maker like AdSense? I think not…

Can The Internet Businesses Survive Without Affiliate Marketing?

2011-06-28T11:57:00.001-07:00

What is an affiliate program? I've been bombarded with this question from Internet business newbies since I got myself involved in this very interesting but challenging
online business.

Many years ago, ever since we started manufacturing products for sale in the offline physical world, we had been having sales agents representing different manufacturers to help the latter to expand their markets. The agents conclude sales without carrying inventory, handling payments, signing contracts, sorting, packing and shipping of the products. Their main focus had been to make the sale by getting the orders from the prospects and existing customers, which were then processed by the manufacturers or merchants.

In the Internet online world we have affiliates instead of agents. Affiliates are highly targeted pay-for-performance sales agents.

There are also some forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for driving traffic to the advertiser i.e. the manufacturers or the affiliate program owners. The advertiser pays the affiliates to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. In other words, it's about the affiliates receiving commissions for helping in making the sales.

The most common reward is pay-for-sale, where the merchant pays the affiliates who referred the paying customers.

Affiliates are being considered as a complementary but very important sales channel although the merchants themselves continue to get their own direct traffic in making their own sales.

The affiliates do not have to suffer from the occasional sleepless nights worrying about the processing of orders, packing and shipping etc because this are being taken care of by the merchants who usually have an effective tracking system to determine which affiliates drive which orders to them starting with the so-called affiliate links. These are
the links that the affiliates put on their websites, newsletters, ezines or emails.

How does an affiliate link look like? You may ask. The most common affiliate link is embedded in the linking URL. For example, if you see a link like "http://www.abcmerchant.com/?xxxx=3456", you can be quite sure that the affiliate with the ID (identification) 3456 will receive money from ABC Merchant when someone places his order after clicking that link.

Other affiliate links are more complex and encrypted with some sites having their links masked so that the prospects won't be able to detect that the URL they're clicking is an affiliate link.

An excellent example of an affiliate program is that of Amazon.com who happens to have one of the oldest affiliate programs in the Internet. Other possible affiliate programs are as follows:

1) "Pay per click" - the merchant pays the affiliates for the driving the traffic and the resulted orders to them.

2) "Pay per lead" - the merchant pays the affiliates for directing the prospects to register their interest with a possibility of making the sales later.

3) "Pay per subscription" – if the merchant has a recurring revenue from the customer's repeated orders, the affiliates will benefit accordingly.

Why bother about Affiliate Marketing at all then?

The following are some of the reasons why Internet marketers the world over swear by the affiliate marketing as a form of their Internet advertisement and strategy:

1. Low budget
Many are hesitant to venture into any home based businesses because of the lack of fund or the unwillingness to part with money due to uncertainties. In affiliate marketing, you don't have to invest a lot financially to start pulling in profits.

2. No inventories
There is no need to keep and manage an inventory as this would be taken care of by the merchant.

3. Passive income through leverage

One could copy what the truly wealthy people are doing (or rather not doing). They earn their income through various leverage strategies which allow them to make money while they're sleeping, meddling with hobbies, or having vacation in far away places such as the beautiful beaches in Hawaii or Malaysia.

Unlike a paid job, affiliates could just drive traffic to the merchants' websites without having to sweat after having provided them your ad copy and links.

4. Minimal risk
The main reason for most successful Internet marketer's extensive use of affiliate marketing is the low-risk nature of the program. This is especially attractive to those with low budget for advertising

5. Globalisation
With affiliate marketing, you are dealing with an unending global market place. All you have to do is study, research and select a niche product or service and prepare all the necessary marketing tools for your affiliates to direct traffic from just about anywhere around the world to your website.

6. Getting paid while you sleep
This system allows you to "recruit" thousands of "salesmen" who are willing to work for you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The best part is the fact that they're willing to do so for nothing! This is a system that allows you to switch your business to "Autopilot" mode so that you could continue to earn money whether you're awake, asleep or holidaying in Bangkok or Penang. It is a system that allows you to work from home or some places 10,000 km or more away from home.

Having said this, it must be stated that not all affiliate programs are successful. Many affiliate program owners fail because of their lack of the necessary investment, for instance, the merchant needs to invest in an effective tracking system, which is usually an outsourced affiliate network or an in-house affiliate software system. Another factor to consider is having sufficient human resources to recruit, manage, and motivate the affiliates with the right technical support and remuneration. Without a good support system in place, the affiliates will not stay long enough to produce the desired results.

