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Local methods for Washington DC
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Internet marketing tips for Discovery Toys in Washington DC
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the Discovery Toys Tips Blog
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Who's making revenue online?
You're interested in Washington DC or maybe Washington DC is the place you reside. You're marketing a product or service and you want to sell your product or service to people who reside in Washington DC and other locations too. You've read that internet surfers are spending lots of money every day shopping online and you're dead set on figuring out how you can get your share of the pie.
Truth #1
People do make good money on the web, but it's likely not you.
Truth #2
Those 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 Discovery Toys
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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 web site owner living in Washington DC
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Or someone 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 be taught exactly what to do this year to help guarantee that next year your business, website or blog is more profitable.
Internet marketing tips and techniques for Discovery Toys...
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 find things
Listen closely to what many people say when they're talking about the internet:
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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 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 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 (or weblog) is little more than a platform helping you to blab about whatever you might be interested in... perhaps subjects related to your products and services, your profession, or the benefits and endorsements surrounding your products and services.
Go by focusing on how this all relates to Washington DC or the benefits people from Washington DC might experience.
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 things 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 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 business. 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 write sales pitches.
Need advice? Here are links to a few highly popular blogs that offer quality 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 spend time at 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 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 invitation to subscribe to your RSS or XML feed.
Most web site owners have unfortunately found out 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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40% of adults with net access, subscribe to or have received opt-in e-mail in the past three months... (Source: Bigfoot Interactive)
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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)
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 good 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 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 join your list.
Internet marketing tips Bonus Idea: Many website 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 penetration 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 investigating.
STRATEGY #4
A search engine marketing campaign will create more website traffic at a lower cost than any other form of website marketing. Without a doubt. Yet the overwhelming majority of website owners ignore this path to a continuous flow of highly motivated visitors.
Consider these facts.
A Georgia Tech survey revealed that over 80% of its respondents discovered web sites through search engines and were searching with intent to buy something.
eMarketer statistics showed that last year, search engine marketing (SEM) skyrocketed. Growing over 120% -- just in the US. Paid search advertising accounts for about 40% of total internet 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 maximum control over your search engine listings. No more optimizing, waiting and praying only to end up as listing number 5249 on page 370 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 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 newsletters 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 anyone 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 very useful search engine suggestions and keyword brain storming ideas to get you going:
- Forget stupid characters. We are talking search engine listings (not eBay) so cool the clever punctuation it L@@KS stupid!!!!!!!! Don't make SOME words CAPITALIZED; it looks like you're shouting desperately for business. Respect the people who read your search engine listings.
- People are by nature often interested in things like 'saving money', 'making money', 'curing something', 'striking a deal', and getting anything of value that is 'free'... but be careful. The addition of such self-interest phrases in your ad copy may skew your clicks upwards while leaving your sales flat. If you're tempted to try such phrases... test, test, test... while keeping an eye on your bottom-line.
- Bluntness works: 'Refinance 4.5%', 'Viagra $39', 'No Interest VISA', etc
- These are the type words that appeal to searchers: more information, complimentary, love, youthful, safe, new, benefit, gain, money, happy, glad, proven, guarantee, resource, fast, results, discover, how you, how to, your, yours, you'll, healthy, natural, magic, secret, comfortable, save, proud, secure, solution.
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The Washington DC Marketing Secret
Go local. Yes, business owners from Washington DC search for stuff to buy using "Washington DC" as their keyword. That means you must include search ads targeting Washington DC and bid on keyword phrases which have your state: Washington DC.
The quickest way to making money with any pay-per-click marketing campaign is preparation and consistency. Do your homework in the beginning 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 ropes. Set a monthly budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $80 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 effort.
STRATEGY #5
Don't start any other techniques 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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