4 Internet Marketing Reviews

In my last blog, I introduced the topic of web sites. Web sites and sales pages are your virtual showroom for your online business. This is where your potential customers come to see if you have something that they need. They got there because you have attracted prospects to your pages using a number of tactics including the fact that search engines should find your sites. Now I would like to touch on the topic of search engine optimisation (seo). It’s a big topic so all I plan to do in this email is make you aware of it. 

The bottom line of seo is to get your web page ranked on page 1 of the organic listings when people search on a phrase or word that is important in your chosen niche. As an example, in one of the niches that I operate in wearing a consultancy hat, the term “management cybernetics” is crucial. I have just done a Google search and the term has my company site www.phrontis.com listed third in the rankings for page 1. If you carry out many of the activities discussed in the nine preceding emails then they will have an impact on your search ranking. 

So what will help you get a good ranking? There are many factors that work in combination with each other. Firstly, the web page must be clearly focused on a particular customer niche and use key words and phrases as part of the page content that are consistent with that niche. Good quality content is essential in the longer term! Good Headings and sub-headings will also help in ranking. You also have to give thought to the content required for tags and meta-tags. (Tags, part of the underlying web page background structure, have not been discussed in this introductory set of emails but they are important and will be covered in other briefings or blogs.)  

Once your web page is optimised for search engines, you then need to look at connectivity - what and who connects to your web pages. Provided that the links are relevant, the more links to your web page(s) that you have the better. That is where your blogs can help; and these blogs and variations of them posted elsewhere will certainly help. So will the free ads and paid for ads help to improve the page ranking because of the links to your web page. A further benefit can come from the Social Networking sites linking back to your site provided that you respect the etiquette of the individual site. Do not become a social spammer - you will be ignored if you do. 

Well I hope that this final blog has brought all of the activities of online business together for you and given you a better appreciation of what internet marketers get up to. Remember this is a very quick introductory overview - there is a lot to learn if you are new to online business and want to do most of the work yourself.

In my previous blog, I introduced the topic of email marketing systems. As you may recall these systems capture the details of your leads into an opt-in/opt-out database that becomes your list and to which you can send offers or other helpful material as a way of maintaining your relationships with these prospects. Now I would like to consider the topic of web sites. 

Do I need a web site? Well it depends. If you currently run an online business the chances are that you already have a web site that describes or promotes your products or services. If are an affiliate marketer (have joined an internet marketing program or sell other peoples’ products and services thereby earning a commission) then you no doubt have access to a web site and a sales page. Here are two examples of this: to see my program web site visit http://Phrontis.edcdiamond.com  ; to see one of my sales pages visit  http://phrontis.aonetimeoffer.com/CompleteWeb.aspx.  

If you are totally new to internet marketing or setting up an online business then, assuming that you have developed a business plan, you absolutely have to have a web site. You need this immediately if you have a product or service to sell. If you start by joining an internet marketing program while you learn what it’s all about then you can delay having your own web site and rely on the resources of the program that you have joined. But the time will come when you need a web site to start selling “yourself” by marking yourself out as a trusted authority and as someone who has the knowledge and ability to help others. It is best to know this at the start so that you incorporate this into your planning and self-development cycle. 

So what does establishing a web site entail? Well, you need to: 

•  find an internet service provider (ISP) who can host your site; 

•  select a domain name and register it , that is your URL or web address example www.netwealthmaker.com ; 

•  decide either to engage a web developer or do-it-yourself - the latter option does seem daunting at first but it can be done; 

•  agree or decide on the design / appearance of your web site; 

•  develop content for the web pages and be sure to include a lead capture system; 

•  upload it to your site and test each page to ensure that it behaves in the way that your expected it to.  

My sales page web link above includes all you are likely to need to establish a web presence in terms of software products. Note that especially if you are going to do-it-yourself, make sure that you choose an ISP that is readily available by telephone. In this case be careful not to select the cheapest ISP cost plan - you will need your ISP’s help over the phone.

In my blog yesterday, I talked about using f.r.ee advertisements as a way to drive customers to you web site or sales pages. Today I will introduce email marketing software often mistakenly known as autoresponders. Mistakenly because most email marketing programs are a lot more than autoresponders. 

But first, why should you need email software? Is this not just another unnecessary expense? Well imagine that you have been doing all the good work of list building and you have 100 or more subscribers on your list. Using your own email software may be possible when your subscriber list is small but when you are seen to be mailing the same email to several hundred or more you are likely to encounter difficulties from ISPs (internet service providers). You could well be accused of spamming. And current anti-spamming legislation in North America and increasingly elsewhere means you need to exercise caution if you do not want a lawsuit on your hands. Managing unsubscribe requests starts to become a major headache as your list grows in size. You need to be able to offer your subscribers the possibility to both opt-in to your list and to opt-out of your list. 