Most online businesses use affiliate marketing strategy to sell their products which could include physical products, software or e-books. Service industry can also benefit from an affiliate program via a pay-per-lead program.

Before a merchant could establish an affiliate strategy, he should consider many factors among them are the answers to the following questions:

1) What are the benefits to the affiliates? What commission rate should be offered to affiliates to attract them and motivate them?

2) What are the competitors doing? Are there any innovative strategies that could produce product differentiation?

3) What pay-for-performance model should be adopted?

4) How to manage the affiliates and motivate them?

5) How are the affiliates paid using the latest technology without affecting their moral due, for instance, to delayed payment of their commission?

6) What affiliate software tracking systems are available and which is the best for the purpose?

A well designed affiliate program could bring very explosive positive results to the affiliate program owners' business and the stream of income for the affiliates themselves.

An affiliate strategy done right can increase online sales tremendously. There are well over 30 affiliate software packages to choose from. There are also more than 200 features in affiliate software and network offerings.

With all these possibilities, no wonder many success stories of the Internet businesses today are the results of suitable application of affiliate programs. Indeed, most online businesses could not survive today without effective affiliate programs.

You Need Traffic For Your Blog, Here's How To See It.

2011-06-28T11:55:00.001-07:00

For those who blog, or write in online journals, keeping track of visitors can be a great way to see who visits a particular blog. There are many ways to keep track of blog readers when you blog. Blog hit counters; visitor tracking, referrers and keywords all can help you know if someone has visited your blog.

When you set up your blog, you will probably have already decided on the type of blog you will keep. Some web blog hosting sites will offer there service for free, but have a minimum of features. Other blog sites might cost, but will offer bloggers services to keep track of visitors. There are many reasons to track the visitors that read your blog. Understanding who visits you blog will help you know what your readers are looking for. Successful blogging starts with interested writing and will appeal to your readers. Another reason you might want to keep track of the visitors that come to your site is to increase traffic. This is especially important for blogs that are for companies. Companies can use their blog for inexpensive advertising. Knowing who visits the blog site will help a company understand if they are reaching their target audience for their services or products.

A blog hit counter is one way to keep track of the amount of visitors that read your blog. Blog hit counters are usually small boxes at the very end of a web page that updates a number every time your site is hit. Some blog hit counters can give site owners site statistics, reports and graphs to illustrate blog activity. These counters can also show you where your readers are finding your site. If your blog hosting site does not offer a blog hit counter feature, one can easily be downloaded or added to your page from another site. There are many free sites that offer counters for blog pages. Blog writers can register on the hit counter site, download and install directly into the blog template. This will give an accurate count of how many visitors you have to your blog. If you are not worried about keywords or details information about your readers, then a blog hit counter is the easiest way to track your readership

If you want more advanced blog features, then you can add tracking options to your blog. There are several ways you can track your readers. One is by keywords and the other is a visitor tracker. Keyword trackers are ideal for those who need to know what keywords people are using to locate a blog. This could be important for businesses that need to reach potential consumers. A good keyword tracker can also help you organize your blog site to determine which keywords are most popular with readers. It can also help get your site listed on search engines. Keyword trackers can be downloaded for free in many cases. If your site relies heavily on readers, then a keyword tracker could be a good choice.

A visitor tracker works much the same way as a keyword tracker. The difference, however, is that a visitor tracker will provide you with information statistics about your blog visitors. Usually, this information is given in easy to understand graphs and tables. If you need to see where your visitors are coming from, then a visitor tracker can be quite beneficial. It is a little more sophisticated than a hit counter, but works about the same way. When a visitor enters your blog site, their information is saved onto the visitor tracker. When you are ready, you can log in and see exactly who your visitors are. Many times not only are you able to see the statistics on your readers, but you can also see reports for current visitors and those that have visited the site in the past.

One other way that a blog writer can keep track of their readers is to include a comment section at the end of your blog page. Not all visitors will want to leave a comment, but this is a good way to gain feedback about your site. You will better understand the type of readers that frequent your site, but also understand the kind of content that they want to read.