With the advent of the Amazon Kindle and other eReaders and the ability to sell eBooks through Amazon, iTunes and other online marketplaces, more and more people are thinking about publishing eBooks.

Of course, writing and uploading the eBook is only the first step. In order to make your eBook a success, you need to market it.

Put these marketing tips into practice to up your eBook sales.

Consider Offering Your eBook for Free

Depending on where you are selling your eBook, you might be able to offer it for free for a limited period of time.

While it might seem counter-intuitive, a free eBook can bring you extra sales. Firstly, you benefit from word of mouth as those who have read it for free can recommend your book to paying readers.

Secondly, a free eBook will get a boost in uptake, which can push you up the sales rankings so that more people see your eBook when they browse. Make sure to check the terms of your agreement before you do this – for example, the Kindle Select program allows this option, but it means your eBook is exclusive to Amazon, cutting in on your opportunities to reach a bigger audience by distributing it elsewhere as well.

Related Posts: The Entrepreneur’s Guidebook – 26 Resources for Entrepreneurs

Build Up a Portfolio of Work and Cross-Promote it

One of the best things you can do to generate sales for your eBook is to write another one. More books equals a greater chance that someone will notice your work. When they enjoy one of your publications they will likely seek out others, getting you two sales for the marketing cost of one ebook!

Make it easy for your readers by placing hyperlinks in the back of your eBooks that point to where they can buy your other works.

Know Your Niche

An eBook on mosquitoes probably won’t get much of a marketing boost from your efforts plugging it on a general interest blog, but if you can find a forum for entomologists you will likely be much more successful.

Always target your marketing to your likely audience – you will likely get a much better return on your investment than a scatter-gun approach.

Network, Network, Network (Socially)

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging – these are constantly touted as must-haves for any online marketing pursuit. That’s the case for a reason; you need to reach out to potential readers and let them know what you have to offer. It’s as true for marketing y0ur eBook as it is for anything else, so don’t neglect it.

The rise of eBooks allows you an unprecedented level of control over your work, putting you in the driving seat of your writing career.

However, this also places the responsibility of marketing squarely on your shoulders. A little bit of attention to marketing your ebook can help you make writing a successful career.

Related Posts: 17 Free Business eBooks to Build Your Brand

6 websites you MUST use to market your ebook quickly and easily.

1. kdp.amazon.com (Kindle Direct Publishing) allows you to self-publish your books and make them available on Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Mac, and PC.

2. Free-Ebooks.net is the internet’s #1 source for free eBook downloads, eBook resources & eBook authors. Read & download eBooks for Free: anytime!

3. GetFreeEbooks.com is a free ebooks site where you can download totally free legal ebooks, available in various popular formats.

4. DocStoc.com is an electronic document repository and online store, aimed at the business community. Users can upload, share and sell their own documents, or purchase professional documents written in-house.

5. Scribd.com is a Web 2.0 based document-sharing website which allows users to post documents of various formats, and embed them into a web page using its iPaper format.

6. Lulu.com lets you make, self-publish, print & sell print-on-demand books, eBooks, photo books & calendars.

Do you think this has helped you learn how to market your eBook?

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Are you constantly writing bad reviews every day? If you can’t catch your readers attention, it means that you’re writing a bad review. Do you know what a good review looks like? Good reviews can motivate your readers to buy the product.

It is written specifically to raise the interest level of your readers so that at the end of the review article, the readers feel that they must take action immediately.

Here are 7 tips to avoid writing bad reviews:

1. Avoid placing bad photos or videos along with your review

Photos and videos are your asset to boost your review’s attraction. Your review will become easier to read if you include some photos and videos inside. However, you cannot include any kind of photo or video. Bad photos and videos will hurt your review. They will not help your review get better. What are examples of bad photos and videos? They are photos that are irrelevant with your review, and also videos that are not related with your review. Complimentary photos and videos are the best media that you can include.

Related Posts: Writing a Good SEO Article: 4 Tips

2. Take care of your first paragraph

The first paragraph of your review is your charm. How you engage with your readers and add more interest to the product will be determined on how well your first paragraph is. So, write the first paragraph of your review as interesting as possible.

3. Do not wander from your focus

Your focus is your product and your readers, not yourself. If you want to share personal information about the product, you can do it. But, keep your focus. Don’t tell them about yourself too much. Keep your review focused on talking about the product and your readers.

