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Local techniques for South Dakota
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Internet marketing tips for AtHome America in South Dakota
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the AtHome America Tips Blog
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Are you pulling in revenue on the web?
You're interested in South Dakota or perhaps South Dakota is where you live. You're promoting a product or service and you wish to market it to people who reside in South Dakota and other states as well. You've read that consumers are spending money head over heels every day shopping online and you're commited to learning how you can earn money from the internet.
Fact #1
People do make a lot of money online, but it's likely not you.
Fact #2
Those that do make the money, are not necessarily more web savvy 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 any of the following?
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A person involved with AtHome America
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A distributor, or network marketer representing products or services?
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An average "joe" with a garage packed with 'junk' you want sell?
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A small business owner, with your own merchandise?
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A reseller of products or services provided by another source?
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Someone pursuing associate or affiliate programs online?
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A website owner living in South Dakota
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Or a person thinking about doing one of the above
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If the things we've listed above remind you of yourself, this article is for you. You are about to discover exactly what to do this year to help assure that next year your business, website or blog is enjoyably profitable.
Internet marketing tips and strategies for AtHome America...
If you wanted to clarify 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the argument:
The internet is a place to find things
Listen closely to what folks say when they're talking about the internet:
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"I'll check MapQuest to find directions..."
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"Yes, I compared 4 like items and found the best buy online at..."
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"Let me pull-up the TV guide, I think it's on tonight..."
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"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 customers and prospects find you. It's a little work, but it's not nearly as hard as you might expect. Give yourself about one hour to explore in detail each strategy listed below. After you understand the basics, you might wish to pace your efforts so that each week you tackle one approach until you have each one working.
STRATEGY #1
Blogs have become a required part of any well planned marketing strategy. Bottom line, get one. A blog (or weblog) is little more than a platform helping you to blab about whatever you might be interested in... perhaps subjects related to your products and services, your profession, or the benefits and endorsements surrounding your products and services.
Go local by focusing on how this all relates to South Dakota or the benefits people from South Dakota might experience.
The reason a blog or weblog is a must for your online marketing strategy is because it gives you an instant platform to be heard on the internet to provide news and information about the stuff you are doing. Your blog or weblog should link to your 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 business. 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 write sales pitches.
Need advice? Here are links to a few premier blogs that offer quality 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 promotion. A good place to start 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 chance to subscribe to your RSS or XML feed.
Most web site owners have unfortunately found out few people purchase anything on that first visit. How often has anyone ordered or even communicated with 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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94% of US adults who have subscribed to a permission based (opt-in) email have made a purchase from the retailer... (Source: eMarketer Inc)
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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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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 generate to your web pages or blog, if you do not provide visitors a good 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 subscribe to your list.
Internet marketing tips Bonus Idea: Many 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 delivery 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 complex as they sound and are worth investigating.
STRATEGY #4
A search engine marketing campaign will drive more website targeted traffic at a lower cost than any other form of website marketing. Without question. Yet the biggest majority of website owners ignore this technique to a continuous flow of highly qualified visitors.
Consider these statistics.
A Georgia Tech survey revealed that over 80% of its respondents discovered web sites through search engines and were searching with intent to buy something.
eMarketer statistics showed that last year, search engine marketing (SEM) skyrocketed. Growing over 120% -- just in the US. Paid search advertising accounts for about 40% of total internet ad spending.
All these millions are being spent by small businesses, large businesses and people just like you. It's called PAY-PER-CLICK ( PPC or COST-PER-CLICK ) and it allows you maximum control over your search engine listings. No more optimizing, waiting and praying only to end up as listing number 5816 on page 421 under the keyword phrase "why bother" because that's where some search engine employee (or worse yet, some robot) thought you belonged.
Pay Per Click puts you behind the mix-master where you can whip-up perfectly worded ads (referred to as listings) with lively headlines (referred to as titles), compelling descriptions (10 to 20 words or so) and stir up perfect matches between keywords and keyword phrases. YOU control everything and the destination or landing pages you want to link search prospects to.
With pay-per-click, web site owners decide how high in the rankings (or search results page) they want to appear by bidding against your competition for the best spots. Keywords popular among 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.
The great 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 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 an arm and a leg (be careful), but the best we've found is free and is available to people joining this internet marketing newsletter.
Get Free Pay-Per-Click Tips
Click link below for details on joining list
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Here are a few expert search engine suggestions and keyword brain storming ideas to get you thinking:
- When thinking up keywords, use examples of specific things your product is used for: 'clean floors', clean countertops', 'wash floors', 'mop floors', 'polish stove top', 'remove grime', 'shine appliances', 'disinfect bacteria', 'hide furniture flaws' etc.
- Explore variations: 'soy milk', 'soymilk', 'soy-milk'
- Add plurals: 'protein bar' and 'protein bars'
- Use abbreviations and acronyms
- Use US and UK spellings
- Keyword phrases may be questions: 'how to repair bad credit', 'when should I diet', 'how do I lose weight', 'where are discount cosmetics', etc.
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The South Dakota Marketing Winning idea
Go local. Yes, entrepreneurs from South Dakota search for things using "South Dakota" as their keyword. That means you must include listings targeting South Dakota and bid on keyword phrases containing South Dakota.
The path to results 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 6 months as you learn the rules. Set a consistent budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $79 a month) and consider that your dues 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 methods 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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