There are several emailing software programs that you can subscribe to as an entrepreneur or small business. For the larger organizations there may well be a case for running your email software system in-house provided you have the necessary technology with backup in place, people to support the technology and access to appropriate legal advice. 

So what should you be looking for in selecting your email software system? Email deliverability is vital for your success. A trusted source is more likely to get delivered because they are known to be operating within the law and do not tolerate spammers. You may have noted that when I used the word free I typed it as fr.e.e or variations of this. I did this deliberately to show some of the tricks that spammers use to get their email delivered. This will not always work. Most ISPs use anti-spam systems to reduce unsolicited email for their customers. That is why the chance to opt-in / opt-out is so important. With this you are able to prove that your subscriber elected to join your list. And when the subscriber wishes to unsubscribe from the list, s/he can go to the bottom of the email and click on the unsubscribe link and it is done immediately.

Additionally, you should be able to: send out newsletters as a mass email without any problem; create sign-up forms that are located on your website or sales page; carryout email web analytics; and automatically send out emails for whatever purpose (eg, a welcome to my subscriber list with perhaps more information or a free gift) as soon as someone has subscribed to your list or taken some other requested action - aka an autoresponder. There are a number of email marketing systems to choose from but the one I recommend and use is aweber since they have been operating for 10 years and really know what they are doing plus they offer excellent training and support. See for yourself at http://www.tony-gill.aweber.com  

Previously I talked about using paid advertisements as a way of driving customers to your web site or sales pages. Now I will introduce some f.r.ee web sites where you can place your “not paid for” advertisement.

The principles for writing the advertisements remain the same as that for paid ads (explained in my blog yesterday) but you need to follow the guidelines for each of the sites. In many cases you are permitted to have a greater word count. Some of the sites restrict the number of times you can place the same advert (eg, Craig’s List) anywhere on their site. 

Following good marketing practice you need to tailor your ad to the niche you intend to operate in. Many of the sites expect you to select a category to place your ad in. In time, search engines will find your ad but do not expect any high placements in the organic links. 

Writing ads takes a lot of creative energy and time but they can deliver results if you are persistent. Many of the no cost ad sites do offer a premium (ie, paid) service where they commit to giving you greater visibility. Depending on what niche you operate in, it may be worth giving it a try once you have seen the results of the f.r.e.e service. The cost will certainly be lower than Google, Yahoo or MSN but you definitely will not get the same expose that these mainstream operators give. 

So where can you place your fr.e.e ad? As you might guess there are many places on the internet. I did a quick search using the phrase “place free ads online”. This yielded 1.9 million links on Google. You could narrow your search by including your market niche in the search phrase. For instance “place free ads online antique books”. Whatever you do it makes sense to only use the sites that come up in the first few pages of your search. Some sites that I have used are: http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites and http://www.backpage.com/classifieds/index. In the UK you may wish to consider http://www.friday-ad.co.uk/.

If you are using Social Networking sites you may also be able to post ads there.

In my last blog, I talked about recognised ways of driving customers to you web site or sales pages. I touched on some obvious offline methods and introduced the importance of blogging as a key online way to get traffic to your sites.

But yesterday I omitted to mention how to start a blog. Visit http://wordpress.com/ where you can signup for a blogging site without cost. If you can use an email or word processing software package you will soon learn how to blog. Yes this will give you a basic blog but at least it is a start.

Another way to drive traffic to your site is by placing advertisements on specific sites. Here you have the possibility of paid or free advertising. If you are time poor it is best to used paid ads; if you are time rich and probably cash poor then you will place free ads. I will cover free ads tomorrow.

There are many sites where you can place paid ads on. Yahoo, MSN and Google immediately come to mind. There are many others but it is best left for you to discover these as you begin to really understand your specific online niche and what sites others in it are using. For today I will stay with Google since at least 2 out of every 3 online searches are undertaken using Google. So, if you make an effort to learn how to use Google, the others will be quite similar. Visit http://www.google.com/ and click on Advertising Programs. Once on the Advertising Programs page, read the instructions for setting up an account - you will need to give your credit card details. If you do setup an advertising campaign, ensure that you set your daily maximum spend to a level that you are comfortable with or you may face some unexpected large amounts on your credit card bill.

Typically, your advert has four lines. The first will (hopefully for you) contain the key word or phrase that someone has typed into their search. The second and third lines contain a few words and phrases that indicate what the site visitor will find on your page. The forth line gives the site address where you can be found - your URL. If the searcher clicks on either the first or fourth lines they will be taken to your page.

Now do a Google search using a word or phrase about something you would like to promote. Look at the sponsored (or paid) links on the top and right hand side of the page. This is where your advert will appear. While Google does offer help in finding useful key words or phrases (the important words or phrases that people will use to search on) you may be intimidated initially. On the page where you have just done a search, the adverts on pages 1 and 2 give good clues as to what works (at a price). The adverts are not copyright and are in the public domain so you may attempt some creative swiping. And do not forget to use your own URL! Of course the more popular a word or phrase is the more you will pay for it.

