[CaRP] XML error: junk after document element at line 1
|
|
Local techniques for Connecticut
|
|
Internet marketing tips for AtHome America in Connecticut
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the AtHome America Tips Blog
|
Who's earning cash online?
You're doing business in Connecticut or maybe Connecticut is the state you reside. You're marketing a product or service and you want to promote your product or service to visitors to your site who live in Connecticut and other locations as well. You've read that consumers are spending lots of money every day shopping online and you're determined to figure out how you can tap this online market.
Fact #1
People do make a sizable income from their website, but it's probably not you.
Fact #2
Site owners that do make the money, are not necessarily brighter than you.
Fact #3
What separates those that make money and those that go broke has more to do with common sense approaches than graduate course degrees. 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 a person like any of the following?
-
A person involved with AtHome America
-
A distributor, or network marketer representing products or services?
-
An average "joe" with a garage packed with 'junk' you want sell?
-
A small business owner, with your own merchandise?
-
A reseller of products or services provided by another source?
-
Someone pursuing associate or affiliate programs online?
-
A web site owner living in Connecticut
-
Or a person thinking about doing one of the above listed items
|
|
If the things we've listed above remind you of yourself, this article is for you. You are about to learn step-by-step what to do this year to help assure that next year your business, website or blog is more 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 argument:
The internet is a place to search for things
Listen closely to what internet users say when they're talking about the net:
-
"After a little research I found exactly what I needed..."
-
"Let me pull-up the TV guide, I think it's on tonight..."
-
"Yea, $20 bucks on eBay, can you believe it..."
-
"Welcome onboard, how'd you hear about us? Online?"
Everybody's looking, finding, or searching for something. Everybody. So, it's your task to help them find you. It's a little tedious, 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 up and running.
STRATEGY #1
Everyone is talking about blogging, but do you have a blog yourself? A blog is little more than a forum for you to rattle on about whatever you're interested in... perhaps things related to your business, your industry, or the benefits and recommendations surrounding your merchandise.
Market statewide by focusing on how this all relates to Connecticut or the benefits people from Connecticut might experience.
The reason a blog is a must for your internet promotion strategy is because it gives you an instant presence on the internet to provide news and information about the activities you are doing. Your blog or weblog should link to your various 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. Also remember to link 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 highly popular blogs that offer quality services. Some are hosted others you can host yourself.
STRATEGY #2
Invest a little time learning about "folksonomy" or "tags" and how they can benefit your online marketing efforts. A good place to spend time at is Technorati http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html
Once you understand the basics of how tags apply to marketing, start using them on your blog and in comments you post to other blogs. Open a free 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 opportunity to subscribe to your RSS or XML feed.
Most web site owners have learned 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 "schmoozing" 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:
-
94% of US adults who have subscribed to a permission based (opt-in) email have made a purchase from the retailer... (Source: eMarketer Inc)
-
40% of adults with net access, subscribe to or have received opt-in e-mail in the past three months... (Source: Bigfoot Interactive)
-
A recently conducted a study on E-mail Newsletter readers and concluded newsletters "create much more of a bond between user and company than a website can"... (Source: The Neilson Norman Group)
What's the bottom line here? No matter how much traffic you manage to get to your web pages or blog, if you do not provide visitors a motivating reason to sign-up for a newsletter, you will likely hamper your opportunity to make sales by over 90%. Add a subscription box to every page that you plan to direct visitors 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 website 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 penetration and profitability in recent years. Users are confused about what is quality content in their email inbox and what is SPAM and unsolicited advertisements. XML or RSS feeds are not nearly as technical as they sound and are worth investigating.
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 question. Yet the overwhelming majority of website owners ignore this path to a continuous flow of highly motivated visitors.
Consider these points.
A Georgia Tech survey shows that 85% of its respondents discovered websites through search engines and were searching with intent to purchase.
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.
All these millions are being spent by entrepreneurial businesses, big businesses and people just like you. It's called PAY-PER-CLICK ( PPC or COST-PER-CLICK ) and it allows you complete control over your search engine listings. No more optimizing, waiting and praying only to end up as listing number 5566 on page 789 under the keyword phrase "find me if you can" because that's where some search engine employee (or worse yet, some robot) thought your site belonged.
With pay-per-click, site owners decide how high in the rankings (or search results page) they want to appear by bidding penny by penny for the top spots. Keywords popular among site owners cost more while other more diligent site owners find less expensive keyword niches that may bring equally good results for much lower per-click bid rates.
Pay Per Click positions you behind the the controls where you can whip-up well worded ads (called listings) with zippy headlines (referred to as titles), compelling descriptions (10 or maybe 20 words) and bake up perfect matches between keywords and keyword phrases. YOU chose and the destination or landing pages you want to link search visitors to.
The great advantage in PPC marketing is that you can bid on dozens or hundreds of keywords connected 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 penny or a few pennies a click.
There are many newsletters and eBooks with recommendations about setting up a PPC marketing campaign. Many charge you upwards of $100 (be careful), but the best we've found is free and is available to you by joining this internet marketing newsletter.
We recommend the following newsletter
(All list members get a free search engine tips PDF)
Pay-Per-Click Search Engine and Marketing Ideas
Here are a few very useful search engine techniques and keyword brain storming ideas to get you started:
- If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
- Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.
Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
- Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.
|
The Connecticut Marketing Strategy
Go local. Yes, entrepreneurs from Connecticut search for stuff to buy using "Connecticut" as their keyword. That means you must include search ads targeting Connecticut and bid on keyword phrases containing Connecticut.
The quickest way 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 12 months as you learn the rules. Set a reasonable budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $73 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 strategies outlined in this article implemented. However, you should invest in yourself by reading articles and eBooks on internet marketing.
|
ArticleArticle911.com source:
Article researched by ArticleArticle911.com staff and contributors.
|
© Copyright 2005 by
ArticleArticle911.com
or article author
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
The initial Forum webcast, co-sponsored by ClearSaleing and Search Marketing Now, began the process of defining attribution management practices and methodologies. (PRWeb Nov 19, 2008)
Read th...
In the next installment of Tim Sales' monthly MLM training calls he will train on how to deliver presentations to one or one hundred with ease and how to keep your prospect's attention focus...
Want increased sales conversion and leads from your company Web site? BKV has the solution: Interactive Marketing Action Plan (iMap), a new tool designed by BKV to do just that by optimizing a Web sit...
New RSS feed generator creates instant theme-based content for your website. Improve your site ranking in all search engines. Built-In keyword tracking tells you exactly how many site visitors each of your pages are generating...
|
|
