Internet Marketing newbies are those who form the largest portion of those who fail to make a living on the internet. This article is to help newbies not only survive but succeed and ultimately make a living online. If you are a newbie, chances are, these characteristics describe you.
You dream of making a lavish, full-time income on the internet, mostly on autopilot. This allows you the freedom to live the kind of lifestyle you desire without financial worries.
You are on many, many lists. Every Online Marketing guru has your name and email address on their lists. As a result, you get bombarded with at least 100 emails from these guys everyday.
You are on the internet everyday trying to figure out how to run a successful online business. You probably learn new things almost daily. You are constantly watching videos, listening to audios or reading e-books learning the newest money-making system on the internet.
You buy more info-products, software, scripts, systems, ‘how-to’ methods etc than you actually use. As a result, you have tons of PLR, MRR and RR e-books, the latest software and scripts, memberships to all sorts of programs that promise to be the silver bullet that answers the basic question, “What Must I Do To Succeed On The Internet?” sitting in your hard drive gathering virtual dust.
The combined effect of these characteristics is information overload and analysis paralysis. In other words, you hardly take any action based on what you already know or have in hand. You may think this article is irrelevant to you because you do take action. If that is so then why are you not succeeding beyond your wildest dreams? And why is there such a high failure rate (some say as high as 95%) among internet marketers?
The reason is that ‘take action’ is far more than just putting up a webpage, setting up your autoresponder, writing some articles, bidding on keywords in Adwords, advertising on Craigslist or even creating your own product. All these are necessary but the way to big bucks online is far more than that. Here’s what to do:
Firstly, reduce the number of lists you’re on. Do not worry about losing out on the latest information. You already have enough information to put yourself on the path to success if you just use whatever you’ve got now instead of perpetually reading, studying and learning the so-called latest method in internet marketing. Do you think the gurus got to where they are by constantly reading e-books without doing actual marketing?
Secondly, spend your time such that it gives maximum returns everyday. Reading e-books, watching videos and listening to podcasts are good but they don’t make you any money in itself (not to mention it takes half a day for some videos to download). Website design and creating graphics do not make you money by itself. All these activities are essential but if you spend too much time on them, you drastically minimize your income potential. You must proportion your time wisely between that which actually makes you money and that which does not.
Thirdly, focus on taking action, one step at a time. Every Internet Marketing project involves roughly the same steps. Find a profitable niche, identify keywords, create your own or find an affiliate product, create your website with a lead-capture form, drive traffic and track your progress. Thereafter, build a relationship with those who subscribe to your list through a series of emails. Do not merely shove offer after offer down their throats but be personal and give good tips and contents that would benefit your subscribers.
Most Online Marketing gurus say that making money on the internet is not rocket science. Actually, it’s true. The steps above are simple but if done regularly, will produce results sooner or later. It sure beats all the hit-and-miss efforts that so many newbies make, that result in ultimate failure. Online success comes by doing the right things the right way.
I have recently started a forum on a subject close to my heart: reading and writing (with a little marketing thrown in too, of course!) I have found it to be a great way to boost my search engine rankings, build my list, meet prospects and boost my own excitement.
You are invited to visit my BookWise Forum!
The key to beginning your own forum is to decide on just the right topic. This topic is what will bring the visitors to your forum. If you have too many topics and unrelated sub-topics, then the people looking forward to a discussion of a favorite subject will be turned off and leave. They want to see focus; know that the subject that interests them will also be of interest to the other people in the forum. This is also the best way for search engines to pick you out. Many people think that the more topics the more people they will attract, so it is important to remember that this is exactly the opposite of how it works.
It is important to get the right software to use for your forum. One reason is ease of use, but another deals with appearance. Your regulars will get used to you using a particular script and do not want to see major changes. Fortunately if, as you learn, you want to make some changes there are software tools that can make the alterations painless and nearly unnoticeable. People get set in what they are doing and sometimes a big change can turn your contributors off. Do your best to investigate what is out there before choosing your software.
After you have chosen your topic and picked your software, it is time to find the best ways to attract visitors to your forum. With the number of options open to people on the internet you need to give them a reason to choose your forum over others. First get your internet friends to come and have a look. Use the forums that you were first involved in to drum up some interest in what you are working on. If they allow you to its okay to advertise your forum, if not simply put the link under your signature when you post. Another way to get interest is to send around an announcement to everyone you know about the opening of your forum. This will bring curious friends to have a look and if they like what they see they will encourage others to do the same. The key to attracting traffic is to have interesting things to say. Do not miss a day’s posting, keep it fresh and interesting and others will join in. No posts and there will be no traffic.
So you have just built your new website. It’s been indexed by all of the major search engines, but nobody is coming to see exactly what’s on your site. If you expect your site to do well without any effort on your part, then you are clearly mistaken. Building a website is only half the work. Now you need to spend a lot of your time making sure that people know your site exists.
There are lots of ways to go about advertising for your site. You can pay for pay per click advertising with services like Google’s Adwords, you can enroll in a link exchange program with other websites that are in a similar niche, or you can do something like posting in forums to build up your traffic.