4. Give as much information as possible about the product

Your readers are craving more information about the product. They will not buy the product until they understand enough about it. Yes, most people are feeling insecure before buying any product. The questions in their mind are generally: “Should I buy this product?” “What if the product doesn’t work for me?” “This product seems good, but it is not popular. Should I trust this product? Should I use it?” To eliminate their insecurity, you have to give as much information as possible about the product.

5. Do not stop your readers’ step

When you’ve done writing a good review but fail to give your readers the next step to take, you will lose many sales from it. Why? Your readers usually don’t have a clue about where to buy the product and what the price of the product is. If you just write a review and not give your readers some information about where to buy the product and the price of the product, you are stopping their step to buy the product. Make them know where they can buy it and the price they must pay in order to get the it.

Related Posts: 5 Tips On How to Write a Great Blog

6. Help your readers to decide

Give your readers some help to decide whether the product is good for them or not. Inform your readers about the positive aspects and how they can benefit from the product. Your goal is to make your readers think: “Yes, this product is great, as I thought. I’ll buy this one.”

7. Give your own opinion about the product

At the end of your review, inform your readers about your side. Are you opposing the product or supporting the product? Give your opinion about the product based on your personal experience. How did the product make your life easier? Tell your readers why you’d like to recommend this product to them.

If you implement the tips above, you’ll be able to avoid writing a bad review for the products you promote. Remember, if you decide to write a review, craft your review as good as possible. Don’t let it to become a bad review, a review that doesn’t attract the interest of your readers.

How will these tips help you avoid writing bad reviews?

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Text message marketing or SMS (Short Message Service) marketing is an incredibly powerful promotional tool that has yet to reach its full potential. SMS marketing is at its infancy now and is experiencing phenomenal growth.

However, with anything that is as promising as text message marketing, there are always some kinks that need to be worked through.

Instead of calling these kinks “problems,” we’re going to look at them as “limitations.” The distinction is critical because SMS marketing is still evolving.

In the meantime, however, here are some surefire solutions to battle some of the more serious limitations with SMS marketing.

1. SMS are limited by space

This limitation is probably the most obvious and pervasive. Essentially, SMS are limited by 160-characters, and that, for a marketing tactic, is not a lot of space to write.

Beyond character space, SMS doesn’t provide a lot of space for graphics or images. Depending on the type of phone and operating platform, sometimes text message graphics are sent in a separate message than the content.

Solution:

If you must include a graphic, ensure that it contains all of your relevant promotional information. This saves you the off-chance that if you include content, it won’t be separated into several different messages.

Related Posts: How Marketers Can Use QR Codes and QR Code Readers

2. SMS are limited by mobile phones

Each cell phone – whether it’s a smartphone or a huge 1980s cell phone – is different. There are different models. There are different operating systems. There are different carriers.

You’re thinking, “So, what? Of course, cell phones are different!”

Well, this is a slight problem for SMS marketers. Take email programs: they’re pretty much universal across the board including operating systems (Windows or Mac) and free email programs (Hotmail or GMail). Most email programs have a similar set-ups including preview windows.

Mobile phones are different. Each make and model has different size screens, different text programs and different ways to view text messages. 

Solution: The simplest solution is to design, well, simply. Considering the variety of mobile phones available and the uncertainty of which subscriber has the most recent Android phone or a Nokia flip phone from 2003, its best to design with the lowest quality of phone in mind.

Related Posts: 4 Apps That Will Boost Your Business Productivity

3. SMS are limited by the instantaneous connection

Think about it: how often do you go back through your archived text messages? 

Now, think about how often do you go back through your archived email messages?

Chances are, you go through your emails far more often than you do with your text messages, if at all. And, what most likely happens that your SMS marketing subscribers view your message immediately and forget about it.

Solution: Actually, there are two solutions to this problem. First, do some research about when your subscribers actually redeem your promotions or act on your messages. Chances are they’re doing so after work hours, when they have time to digest your message and their focus isn’t on deadlines.

Second, encourage your SMS subscribers to opt in for your email marketing campaign. Segment these subscribers into a special category so that you can send duplicate promotional messages to them or email them friendly reminders that their SMS promotion is running out of time.

Do you respond to SMS marketing messages?

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Initially I wondered what in the world this book, written in and about scenarios during this country’s greatest economic crisis could offer in the way of business tips. However, comparing it to our nation’s dilemmas today, it appears to offer several reminders, at least five. Reflecting on an overview of the story set in California in the late 1930s, we find a country of haves and have-nots. Migrant workers, or drifters, like the two main characters, were prevalent; few of them had many skills or resources, but all had hopes and dreams. Practically speaking, the most they had was the clothes on their back and, if they were as fortunate as George and Lennie, had each other. These were desperate times; people were trying anything to make a living.