Follow the rest of the instructions that Google give to setup your account and place your advertisement. Soon you should expect to see some activity either through your list growing, sales or whatever you were offering visitors to your page. It is always a good idea to visit your account page at Google (or wherever you choose to go) and check your stats.

Yesterday I talked about affiliate programs as a way to start-up your online business. Now I want to focus on building customer relationships. In the first blog of this series of 10, I mentioned the importance of list building and the need to get people to visit your web site or sales page but I did not really offer any suggestions on how to get them there. 

These next few blogs will concentrate on recognised ways of driving customers to you web site. This can be done online as well as offline. The decision on which is best for you lies in the niche your business occupies, where most of your prospective customers are located and the type of product or service you offer.  

Let us consider a few offline methods. Certainly the tactic of placing short advertisements that include your web site address (known as a URL or universal resource locator) in relevant newspapers and magazines has worked well for some. Another idea is the use of automobile bumper stickers or the magnetic equivalent placed on the side of your automobile. What you need is a catchy slogan that summarises your offering plus your URL. And do not forget the obvious one as part of your voice mail system - be sure to include your URL with your message.  

Now I have to mention the first important online method - blogging. Blogging has moved on a great deal since a man with a mission (and it usually was a man who was often a techie) told the world what was on his mind. Life changed enormously with the arrival of search engines such as Yahoo and Google who started to rank key words and phrases. And with the possibility of linking these keywords or phrases back to your web site this was manor from heaven. When you enter a search word or phrase into a search engine it displays organic links and content on the main left side of the screen and sponsored (paid for) links on the top and right hand side of the screen. Through blogging and a good web page your aim is to be positioned on page 1 of the organic links in your chosen niche. It is hard work but it can be done without cost other than time. 

And if you write good or useful material then people will subscribe to your list assuming that you have a subscription form on your page. Once people have subscribed then you need to maintain their interest with interesting articles or offers on a periodic basis. In this way you are building a relationship with them. 

Following my practice of always giving an example of what I am talking about I offer two blog URLs.  

Example 1 - visit http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ this blog offers a serious commentary on topical issues and is excellent. Note the consistency of the blogs over time. 

Example 2 - visit http://www.4internetmarketingreviews.com/ this blog is one of my early attempts to start blogging.

Note the inconsistency. At the time of writing this email the last posting to my blog was in April 2008. However, I did a search on 2nd October 2008 using the phrase “doing internet marketing” and I was positioned top of the 5th page on organic links to my surprise. Of course I will be remedying this by posting more blogs henceforth.

Previously I talked about products and / or services that you can deliver to your online customers. But what if you have no products or services to offer for now and want to become an online entrepreneur? This calls for some out of the box thinking. 

Think for a moment about the business world around you. In many towns and villages there are local markets where the trader buys items in bulk and sells the goods to passers-by. The trader lives on his ability to attract potential customers, display his goods in an attractive manner and persuade customers to part with their money ie, selling. Hopefully the sale is at a higher price than cost price resulting in a profit. 

Effectively, this is what happens online. Your display of goods or services is done on your web or sales page. This has no purpose unless you can drive potential customers to these sites. The selling process takes the form of you describing the benefits that the customer is likely to get from your product or service on the web or sales page. If you have been sufficiently persuasive, the customer has a need for your product or service and your price is right then the customer will click on the Buy Button ie, part with their cash. 

As in the local market, you need to build up trust between you and your customers. That is why honesty and ethical behaviour are so important. Perhaps you have heard the expression that “the money is in the list”. Perhaps this needs to be revised to “the money is in the relationship (or goodwill) that you have with your list”. 

Now back to my earlier question. So you are still determined to be an online entrepreneur but have no product or service to offer. The answer may sound obvious but you can sell other people’s products online. You join an organization’s affiliate program. Amazon has such a program. Bella-Italia has one see http://www.bella-italia.com/affiliate.html. eBay has one - visit https://www.ebaypartnernetwork.com/files/hub/en-US/index.html . So does American Express if you visit their website and click on affiliates at the bottom of the page. If you surf the web you may just be surprised at who offers affiliate programs. And many of them are big household names. Unlike the market trader, you have no direct cost of the product you sell. You attract commissions from each person that purchases online as a result of your efforts. 

An alternative way is to join an organization through payment of an entry fee. Here you usually get a set of digital products to sell, a web site and a choice of sales pages complete with payment system. Some also have a recruitment element where you are paid a sizeable fee. This is the approach I adopted to get started and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of online training of all kind that was available. Visit http://Phrontis.edcdiamond.com and explore the numerous pages. If you are new to internet marketing (that is really what online entrepreneurs do) this is a good entry point. 

