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Localized methods for Alabama
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Internet marketing tips for AtHome America in Alabama
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the AtHome America Tips Blog
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Are people making revenue on the net?
You're doing business in Alabama or maybe Alabama is the place you live. You're marketing a product or service and you desire to promote your product or service to customers who reside in Alabama and various other places as well. You've read that consumers are spending money head over heels each day shopping online and you're dead set on figuring out how you can earn money from the internet.
Truth #1
People do make good money on the web, but it's likely not you.
Truth #2
Business owners that do make the money, are not necessarily smarter than you.
Truth #3
The difference in the 'haves' and 'have-nots' is not measured by any number of college degrees, but rather by the application of a few common sense strategies. The difference in the 'haves' and 'have-nots' is not measured by any number of college degrees, but rather by the application of a few common sense strategies.
Are you one of the following?
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A person involved with AtHome America
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A entrepreneurial business, with products or services of your own?
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Typical homeowner with a garage overflowing with 'stuff' you want sell?
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A reseller of products or services provided by another source?
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Someone interested in affiliate programs?
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An MLM'er, distributor, or network marketing professional
representing products or services offered by your company?
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A website owner living in Alabama
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Or someone thinking about doing one of the above listed items
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If the things we've listed above remind you of yourself, this article is for you. You are about to be taught precisely what to do this year to help assure that next year your business, website or blog is enjoyably profitable.
Internet marketing tips and methods for AtHome America...
If you wanted to simplify 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the following:
The internet is a place to search for things
Listen closely to what internet users say when they're talking about the internet:
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"Look what I found online yesterday..."
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"I'll check MapQuest to find directions..."
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"Do a Google, and get back to me with on what comes up..."
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"Yes, I compared 4 like items and found the best buy online at..."
Everybody's looking, finding, or searching for something. Everybody. So, it's your job to help internet users find you. It's a little harder, but it's not nearly as hard as you would likely expect. Give yourself about one hour to explore in detail each strategy listed below. After you learn the basics, you might wish to pace your efforts so that each week you tackle one approach until you have each one mastered.
STRATEGY #1
There's no getting around it, you've gotta have your own blog. A blog is nothing more than a platform facilitating you to rattle on about what you might be taking part in... maybe matters related to your business, your industry, or the benefits and recommendations surrounding your various products.
Market statewide by focusing on how this all relates to Alabama or the benefits people from Alabama might experience.
The reason a blog is a must for your internet marketing strategy is because it gives you an instant voice on the internet to provide news and information about the activities you are doing. Your blog or weblog should link to your various other web pages and sites. Blogs are "search engine" friendly and much more likely to get listed in Google, MSN search, Yahoo etc than your website.
Invest a little quality time setting up a 'profile page' on your blog (or connected to your blog) that tells visitors a little about you and your website. Also consider linking to this profile page from your various other web site pages.
Post short but frequent messages every week (more often if possible). Keep it lively, interesting, and topical but above all don't hype and don't publish sales pitches.
Need advice? Here are links to a few premier blogs that offer top notch services. Some are hosted others you can put on your own server.
STRATEGY #2
Invest a little time learning about "folksonomy" or "tags" and how they can benefit your online marketing efforts. A good place to start is Technorati http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html
Once you understand the basics of how tags interact with your site, start using them on your blog and in comments you post to other blogs. Open a complimentary photo sharing account at Flickr http://flickr.com/ to upload photos with descriptive titles and stories related to your business, AtHome America, or your products and services. Don't forget your tags!
Open a FURL http://furl.net/ account to save and share bookmarks or favorites linked to all your important web pages. Again, add well worded descriptions and associate proper tags to every bookmarked page.
Never stop linking... return to your other site pages, your blog, and your profile page and add links to your Flickr and FURL pages.
STRATEGY #3
Start an opt-in e-mail list and/or give visitors the chance to subscribe to your RSS or XML feed.
Most online business owners have unfortunately found out few people purchase anything on that first visit. How often has anyone ordered or even emailed you from your site? It takes a bit more "dating" to get past first base, so to speak.
Here's what researchers have learned about who's most likely to buy stuff on the Internet:
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40% of adults with net access, subscribe to or have received opt-in e-mail in the past three months... (Source: Bigfoot Interactive)
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People tend buy from non-brand names AFTER they subscribe to newsletters put out by those same web site owners.
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91% of opt-in subscribers are more likely to buy... (Source: eMarketer Inc)
What's the bottom line here? No matter how much traffic you generate to your web pages or blog, if you do not provide visitors a compelling reason to sign-up for a newsletter, you will likely diminish your opportunity to make sales by over 90%. Add a subscription box to every page that you plan to direct traffic to. Do not list any web page on a search engine, business card, or other promotion if that page does not have a way for visitors to join your list.