1. Establish Realistic Goals

My first quandary centered on contemplating what work these two were doing before the economy sunk so low. George’s character seems to be the sort that might have had gainful employment, able to provide for himself. While maybe Lennie would have possibly had a blue collar job, and living in a group home. Jobs not like what they dreamed of, but surviving. To set up a business, partners need to establish realistic goals.

Related Posts: 20 Productivity Tips for Small Business

2. Purpose of the Business; Financial Arrangements

Next you must assess what the purpose of the business will be, and what product or service it will provide. By doing this, you discover what employees you need to fulfill a timely outcome, i.e. how many people you need to pay to produce the best quality work. It is probably at this point you convene with your partner, and go over what budget is necessary to start the business and keep it operating in a healthy black.

In addition, you should discuss meeting with a financial advisor at a lending institution for their recommendations. If you have no collateral, as in the case of George and Lennie, the advisor may require funds for a sizeable operating reserve. At that point their role is to ask the bank advisor for help finding work so they can indeed earn the money needed. By being attentive to the dubiously sincere desires of the men and even trying to help them find work, the bank advisor indicates he wants them to be able to realize their dream. He also wants to instill careful, deliberate saving, and conscientious behavior, all qualities needed in the business world.

3. Job Descriptions

For each employee you will need a clear and concise job description so everyone knows what the company’s expectations are when they come to work. Of course it also helps to know what bearing on the total outcome your specific job has. This confirms the importance of each employee’s position. In our story it seemed the personalities acted off one another instead of having a particular purpose.

4. Understandable Policies and Procedures

Another way to ensure order in the workplace is to establish clear policies and procedures. It is important to identify requirements on how to accomplish various tasks, as well as how to relate to individuals in certain situations; how to handle grievances. Knowing when and how to ask for a day off in order to take care of the soft things in your life is part of those policies and procedures. Lennie would appreciate this as long as he kept his distance from Curley’s wife.

Related Posts: The Entrepreneur’s Guidebook – 26 Resources for Entrepreneurs

5. Work Environment

Employees thrive in an environment that nurtures trust and creativity. When an atmosphere of encouragement and possibility occur, all these will spill over into dealings with customers and clients. On the flip side, there is no room in a business for any type of put-downs, snobbery, or ridicule. In our story, unfortunately the economic times had contributed to magnifying these selfish qualities in the characters and brought out the worst in them. I really do not think this would have been an amicable team in a business venture; everyone was out for his own dream without considering the needs of the whole company.

Though the goal to achieve independence and realize your dreams is not a bad one, during economically fragile times, everyone considering a position with a company should be of the same mindset. In Of Mice and Men, I am not convinced any of the characters had what it takes to establish a successful business, but, indeed, we had a timely spring board from which to gain a few tips. It appears positive attributes for any business include realistic goals; purpose and financial arrangements; job descriptions; policies and procedures; and a healthy workplace environment.

What key business tips did you take away from this post?

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There are many common mistakes to avoid, and a few principles you should bear in mind.

A well-executed leaflet campaign can bring an excellent return on investment, but too many business leaflets are badly written and fail to make a real difference. One of the problems is that leaflet printing is so cheap and easy that anyone can run off several thousand and send them out via the Royal Mail or plaster them around town. The phenomenon of digital printing has made leaflets so ubiquitous that it has devalued the currency; people’s tolerance of reading new flyers has dropped, so that you really have to make an impact to succeed with your campaign.

Related Posts: Designing a Business Card that Converts into Sales

1. Avoid common mistakes

People realise that their leaflets have to make an impact on their audiences, and they go about this in various ways. Unfortunately, many of these are actually counter-productive. The good news for you is that if you can avoid similar mistakes, your flyers stand a chance of rising above the rest and being retained for future use.

You can get a sense of what works and what doesn’t by picking up a few examples of leaflets you find around you – in public spaces, in magazines, or delivered to your house. Bear in mind that most people will form a judgement within just a few seconds of starting to read a leaflet. That is all you have to hook their attention, and all you should take in your own research. Make two piles – one of good flyers and one of bad flyers based solely on first impressions – and then come back to them to work out what makes them successful or otherwise.

