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Localized techniques for Maryland
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Who's bringing in moola on the internet?
You're interested in Maryland or maybe Maryland is the place you live. You're marketing a product or service and you want to promote it to people who live in Maryland and various other places too. You've read that customers are spending lots of money every day shopping online and you're determined to figure out how you can earn money from the internet.
Fact #1
People do make good money on the web, but it's likely not you.
Fact #2
Those that do make the money, are not necessarily smarter than you.
Fact #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 Country Bunny Bath and Body
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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 business owner living in Maryland
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Or someone 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 discover 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 techniques for Country Bunny Bath and Body...
If you wanted to simplify 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the statement:
The web is a place to find stuff
Listen closely to what folks say when they're talking about the net:
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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 business to help customers and prospects find you. It's a little harder, 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 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
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.
Market statewide by focusing on how this all relates to Maryland or the benefits people from Maryland might experience.
The reason a blog is a must for your internet marketing 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 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 and your website. 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 well known blogs that offer affordable 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 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, Country Bunny Bath and Body, 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 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 "relationship building" 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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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 hamper 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 sign up for 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 web 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 complex as they sound and are worth learning about.
STRATEGY #4
A search engine marketing campaign will drive more website prospects and customer traffic at a lower cost than any other form of website marketing. Without question. Yet the biggest majority of website owners ignore this route to a continuous flow of highly targeted visitors.
Consider these statistics.
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 5982 on page 576 under the keyword phrase "why bother" because that's where some search engine employee (or worse yet, some robot) thought your site 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 expert websites 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 anyone 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:
- Sometimes people time in web addresses in those search boxes! So bid on those if the search engine allows it: 'www.website.com', 'website.com', 'http://website.com' and every combination full or partial you think a searcher might actually type.
- Match up keywords with words in your ad copy. Even though a 'spa', a 'hot tub', and a 'whirlpool' might mean the same thing in your mind, if a searcher types in 'hot tub' and your listing says: "Relax and save in your new Spa", you will miss out on many interested customers.
- Think negative... yes, people search for herbs that can kill, plastic surgery pitfalls, mlm scams and sundry other peculiar things. Invite them to explore your related listing. Do you offer cosmetics or skin car as an alternative to plastic surgery? Is you mlm a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly dubious scams?
- Get creative with interest spikes in the news. 'Mad Cow' might be a great keyword for your all vegetarian product line. The 'SARS' outbreak might have generated millions of searches that your 'immunity booster' could have benefited from (just don't make any false claims). And where were all the bra ads when a gazillion people typed in 'Janet Jackson' after the 2004 Super Bowl surprise?
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The Maryland Marketing Secret
Go local. Yes, people from Maryland search for stuff to buy using "Maryland" as their keyword. That means you must include search ads targeting Maryland and bid on keyword phrases containing Maryland.
The secret to making money 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 12 months as you learn the rules. Set a consistent budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $40 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 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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