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Local methods for California
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Are you earning cash online?
You're seeking information about California or maybe California is where you live. You're selling a product or service and you need to market it to people who reside in California and various other states as well. You've read that internet surfers are spending lots of money 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 a sizable income from their website, but it's probably not you.
True Statement #2
Those that do make the money, are not necessarily more web savvy than you.
True Statement #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 a person like any of the following?
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A person involved with Binney & Smith At Home
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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 California
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Or an individual thinking about doing one of the items listed
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If any of the above activities sound like you, this article is for you. You are about to discover step-by-step what to do this year to help guarantee that next year your business, website or blog is enjoyably profitable.
Internet marketing tips and techniques for Binney & Smith At Home...
If you wanted to state simply 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the following:
The internet is a place to dig up information, products and services
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 job to help them find you. It's a little more effort, 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 learn the basics, you might wish to pace your efforts so that once week you tackle one approach until you have each one mastered.
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.
Go local by focusing on how this all relates to California or the benefits people from California might enjoy.
The reason a blog or weblog is a must for your internet campaign strategy is because it gives you an instant presence on the internet to provide news and information about the stuff you are doing. Your blog should link to your other 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 write sales pitches.
Need advice? Here are links to a few well known blogs that offer affordable services. Some are hosted others you can host.
STRATEGY #2
Invest a little time reading about "folksonomy" or "tags" and how they can benefit your online marketing efforts. A good place to visit is Technorati http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html
Once you understand the basics of how tags function, 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, Binney & Smith At Home, 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 invitation to subscribe to your RSS or XML feed.
Most online business 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 merchandise 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 drive to your web pages or blog, if you do not provide visitors a good reason to sign-up for a newsletter, you will likely cut back your opportunity to make sales by over 90%. Add a subscription box to every page that you plan to direct internet 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 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 inbox and what is SPAM and unsolicited advertisements. XML or RSS feeds are not nearly as complex as they sound and are worth looking into.
STRATEGY #4
A search engine marketing campaign will generate more website traffic at a lower investment than any other form of website marketing. Without question. Yet the biggest majority of website owners ignore this path to a continuous flow of highly qualified visitors.
Consider these points.
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 entrepreneurial businesses, corporate 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 5420 on page 614 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 way more money than it's worth (be careful), but the best we've found is free and is available to people 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 techniques and keyword discovery ideas to get you started:
- Remember that with PPC campaigns, you are not sending search visitors to a site, you are sending them to a web page (called: a destination or landing page). You must discover keywords and set-up ONE page at a time.
- Remember that people search by typing in more than one word:
- The 7 most used word phrases in search engines according to OneStat.com:
- 2 word phrases 32.58%
- 3 word phrase 25.61%
- 1 word phrases 19.02%
- 4 word phrases 12.83%
- 5 word phrases 5.64%
- 6 word phrases 2.32%
- 7 word phrases 0.98%
- Start your "keyword discovery" process by visiting the destination page you intend to send your search engine visitors to. Put on the 'reading glasses' of a customer and look at your page through their eyes.
- Ask yourself this: "What keywords might a person type in a search box where when they arrived at this destination page, they'd say 'BINGO' this is what I was looking for?" Find these keywords and you've discovered your best keywords.
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The California Marketing Strategy
Go local. Yes, people from California search for stuff to buy using "California" as their keyword. That means you must include search ads targeting California and bid on keyword phrases which have your state: California.
The secret to making money 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 8 months as you learn the methods. Set a monthly budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $99 a month) and consider that your tuition 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.
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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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