2. Leave them wanting more

Content is key, but there are ways to present your information. Your business leaflet is the equivalent of a movie trailer: it should not tell the customer everything, just enough to encourage them to take the next step. Too many leaflets cram in text in an attempt to include all they can. This is unnecessary, and can lead to a busy and chaotic feel. Simpler, cleaner leaflets are easier to read and more engaging. Similarly, style is important. Quirky and unusual is fine, so long as it serves a purpose, but elaborate or ornate presentation is generally a distraction. The same goes of images. A picture says much more than words, and thanks to digital printing it is now a cheap matter to produce colour images on your flyers. However, it must be a relevant image that brings something specific to the leaflet – not just a pretty but irrelevant design or photo.

Related Posts: Tips On Why People Impulse Buy and Making Impulse Merchandising Work For Your Store

3. Think like the customer

Many leaflets aim to instruct potential customers all about their business. This is a mistake. Customers are busy and have no real interest in your company, even if you have spent many years lovingly building it up. Their interest extends so far as it is of use to them. Instead of discussing you, then, think about what the reader’s needs are. If your business offers a product or service, find a way of asking a question that resonates with the customer’s needs. ‘Too busy to create the garden you would love to enjoy?’ says far more than simply cataloguing a list of services and leaving the reader to make the link for themselves.

4. Include what you need – but no more

Business leaflet writing is a real art, since it requires you to reduce your whole company to a few pithy sentences that describe its essence. Too much information is off-putting: readers don’t want to wade through unnecessary text. At the same time, though, make sure you include everything you need to, such as contact details. This balance is why writing a successful business leaflet is harder than it seems – but also why a good flyer can be a real asset.

Have you ever received a business leaflet in the mail that really caught your attention?

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So with Pinterest’s wild success in social media during the last half of 2011 and continuing through this year 2012, you knew some “Pinterest Clones” were going to have to find there way into the social media market. And without fail they have. 7 of them (at the time of this writing) have gained some popularity and actually have decent sized user bases.

Let’s take a look at each of the Pinterest Clones and see what they have to offer.

1. Pinspire.com

Pinspire looks exactly like Pinterest. A direct knock-off in fact. It claims to be more specificly engineered for cooking and fashion but isn’t that already pretty much covered with Pinterest? They have a pretty good sized community who seem to be quite active. All in all though it’s hard to see this network really lasting all that long because of how much they are blatently copying Pinterest.

2. Stylepin.com

Stylepin claims to be more specifically for fashion so it’s more of a niche Pinterest. Same photosharing “pin” like interface as Pinterest which makes it a so-called “clone.” The idea of focusing just on fashion is pretty intriguing and if your interests reside in that world you may find Stylepin more useful for you than Pinterest. The community appears to be much smaller however, even compared to the aforementioned Pinspire.

Related Posts: P.R.I.M.E.: The Five Pillars of Social Media

3. Thinng.com

Same interface concept as Pinterest but with a little bit of a twist. With Thinng the idea is to create lists of “things” that interest you. Thinng is more image/photo based compared to Pinterest, and that is saying alot being that Pinterest relies so heavily on images. Thinng has gained some serious steam and has quite a big community already. If any of the Pinterst clones are going to make it through the year still standing this is the one.

4. Gentlemint.com

A Pinterest for men is what Gentlemint is calling itself. This one is probably one of the more interesting Pinterest clones and might stand to have the most long-term success when all is said and done. Because Pinterest tends to be so much more for women than it is for men, Gentlemint could attract a very large social media crowd in a hurry. Only time will tell if they can actually keep up on the technology side to make it a smooth UI to work with. Men online tend to be picky about those types of things.

5. ReformRevolution.com

Reformrevolution is actually using WordPress as it’s technology infrastructure. Not sure how many people are actually using this but you may give it whirl and see if you the community using it suits you. The problem Reformrevolution has is that even though it’s trying to mimic many UI features of Pinterest, it’s actually lacking many of them in comparison to other Pinterest clones.

6. GetVega.com

Getvega is more of a Pinterest clone in concept than it is a rip-off of UI and design. It’s actually much more unique in it’s UI than any of the other mentioned Pinterest Clones which makes this social media outlet rather interesting. Getvega also is unique in that it dives more into the social bookmark management world which is something Pinterest really is not.

7. MingleWing.com

Minglewing covers all topics just like Pinterest does. What’s intersting about Minglewing is not only does it have the same typical “pin” type features and UI that Pinteret has, but it also focuses more on the discussion side of things. Calling itself a public discussion board. Like Stylepin this community is very small and if it doesn’t grow quickly you can probably bet we won’t be hearing from it anymore.