Yesterday I talked about the sales page with its two aspects of copywriting and payment systems. Today I will start to introduce products and / or services that you can deliver to your online customers. 

Products, in an online sense, can be either physical or digital. Physical products are those that you can touch and are made from some material that is natural or processed / manufactured. Examples include: books purchased from Amazon; a car bought over eBay; and groceries sourced from your online retailer. A logistics process is involved where either the product is brought to you or you have to collect the product. Digital products are those that can be delivered over the internet and often this delivery process is automated. Examples include: music paid for and downloaded from iTunes; eBooks or reports. Quite often, you will make your online purchase of digital products from a sales page which includes a payment system - the topic of my previous email to you. 

With fast internet access that comes with broadband connectivity, many services can be provided remotely. This has given those who have appropriate skills the ability to work for themselves from the comfort of their homes. Examples include: web designers; search engine optimizers; publishers; editors working on journals and other publications; data entry; telephone reception services; personal assistants; accounting services; mentoring and coaching; online learning systems and content developers, and the delivery of such training. 

For the would-be online entrepreneur, offering a product and/or service is definitely a viable proposition provided that you are fairly confident that there is a market for what you are offering. 

As in my previous emails, I believe that there is nothing better than concrete illustrations that demonstrate what I have just explained. Here think Amazon or iTunes. Further examples are: The Complete Millionaire Mind Set Collection - visit http://tinyurl.com/3fvnej  ; and The Complete Web Design Software Package - visit  http://tinyurl.com/3rgsyu . 

But what if you do not have any products or services to offer for now and want to become an online entrepreneur? That is the topic for tomorrow. That’s all for now.

Yesterday I talked about the need for list building. Today I will introduce one type of selling process - the sales page. The sales page combines two aspects: copywriting (as in advertising) and payment systems.

Copywriting is one of those creative skills that are acquired from hard work and practice. It combines good writing skills with an understanding of buyer psychology. In the case of the sales page, the purpose is to describe the features of the product or service and then to go on to define the benefits - why you need it - in such a compelling way that you are inclined to agree and want to take action now, such as, pull out your credit card and make the purchase.

Many of us have bought something online - a book, DVD, music or even our groceries. And in most cases we have paid for the item by credit or debit card. So if you have an online business you need to have some way of getting paid. Most will go to their banks and work with their online merchant services. But there are alternatives for the small business or entrepreneur. PayPal is one that many are familiar with especially if you have bought anything on eBay. SafePay and AlertPay are others; and it might be worth checking what Google has to offer.

Once again, the best way to see this in action is through an example or two. Do click the Buy Now button and you will be taken to a secure web site where you will be asked for your credit card details. DO NOT give your card details unless you really want the item.

Example 1 - click on http://tinyurl.com/3kjoat    What “tricks” did you note on the sales page? Remember, only enter your credit card details if you really want the item.

Example 2 - click on http://tinyurl.com/3qkvwp   Here I want you to watch the video and look at the rest of the sales page afterwards. Note the benefits, followed by the features (highlighted in blue) and the testimonials from satisfied customers followed by the ORDER NOW button. NOTE if you really do want the service described here go to http://tinyurl.com/46rwlf   where can get it and save a fortune.

That’s it for now.

Over the next 10 days or so I would like to share with you some of the Must Know aspects of Internet Marketing. This takes the form of a total overview of online business in plain language before you begin to delve in deeper as you will need to. If you plan to or have just started running an Online Business then this is for you. Of course you may already be familiar with some of the techniques but may I suggest you read further and click on the links where appropriate - you may just learn something from an alternative approach.

In any business, you need customers, and I assume that you have identified your specific customer niche. Next you need a product or service to offer. Then you need a payment system in place. And of course a virtual presence - a website that tells your customers what you’ve got to offer and how to get it. Then you’ve got to promote your business. Simple!

At the beginning, the key reason to do promotions is to build your potential customer base – internet marketers call this “list building”. Remember, the value of your business lies in your list or better still the relationship you have with this list. Your list contains potential or actual customers who will buy from you on a regular basis provided you continue to offer products or services they need.

So how do you build your list? You have to give your potential customer or prospect a compelling reason to follow your request of clicking a link. The link takes them to a web page or sales page where at some point they are required to give at least a name and an email address. This data is captured in a database and you have a prospect / potential customer. Most quality database systems or email marketing systems will comply with anti-spam regulations and will then send the customer an email asking them to opt-in (by clicking on a link in the email) or ignore the email. Of course if the potential customer chooses to ignore the email then the prospect does not get what they are after.

An example is the best way to illustrate this. If you follow through to completion I will give you a gift at no charge. At anytime thereafter you will be able to unsubscribe. So CLAIM YOUR GIFT - click on http://tinyurl.com/4hx9ay

That’s all for now.