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Localized strategies for Texas
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Internet marketing tips for AtHome America in Texas
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the AtHome America Tips Blog
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Are people taking in money on the internet?
You're seeking information about Texas or perhaps Texas is the place you reside. You're selling a product or service and you need to market it to customers who reside in Texas and other places too. You've read that customers 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.
True Statement #1
People do make good money on the web, but it's probably not you.
True Statement #2
Business owners that do make the money, are not necessarily brighter than you.
True Statement #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?
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A person involved with AtHome America
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An individual reselling someone else's products or services?
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A small business, with your own products or services?
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An affiliate, linking to other sites to collect commissions on
customers you refer?
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A network marketer, distributor, or direct sales professional
marketing products or services of your 'parent' company?
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Someone with a garage full of 'stuff' you want to get rid of?
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A business owner living in Texas
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Or a small business owner thinking about doing one of the above listed items
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If any of the above activities sound like you, this article is for you. You are about to learn precisely what to do this year to help guarantee 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 following:
The net is a place to search for stuff
Listen closely to what people say when they're talking about the web:
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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 business to help customers find you. It's a little work, but it's not nearly as hard as you probably expect. Give yourself about one hour to explore in detail each strategy listed below. After you are exposed to the basics, you might wish to pace your efforts so that once week you tackle one approach until you have each one up and running.
STRATEGY #1
Blogs have become a required part of any well planned marketing strategy. Bottom line, get one. A blog is nothing more than a forum helping you to rattle on about what you might be interested in... perhaps topics related to your business, your industry, or the benefits and customer stories surrounding your products and services.
Go by focusing on how this all relates to Texas or the benefits people from Texas might enjoy.
The reason a blog is a must for your web campaign 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 web pages and sites. Blogs are "search engine" friendly and much more likely to get ranked 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 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 well known blogs that offer affordable services. Some are hosted others you can host yourself.
STRATEGY #2
Invest a little time reading about "folksonomy" or "tags" and how they can benefit your online marketing efforts. A good place to explore is Technorati http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html
Once you understand the basics of how tags work, start using them on your blog and in comments you post to other blogs. Open a no cost 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 site owners have learned few people purchase anything on that first visit. How often has anyone ordered or even contacted 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 products or services on the Internet:
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91% of opt-in subscribers are more likely to buy... (Source: eMarketer Inc)
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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)
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 reduce 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 website visitors. Email as a marketing vehicle has lost some of its effectiveness 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 traffic at a lower cost than any other form of website marketing. Period. Yet the overwhelming majority of website owners ignore this technique to a continuous flow of highly qualified visitors.
Consider these facts.
Research by Jupiter-MetaMetrix shows that search engine usage is expanding at double-digit rates. A Marketing Sherpa report showed that web site owners who used search engine promotional campaigns realize 25% - 490% revenue growth.
eMarketer research showed that over the past year, search engine marketing (SEM) has skyrocketed. Growing nearly 125% in last year -- in the US alone. Paid search advertising accounts for over 35% of total online ad spending.
All these millions are being spent by small businesses, big 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 5112 on page 539 under the keyword phrase "middle of nowhere" 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 expert websites 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 people 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 hot search engine techniques and keyword brain storming ideas to get you going:
- 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 Texas Marketing Winning idea
Go local. Yes, entrepreneurs from Texas search for things using "Texas" as their keyword. That means you must include search ads targeting Texas and bid on keyword phrases which have your state: Texas.
Ad Calculator A straightforward and easy-to-use tool, but incredibly powerful in the hands of the serious Internet marketer. Ad Calculator calculates the maximum you should pay per click, or per thousand impressions ("CPM"), for any of your advertising campaigns. (Exclusive Product) |
Click/Counter Tracker PHP Script A simple but powerful script that allows you to track how many clicks each of your ads receives as well as the number of visitors to your web pages. (Exclusive Product) |
Image Protection Rocket Image Protection Rocket can stop people copying your images, prevents right-click in user's web browsers, and also offers a premier bandwidth protection ("anti leech"). (Exclusive Product) |
CBRocket PHP Script Allow visitors to search ClickBank from your site. Display the latest ClickBank products (download *ALL* the latest data with the click of a mouse button). Show targeted ads on your web pages, and more! (Exclusive Product) |
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The path to results with any pay-per-click marketing campaign is preparation and consistency. Do your homework upfront to find less expensive keywords to bid on, think up a quality title and description for your search listing and stick with it for at least 10 months as you learn the methods. Set a monthly budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $95 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 commitment.
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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