Plan on seeing more and more of these Pinterest clones being released over the coming months. It’s just something that tends to happen when these new types of social media outlets arise. Twitter clones happened like crazy back in 2006 when they released their new micro-blogging masterpiece. Remember the Facebook and MySpace clones? Oh yeah those too. And who can forget the hundreds of Digg clones that were popping up all over the web.

But I wouldn’t discourage anyone from giving these a try. Often times these “niche” clones can create great value for someone trying to promote a product, service, content, brand etc. They can help you build the right individual connections you need to thrive.

Have you tried any of these Pinterest Clones? Which one’s do you like?

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Social bookmarking sites have become increasingly popular these days as people tend to be more open to sharing their likes to either friends, family or even to the public. Bookmarking is simply tagging your favorite sites and sharing them to others on the web. A social bookmarking site allows those websites you like to be tagged, categorized and organized. These bookmarked sites can also be used by others to add to their compilation and again, share with others.

Since it has grown its popularity, there have been a long list of top social bookmarking sites out there that sifting through all them can be a tedious job and you may end up with a headache! For instance, if you are new to the idea of social bookmarking, you might experience having a hard time in choosing which social bookmarking site to use. This article aims to help internet marketers take a glimpse at 15 of the best social bookmarking sites that, despite stiff competition, these still stand out from the rest.

Here is a List of the Top Social Bookmarking Sites to Check Out & Explore

Digg

If you want a social bookmarking site where you can browse front page stories, search for a particular story, or submit your own story, then Digg is for you. One of the more popular free social bookmarking sites, Digg will let you be in charge and in authority of what goes on the site’s front page. That is, if your story gets into the front page or in the Top News section and if it gets enough votes from the Digg community. The Digg community though, is more focused on items of the geeky technology-type.

Reddit

Reddit’s tag line tells it all: ‘the front page of the internet. This is a social bookmarking site that is more news oriented. Sort of a popularity contest, a story that gets more votes gets more traffic. Simply register with a username and password and you’re good to go, start submitting and sharing your sites and bookmarks.

Twitter

With its growing popularity as a social networking site, Twitter is one of the easiest social bookmarking sites to use. Use your 140 characters (only) wisely to broadcast the content you want. But don’t worry about having to force your URL to be shorter because you will get lots of aids from HootSuite and other similar sites.

Delicious

Delicious enables you to post sites interesting to you, subscribe to tags which will notify you, and make adding sites easily to your personal compilation of links with an option of categorizing them, and sharing them. It is easy to use and has grown much of its popularity after being purchased by Yahoo.

StumbleUpon

Form a habit of searching the web with this site that has a mix of web surfing, networking, social bookmarking, voting and blogging in one. With this site, you are sure to find wonderful sites shared to you every single day. StumbleUpon is owned by eBay and has a user base of about 3 million, so when you use this site you are surely to send major traffic.

Furl

File Uniform Resource Locators or FURL, before it became part of Diigo, offers free services to allow you to save the most important items you find on the web on your own searchable database, and when you want to find it again, you may easily do. With this site you have your own personal archive of lists where you can preserve old links and search through saved bookmarks, which can go anywhere with you.

Mixx

Mixx used to be a popular do-follow social bookmarking sites that offers different types of content like news, videos, stories, and popular stories. You can find a list of categories here you will surely enjoy. Unfortunately in October 4, 2011, the Mixx website has been shutdown and in December 6, 2011, visiting Mixx will redirect you to Chime.in

Slashdot

Slashdot’s famed tagline says it is a news site for nerds. Mostly used by tech savvy groups, system administrators and programmers, Slashdot is quite a powerful bookmarking site with a strong shift toward Linux and Open Source issues.

Clipmarks

Clipmarks allow you to clip the best parts of web pages such as a paragraph, sentence, image, or videos. This is great for researchers who are only after the juicy stuff, and do not mind the other parts on the page.

Newsvine

A site acquired by MSNBC.Com and dedicated to journalism as the stories available are from established media organizations (big or small), Newsvine allows everyone to read, contribute, and discuss, with the judging done by the community. The placement of each story is made through popularity, reputation and freshness.

Diigo

Diigo is a useful and fun web tool used to save favorite sites, as well as put sticky notes on sites, highlight things you like, and comment on things you are interested about. Considered to be a big part of this community are educators and students.

