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Localized strategies for Virginia
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Internet marketing tips for Your Blog in Virginia
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the Your Blog Tips Blog
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Who's taking in revenue online?
You're seeking information about Virginia or perhaps Virginia is the state you live. You're selling a product or service and you desire to sell it to people who reside in Virginia and other states as well. You've read that internet surfers are spending money head over heels each day shopping online and you're determined to figure out how you can tap this online market.
Truth #1
People do make a sizable income from their website, but it's probably 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 one of the following?
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A person involved with Your Blog
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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 business owner living in Virginia
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Or an individual thinking about doing one of the above
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If any of the above activities sound like you, this article is for you. You are about to be taught step-by-step what to do this year to help ensure that next year your business, website or blog is more profitable.
Internet marketing tips and methods for Your Blog...
If you wanted to clarify 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the argument:
The net is a place to find information, products and services
Listen closely to what people 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 job to help customers 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 every 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.
Promote your business locally by focusing on how this all relates to Virginia or the benefits people from Virginia might enjoy.
The reason a blog is a must for your online promotion 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 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. 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 publish sales pitches.
Need advice? Here are links to a few well known blogs that offer affordable 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 promotion. A good place to start 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, Your Blog, 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 online business 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 "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 compelling 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 sign up for 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 delivery vehicle has lost some of its penetration and profitability in recent years. Users are confused about what is quality content in their 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. Period. Yet the biggest majority of website owners ignore this path to a continuous flow of highly motivated visitors.
Consider these statistics.
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 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 5390 on page 303 under the keyword phrase "middle of nowhere" because that's where some search engine employee (or worse yet, some robot) thought your search engine listing 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 lists and eBooks with recommendations about setting up a PPC marketing campaign. Many charge you an arm and a leg (be careful), but the best we've found is free and is available to people 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 suggestions and keyword brain storming ideas to get you going:
- If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
- Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.
Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
- Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.
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The Virginia Marketing Strategy
Go local. Yes, entrepreneurs from Virginia search for products and services using "Virginia" as their keyword. That means you must include search ads targeting Virginia and bid on keyword phrases which have your state: Virginia.
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The secret to results 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, write a quality title and description for your search listing and stick with it for at least 11 months as you learn the ropes. Set a consistent budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $45 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 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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