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State specific strategies for Michigan
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Internet marketing tips for Discovery Toys in Michigan
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the Discovery Toys Tips Blog
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Are you making revenue on the web?
You're seeking information about Michigan or perhaps Michigan is the state you reside. You're selling a product or service and you need to sell your product or service to customers who live in Michigan and various other states as well. You've read that customers are spending lots of money every day shopping online and you're commited to learning how you can get your share of the pie.
True Statement #1
People do make a lot of money online, but it's likely not you.
True Statement #2
Site owners that do make the money, are not necessarily brighter than you.
True Statement #3
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. 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 Discovery Toys
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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 web site owner living in Michigan
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Or a small business owner 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 be taught precisely what to do this year to help ensure that next year your business, website or blog is enjoyably profitable.
Internet marketing tips and methods for Discovery Toys...
If you wanted to state simply 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the following:
The net is a place to dig up stuff
Listen closely to what people say when they're talking about the internet:
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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..."
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"After a little research I found exactly what I needed..."
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"Let me pull-up the TV guide, I think it's on tonight..."
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 learn the basics, you might wish to pace your efforts so that each 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 Michigan or the benefits people from Michigan might enjoy.
The reason a blog is a must for your web promotion 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 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 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 well known blogs that offer quality services. Some are hosted others you can put on your own server.
STRATEGY #2
Invest a little time studying 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 interact with your site, 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, Discovery Toys, 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 communicated with 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 stuff on the Internet:
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 compelling reason to sign-up for a newsletter, you will likely diminish 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 site visitors. Email as a communication vehicle has lost some of its punch and profitability in recent years. Users are confused about what is quality content in their email folder and what is SPAM and unwanted 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 generate more website targeted traffic at a lower investment 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 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 home run 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 5682 on page 430 under the keyword phrase "find me if you can" because that's where some search engine employee (or worse yet, some robot) thought your search engine listing belonged.
With pay-per-click, web site owners decide how high in the rankings (or search results page) they want to appear by bidding a penny at a time for the best spots. Keywords popular among web 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.
Pay Per Click puts you behind the wheel where you can steer towards a perfectly worded PPC ads (known as listings) with snappy headlines (known as titles), interesting descriptions (10, 15 or 20 words approximately) and stir up perfect matches between keywords and keyword phrases. YOU make all decisions and the destination or landing pages you want to link search prospects to.
The unique 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 cent a click.
There are many lists 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.
Recommended Newsletter: Musings of an Internet Guru
Follow link below to join (search engine eBook complimentary)
Join: Musings of an Internet Guru
Here are a few expert search engine tips and keyword discovery ideas to get you thinking:
- Expand your keywords by asking your spouse, friends, neighbors, relatives, existing customers and strangers to look at your web page and offer their keyword suggestions. In this phase you cannot have too many cooks in the kitchen.
- Put your biscuits in the oven and watch'em rise... That is, use web based 'keyword expanders' and research tools to expand your keywords beyond what you can come up with on your own.
- Remember, searchers may type in something that describes your product, but more often than not they will be typing in words describing their problem. If your product or service solves, fixes, heals, masks or even distracts them from their problem, you want those keywords on your list.
- "In-house" keywords (those used frequently by others in your industry or business) are often the most costly because lazy business owners don't often think beyond their own nose. The result is these limited keywords get bided-up sky high. Customers on the other hand seldom search using "in-house" keywords. Your goal is to find keyword niches popular with customers but less popular with your competition.
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The Michigan Marketing Secret
Go local. Yes, business owners from Michigan search for stuff to buy using "Michigan" as their keyword. That means you must include listings targeting Michigan and bid on keyword phrases which have your state: Michigan.
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, think up a quality title and description for your search listing and stick with it for at least 11 months as you learn the methods. Set a consistent budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $94 a month) and consider that your investment 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 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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