DZone

Finally, DZone is the site mostly followed by architects, senior developers, and IT managers. This social bookmarking site allows you to submit your own content as well as join in discussions or get discounts.

How to Submit to Social Bookmarking Sites: Manual or Automatic?

The biggest problem faced by an internet marketer who uses free social bookmarking sites is the manual submission of sites or articles which often eats up a hefty amount of time. However, thanks to the availability of innovative services which now automates bookmark submission. Here are some sites that one can avail in order to make submitting bookmarks hassle- and worry-free.

• SocialAdr is one of the best tools you can use to help you bookmark sites! Guaranteed easy-to-use, convenient, and fully-automated, SocialAdr makes it possible to bookmark your content on other users bookmark accounts with a simple click of your mouse. You may use the free tool but you may also use the paid option which, of course, offers more feature.

• Another option is to use Bookmarking Demon, which is an application that automates the process of submitting links to social bookmarking sites. Aiming to save you time and energy, Bookmarking Demon allows you to bookmark multiple URLs at the same time, schedule your bookmarking jobs, and even randomize your account name and bookmark titles to keep things appear less spammy. It is also a good tool in increasing traffic and achieving a higher search engine ranking. But to avail all of these services, the Bookmarking Demon has a price tag attached to it. But we have to agree, using this tool is worth the price!

• Last but the least on our list, Social Marker is an automated service that allows you to submit blogs, articles, videos, or links of a site to many other social bookmarking sites. This service is free but there is also the paid automated software option. What makes Social Marker cool is its ability to help you spread a link to 50 top social bookmarking sites in less than 15 minutes! Some other services it provides are getting backlinks for your site, get your link indexed by Google, and of course, increase traffic to your website.

Social Bookmarking Sites Will Boost Your Online Presence

Now that you know which can be tagged as the best social bookmarking sites, you are now a step closer to getting that big SEO boost you’ve long awaited for. Target the proper sites that allow you to work fast and accurate on bookmark submission, and watch how this top social bookmarking sites list can make an impact your presence online.

What are your favorite social bookmarking sites?

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It goes without saying that all of us want the most from our investments. The point of putting our money into something is about getting returns! Now, winning your bid for a keyword on the Google paid services, only means that you will now be paying a cost-per-click with the hope to escalate your business. But the catch with CPC is that not everything turns into money. You have an investment, against which you expect to earn – and most certainly you do; but are you meeting the maximum profit margin?

To help attain that situation and affirmatively answer the above question, the best way would be to analyze and strategically use information like the AdWords Conversion Tracking Data and use other web analytics tools to understand consumer behavior. Conversion optimization is all about this and working around the maximum cost – per – action that you desire – so that you make manifold profits for the same bid. So here’s how we go about it:

• Enable conversion tracking data:

The first step is to have the tracking data records for at least a month. Moreover, you need to be having at least a bag full of conversions in the ratio 1 per two days in a month – only then it’s worth it! And if you are working with Google, then this is a minimum requirement. Once you are progressing on these lines, we can step in with the conversion optimizer tool that they offer. Other search engines have other tools and web analytics can help on the same lines. The main point is to have the data.

Most conversion patterns are as seen above. The attempt should be to keep the base as broad or deep as possible. Ideally, there should be as low a bounce rate as possible and as high an ROI rate as possible.

• Analyze the data and take action:

When it comes to the conversions optimization tools that are available, they will help you in making the right bid. On Google, the tool strategically places your advertisement based on your records, in a way that maximum clicks are those that convert into real buys. Business people have reported almost 20% improvement for the same bids by making the choice to use such a tool.

Other information about user behaviors and actions are not entirely used in this electronic process. Here’s where you step in with your engineers to take action.

For instance, your website layout – how user friendly is it? Are you using the right colors to endorse your brand? Is the user comfortable with the site?

• Testing the elements of your website:

It is important to know the aspects of your website which can contribute to better conversions, if evaluated and improved. You have to be working in the right direction! Guesswork or blind faith in expert advice can be detrimental – in other words, simply believing that a page needs to be improved so that you get more conversions, isn’t a good idea. It’s important to understand what your customer is looking for when you are taking developmental action. The core focus should be on value proposition for your page and consequently, your website. The attempt should not only be to catch their attention, but also to hold the visitor’s attention and encourage him to make that purchase.