Forums are a valuable tool for many reasons. First off, they provide the site they are hosted on with plenty of traffic because they heavily contribute to the search engine score of a site. Secondly, they can be used as a major asset for someone looking to get the word out about their brand new site.
In order to make sure that you receive valuable customers, you need to first find a forum to post on that has some similarity to your site’s niche. Are you selling fishing supplies? Find a fishing forum. Once you have found a forum that is suitable for your needs, sign up and start joining in the conversation. When you feel the time is right, place a link to your site in your signature. Doing so will make your link appear each and every time you make a post on that forum.
Now, you may be thinking that if one post is good, then spamming a forum must be better. Whatever you do, don’t spam any forums. You will just make the members there angry and there may be some backlash in the community against your website.
When deciding how to start a blog the first thing for you to decide is what the purpose of your blog is. Are you doing this for your own personal pleasure, to earn some extra cash or to promote a business or idea that you would like to get out to others? Once you have decided this the next step is to look at other blogs of similar topic to get an idea of what others are doing. This may just give you the inspiration you need. When you feel ready to begin the first step is find the right blog provider to host you. There are many to choose from, some of which are free and others which charge only a small fee to use their sites.
Learning how to start a blog is quite easy. Once you have signed up you will see that there are templates you can use to make getting started easy. A simple click on a button and you will have the look you want and then can continue to customize it to suit your desires. You can add many things to your blog from photos, guestbooks to buttons and backgrounds. Make it you because that is what you are after or make it reflect your company and what you are trying to promote. The sites where you pay, even a small fee, do have slightly more to offer in choices when it comes to customizing your blog. Next you need to decide on who you want to be able to access your blog. You can make it private and only have it readable by your friends, coworkers and family or you can have it open to anyone wandering the internet who thinks what you are saying might be of interest to them.
Once you have learned how to start a blog you will be able to begin posting. Do not be offended or feel down if it takes a little time before you get traffic coming to your blog. Visit other blogs and make comments that include your blog address. This will encourage others to come to see what you have to say. It will also persuade those whose blogs you are reading to leave comments about your blog once they have seen it. This will further drive traffic to you.
One of the best examples of a free viral marketing campaign is to look at Hotmail. The use of this worldwide email service allows ads to be passed along without even having to get the permission or cooperation of the subscriber. Hotmail has an advertisement at the bottom of all outgoing emails. This promotion is to get more people to sign up for free email accounts. So, every time someone uses Hotmail to send an email they are promoting the website. The statistics show that with this method one subscriber will, over time, potentially refer ten people to the service. If this is the case then by the fourth generation of referrals ten thousand people have been referred. That is an incredible amount of traffic for doing no more than putting a small promotional ad at on the bottom of outgoing email. It is an unobtrusive and subtle marketing plan.
ECards are a great example of free viral marketing. When someone wants to send a greeting card by email, whether it is for a birthday, a get well card, season greeting or other special occasion card they go to one of the free services. These services will send a card to the receiver which can only be accessed through a link to their website. The card does not come directly to a person’s email account. They can only pick up their card by going to the services site and accessing it that way. A large percentage of people, when they are getting their card, will put the site into their favorites to keep for future reference. They will often also send their own eCards, either in response to the one they received or because there are people they want o send a greeting to. This continues to bring traffic to the card site.
There are many forms of viral campaigns you can try. One of the best ways to determine if this is the answer for you is to surf the net and check out what others are doing. This will give you an appreciation of the various kinds of free viral marketing promotions that can be tried and so allow you to judge whether this is the approach you want to take in your ad campaigns to promote your product or service.
It’s Time to How to Use Videos to Sell Products
The newest idea on promoting product or service websites concentrates on how to use videos to sell products. This tactic, called video marketing, is increasing traffic and sales on websites globally. It has been proven that given a choice the consumer would much rather watch a two minute video than read a once page promotional article. The trick is to use both voice and images to make a catchy video. While promoting the product or service the presenter must have interesting images and an appealing method of delivering the message or the video will go unwatched.
Statistics, based on information gleaned the spring on 2007, shows that a video grabs more people and causes them to take a next step much more often than the written word. On average forty five percent of those watching a video marketing presentation responded in some way. They made a next step and pursued some type of action. They either looked at the company’s website to see what they had to offer, they looked up the product being pitched or clicked on the ad that was with the video to let themselves learn more at the discretion of the video producers; in other words they let the video take them the next step. This is why learning how to use videos to sell products is a valuable lesson.
Of those who were studied after watching the video marketing presentation four percent ordered a subscription to a newsletter from the company. Another twelve to sixteen percent made some kind of purchased based on what they watched. Sixteen percent told others about the presentation and the products that were offered. Some of them even forwarded a pointer to the video. Nine percent became involved with a product trial to see if they really wanted to make a purchase. Overall this shows a good success rate using marketing videos and should encourage those contemplating this approach to learn how to use videos to sell products so that their sales rates will improve.
