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State specific strategies for Wisconsin
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Internet marketing tips for AtHome America in Wisconsin
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the AtHome America Tips Blog
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Are people taking in money on the web?
You're interested in Wisconsin or maybe Wisconsin is the state you reside. You're selling a product or service and you wish to sell it to people who reside in Wisconsin and other states as well. You've read that customers are spending money head over heels every 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 brighter than you.
Truth #3
Those that are successful online are not especially gifted or better educated, but rather they have learned a few tricks of the internet trade. 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 web site owner living in Wisconsin
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Or an individual thinking about doing one of the items listed
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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 step-by-step 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 state simply 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the statement:
The web is a place to dig up stuff
Listen closely to what people say when they're talking about the web:
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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 job to help customers and prospects find you. It's a little tedious, 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 every 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 (or weblog) is little more than a platform helping you to yack away about what you're taking part in... maybe things related to your business, your industry, or the benefits and testimonials surrounding your products and services.
Promote your business locally by focusing on how this all relates to Wisconsin or the benefits people from Wisconsin might enjoy.
The reason a blog or weblog is a must for your web 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 should link to your various other web pages and sites. Blogs are "search engine" friendly and much more likely to get registered 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 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 highly popular blogs that offer top notch services. Some are hosted others you can host yourself.
STRATEGY #2
Invest a little time studying about "folksonomy" or "tags" and how they can benefit your online marketing campaign. A good place to spend time at 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 opportunity to subscribe to your RSS or XML feed.
Most site owners have discovered 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 "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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People don't tend to buy on those first dates when they first visit the site. It's those newsletters that people sign up for - on the sites - that do it.
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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)
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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)
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 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 sign up for 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 site 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 email inbox and what is SPAM and unwanted advertisements. XML or RSS feeds are not nearly as complicated as they sound and are worth looking into.
STRATEGY #4
A pay per click search engine marketing campaign will create more website prospects and customer traffic at a lower cost than any other form of website marketing. Without a doubt. Yet the overwhelming majority of website owners ignore this route to a continuous flow of highly motivated visitors.
Consider these points.
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 home run 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 5182 on page 754 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.
Pay Per Click places you behind the mix-master where you can whip-up well worded PPC ads (called listings) with spiffy headlines (called titles), interesting descriptions (10 to 20 words or so) and bake up perfect matches between keywords and keyword phrases. YOU chose and the destination or landing pages you want to link search customers to.
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 web 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.
The unique advantage in PPC advertising 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 cent a click.
There are many newsletters 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 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 expert search engine suggestions and keyword exploratory ideas to get you thinking:
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The Wisconsin Marketing Secret
Go local. Yes, people from Wisconsin search for stuff to buy using "Wisconsin" as their keyword. That means you must include search engine ads targeting Wisconsin and bid on keyword phrases containing Wisconsin.
The quickest way 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, compose a quality title and description for your search listing and stick with it for at least 7 months as you learn the methods. Set a consistent budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $54 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 effort.
STRATEGY #5
Don't start any other methods until you have the techniques 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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