• Be Opportune and offer Opportunities:

In simple words, it’s about the opportunities available and the opportunities that you can create. First of all, know what your customer would love – that is your opportunity to win his love and money. And offer him something exciting, possibly a contest or freebeis to win their trust and interest. You could offer trial options for 2 weeks or a particular duration so that the customer can evaluate your product and be more sure to want it.

Such strategies have been known to positively affect many PPC campaigns, increasing conversion rates by 20 to 50% as well.

• Review and strategizing:

Conversion optimization is entirely like a circle of activity, which require constant review and acting upon. What actions need to be taken and results of the changes that have been made should be evaluated. And based on that, the further course of action needs to be planned.

At the end of the day, better usability and better proximity to the prospective client will always strengthen your business. So, keeping with these 5 steps to conversion optimization is certainly going to benefit your business – why wait?

What is your businesses conversion optimization rate?

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Keeping a small business flourishing in a bad economy often proves to be a difficult task. Are you searching for ways to make your business more productive? Being an owner of a small business in this day and time often means working long hours and finding promising solutions to problems that threaten to sink the business.

Listed below are 20 productivity tips that will help keep your small business on top.

1. Keep your vision in mind. You can often lose sight of your vision for your business. To be the most productive, remind yourself of your vision daily. Why are you in business?

2. Realize that you can’t be perfect. Let perfection go out the window! You won’t be able to please every single person that you do business with. While you should always give 100%, sometimes it is simply not good enough for those hard to please consumers.

3. Let family members help lighten the load every now and then. If you have family members offering to help, let them get involved. Free labor equals more productivity.

Related Posts: 4 Apps That Will Boost Your Business Productivity

4. Say “no” if you can’t handle any more work. There may come a time when you have to turn customers away. Don’t take on more than you can handle or hire more help if you need to.

5. Don’t sleep in. Being productive in a small business means you will have to do a lot of the work yourself. Arrive at work early and sleep in late.

6. Make a “to do” list each day and don’t stop until you complete it. Keep an agenda of the things you need to do each day.

7. Keep realistic goals. Make sure you are setting unrealistic goals that will serve only to sink your business.

8. Take breaks. Not too many! Breaks can help increase productivity.

9. Stay away from social media websites that can take up time. Have a “no social media” rule while you are at work for you and your employees.

10. Create a schedule. Live by a schedule. Set time aside that you will work and make the most of every second.

11. Delegate properly. You can’t do it ALL so be sure to delegate properly.

12. Prioritize your work. Prioritizing can increase productivity. Set deadlines for yourself and your employees.

13. Motivate your employees. Be sure to offer motivation for your employees to be productive. Offer monthly bonuses or rewards.

Related Posts: 5 Time Management Tips to be More Productive

14. Focus on removing problems that may be causing a decrease in productivity. If your employees are having trouble focusing and not getting enough work done, remove problems. Block facebook or do not allow personal phone calls unless they are an emergency.

15. Too many meetings take up valuable time. Don’t spend valuable time meeting. Spend the time putting plans into action. Keep meetings minimal. Email may work better.

16. Train people to complete their work successfully. If you want to increase productivity you may have to give your employees the ability to do so. Consider offering training for people to complete their work successfully.

17.  Give you and your employees the resources to successfully complete jobs. Offer the proper resources to ensure that you and employees CAN complete the job. Make sure equipment is up to standard.

18. Stay positive. A negative attitude will serve only to deter your employees from being productive. Remember that you are the leader of the company. How you act will have an impact on how your employees act. Stay positive.

19. Do you have a mentor? A mentor can help keep you on the right path. He or she can give you ideas on how to increase your productivity and hold your hand through the process.

20. Time to get away! Be sure that through all the hassle of increasing productivity that you don’t forget to be refreshed every now and then. Make sure that you allow time for yourself to recollect. Overworking yourself will only cause you to be less productive. Take some time off every now and then.

Use the 20 tips listed above to help your small business be more productive and learn how to multitask.

Will focusing on these productivity tips give your business a better chance for success?

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Blogs, also known as weblogs, are the new great thing business owners make use as a business strategy. Starting a blog and submitting content only, will not make hundreds of people reading your blog. Some effort and marketing knowledge must come at work, so your blog will be more “noticeable”.

1. Increase Your Blog Traffic Through Social Media – Any blog should have an intimate feel. The blog owner/writer should try and reach people on a personal level. And what other way of doing that than using social media?