Internet marketing tips Bonus Idea: Many web site owners now offer XML or RSS feeds as an alternative to newsletter subscriptions (not necessarily a replacement). Explore options to offer XML or RSS feeds to your web site visitors. Email as a marketing vehicle has lost some of its punch and profitability in recent years. Users are confused about what is quality content in their inbox and what is SPAM and unsolicited advertisements. XML or RSS feeds are not nearly as technical as they sound and are worth looking into.
STRATEGY #4
A search engine marketing campaign will create more website targeted traffic at a lower investment than any other form of website marketing. Without a doubt. Yet the overwhelming majority of website owners ignore this technique to a continuous flow of highly qualified visitors.
Consider these statistics.
Jupiter-MetaMetrix statistics show that search engine usage is expanding at double-digit rates. Marketing Sherpa studies report that website owners who implement search engine marketing campaigns realize a 24% - 500% greater revenue.
A Georgia Tech study shows that 85% of its participants discovered websites through search engines and were searching with the intent to make a purchase.
And... eMarketer research showed that over the past year, search engine marketing has grown tremendously. Growing up to 125% in last year alone -- (US statistics). Paid search accounts for over 30% of total online ad investing.
All these millions are being spent by entrepreneurial businesses, large businesses and people just like you. It's called PAY-PER-CLICK ( PPC or COST-PER-CLICK ) and it allows you full control over your search engine listings. No more optimizing, waiting and praying only to end up as listing number 5895 on page 546 under the keyword phrase "why bother" because that's where some search engine employee (or worse yet, some robot) thought you belonged.
With pay-per-click, web site owners decide how high in the rankings (or search results page) they want to appear by bidding a penny at a time for the best spots. Keywords popular among web site owners cost more while other more diligent web site owners find less expensive keyword niches that may bring equally good results for much lower per-click bid rates.
Pay Per Click puts you behind the wheel where you can steer towards a perfectly worded PPC ads (known as listings) with snappy headlines (known as titles), interesting descriptions (10, 15 or 20 words approximately) and stir up perfect matches between keywords and keyword phrases. YOU make all decisions and the destination or landing pages you want to link search prospects to.
The unique advantage in PPC marketing is that you can bid on dozens or hundreds of keywords associated to your products, services, business or affiliate offer while never spending a penny until someone CLICKS your listing. Add to this the fact that some keyword listings in some PPCs can start as low as 1 cent a click.
There are many expert websites and eBooks with recommendations about setting up a PPC marketing campaign. Many charge you way more money than it's worth (be careful), but the best we've found is free and is available to anyone joining this internet marketing newsletter.
Musings of an Internet Guru: Newsletter
Click here to subscribe (free PPC eBook included)
http://www.danhollings.com/class/newsletter.html
Here are a few expert search engine suggestions and keyword brain storming ideas to get you thinking:
- When cooking-up your keyword phrase list, use an extended "keyword discovery" phase. Your competition, like you, will do basic keyword research. You can only beat them if you take it to the next level, and that won't happen in the first day. Having a large number of targeted keywords in your campaign is a side effect of an extended period of brainstorming, discovery, research, or whatever you want to call it.
- Not very wood with gords? There is a hidden target market of quality visitors who type in incorrect spellings of what they are looking for. Site owners often overlook this. In a recent 30 day period on a major search engine at least 108 people where searching for a 'buisness'? Hundreds more were searching for: 'vitiamins', 'vitimans' and even 'vitamens'... You can bid on misspellings and have very little competition on the search results page.
- Assume that at least half your keywords will be rotten eggs, that is, no one will ever look for them and end up at your site. Because there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as you can think up, treat them like biscuits and bake-up as many as you can... 100 or more keyword phrases for each destination page you list in any PPC search engine.
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The Alabama Marketing Strategy
Go local. Yes, business owners from Alabama search for products and services using "Alabama" as their keyword. That means you must include search engine ads targeting Alabama and bid on keyword phrases containing Alabama.
The path to success with any pay-per-click marketing campaign is preparation and consistency. Do your homework at the start to find less expensive keywords to bid on, write a quality title and description for your search listing and stick with it for at least 9 months as you learn the rules. Set a consistent budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $77 a month) and consider that your investment in the search engine school of hard knocks. After you graduate, you'll begin to see results. It's an education worth the time, money and energy.
STRATEGY #5
Don't start any other strategies until you have the methods outlined in this article implemented. However, you should invest in yourself by reading articles and eBooks on internet marketing.
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ArticleArticle911.com source:
Article researched by ArticleArticle911.com staff and contributors.
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© Copyright 2005 by
ArticleArticle911.com
or article author
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