• Facebook – Considered one of the ultimate promotional methods, Facebook fan pages can really bring more followers to your blog. You can make people aware of your Facebook page by adding a widget on your blog. People are really drawn to contests, animated content, competitions, and surprises; allow them to access those by “Liking” your Facebook page. Design interesting “Subscription” forms and redirect the visitors back to your blog.
• Twitter – Those 140 character messages can really do wonders, if used correctly. Tweet smart, in a personal way, encourage people to ask you questions, answer even to the silliest things, use proper tags. Associate “business” tweets with “meaningful” ones and you’ll gain the sympathy and trust of your followers.
• YouTube – Create short, high quality videos to promote your blog. Avoid using the generic PowerPoint/Keynote presentations. Instead, try talking to your camera. Address the public in a kind, considerate way. You can even try and do some comic sketches.
• Market Me Suite/TweetDeck/Hootsuite – These are all application that allow logging in to different social media accounts at once. You’ll have the option to update your Facebook page, Twitter, Myspace in a single hit.
• Google+ – Similar to Twitter, but newer, this social media network is a new weapon for boosting your blog traffic. Sharing links, photos, video related to your blog has never been easier and more effectife.

Related Posts: 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

2. Increase Your Blog Traffic Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – According to Google.com, over 3 billion searches are made every day. There is a massive traffic opportunity out there, if you know how to make your blog content SEO friendly.

SEO friendly platforms, WordPress, Jamoola, Drupal, are easy to set up and “Beginner’s Guides” and tutorials are all over the internet. Bloggers tend to be afraid of SEO for many reasons, the main one being the bad reviews and experiences with spammers.

Done correctly, SEO will bring you hundreds of people seeking exactly your posted content. In a 100% context, 20% SEO will get you 80% traffic. There isn’t any greater reward than that. The following are some great SEO tactics:

• Meta Keywords, Description & Robots tag
• Title Tag
• Body Text
• The first sentence in the Body Text & the first words used/sentence
• The URL
• The H1 and H2 Texts
• Same Site Link Texts
• Same Site Link URLs
• Keyword Density (8% is perfect)
• IMG Alt Tags
• Outbound Link Text

3. Increase Your Blog Traffic By Monitoring Your Analytics – What should a blogger monitor on his website:

• Number of visitors / day or in a certain period of time
• Number of visitors per blog post
• The time a visitor spent on the blog
• The Bounce Rate (The number of visitors who enter the website, but leave without reading other pages belonging to the same site)

The next step is improving the content that has been the most successful. Try adding new information or update it with images or video. Add a widget to your blog showing the number of visitor per day, or feature the number of viewers on each article. That way, your articles will get even more attention. Take notice of your top performing days of the week/month and try adding an extra post on that particular day.

4. Increase Your Blog Traffic Through Post Frequency – Make a plan and stick to it! Posting random content, at different hours and different days of the week will turn your blog into a mess. Your visitors should have something to look forward to. There isn’t such thing as the perfect frequency scheme (x articles/day, x days/week), but you can try out a few ones and see how they work for you. For example:

• Number of articles/day: 2
• Number of days/week: 7
• Period of time: 6 months

And then -> MONITOR YOUR ANALYTICS (See point 3.)

Don’t post long articles; they should be around 400 words. If it comes out longer, try and split it into two different articles and post them one after another, with different titles. Try the above scheme and the results will be self-explanatory.

Related Posts: Stumbleupon Marketing Tips – 4 Essential Steps to Drive Traffic

5. Increase Your Blog Traffic Through E-mail Marketing – When used correctly, e-mail marketing is a powerful tool to increase the number of visitors on your blog. This few steps, done exactly in that order, will teach you how to take advantage of the e-mail marketing:

• Get Visitors To Subscribe Via Your Blog Newsletter – People, who are willing to give you their personal e-mail address, as subscribers, do it for 2 reasons. Either they are subscribing for a free product (video, content, course, etc.) or they simply like your content. Offering a free product has been reported to be the most effective.
• Don’t Spam! – As they opt-in, let your subscribers know how often they will receive newsletters. Make it a maximum of 3 newsletters per week so people won’t feel bombarded.
• Promote the Blog – The content of your newsletters should also be SEO friendly.
• Segment Your Subscribers List – Categorize your subscribers by activity, time zone, interest in your newsletters, etc. Using an autoresponder, e-mailing will become much easier.

These tips and tactics will get you the traffic flow you’ve always dreamed of. And remember, the more effort you put in your blog, the more visitors that appreciate it you’ll get!

What is your favorite and biggest source of blog traffic?

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