Internet Marketing Strategies You Must Know

4 Internet Marketing Strategies You Must Know

I was browsing through my RSS reader today and came across an interesting post from my friend Glen Allsopp, titled The Post Your Fellow Bloggers Don’t Want You to Read.
The post basically lists four Internet marketing strategies that few bloggers are aware of. In fact one of them was completely new to me as well, and I have been working in this industry for many years. The idea is simple but pretty clever: to put a customer testimonial on your Paypal checkout page. Here is a quotation from the article:

Strategy Three: The Paypal Checkout Testimonial
One thing I’ve noticed with product launches â€" especially the Cloud Blogging launch â€" is that a lot of people will click on our Buy Now button, but not actually purchase the item. There is a measure for this called the “Cart Abandonment Rate” and our CAR was as high as 90% on some occasions.
I spoke with a few people on this topic, and watched some relevant marketing material, and was told that I should add a step between the sale and the Add to Cart screen. The reason people are more likely to click on an Add to Cart button in the first place is because it doesn’t imply commitment compared to words like Buy Now!.

Therefore, if you’re sending that traffic to an instant payment page, they often back out of the deal. The step, they told me, was a good place to insert product testimonials so further convince people that your offering is good.
Instead of adding an entirely new page, I took advantage of a little known feature in Paypal. The ability to add your own header to the Paypal payment pages. In this header I used a testimonial from one of our customers. Thanks to this, our cart abandonment rate has decreased dramatically.

If want to learn the other three strategies make sure to read the full article.

     

Want A Website with Millions of Monthly Pageviews?

Who doesn’t, right?
While I won’t be giving one, hopefully the tip I am going to share below will put you in the right path for building your own.
The tip is pretty simple: take a look at other websites that already achieved that (i.e., reached millions of monthly page views) and analyzed how they achieved it. Things you could analyze include:

• What niche they are focusing on.
• What kind of design they use.
• What kind of content or service they offer to visitors.
• What methods they use to generate traffic.
• What monetization methods they are using.
• What strategies they are using to convert first time visitors into loyal readers.

At this point you might be thinking: “OK, I’ll do that, but where exactly will i find websites that already reached millions of monthly pageviews?”
One resource I like to use for this purpose is the BuySellAds.com marketplace. You’ll basically be able to browse across hundreds of websites that are selling ads. The most popular websites on the marketplace get anywhere from 1 up to 20 million monthly page views. And that cool thing is that we are talking about real page views, because the BuySellAds traffic tracker is pretty accurate (I tested it myself).
You can also filter your research by topic, keyword and so on. I am sure you’ll get some ideas using this strategy, to give it a try.

 

Google Traffic – Confusing Love and Money

Written by Michael Gray on April 7, 2011

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I recently came across an article that was bemoaning the fact that the travel blogging space has become overrun with low level search intended writing, and the actual feet on the ground, first hand, personal travel experiences are disappearing from the web. IMHO this author has confused love and money, a common complaint in the web publishing world.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether you are in the game for love or money … cause you can’t have both …

To be honest, most of us will agree that the first hand, personal experience type of writing that someone does because they truly enjoy the subject is of a better quality and is what we really want to read and learn from. But it’s also more likely to be long winded, harder to digest, filled with flowery, non-keyword-focused adjectives and stuck on a site with a completely un-navigable site architecture. Search engine optimizers know how to organize and put content into the “language” a search engine can understand. Most travel writers, unless they have played with SEO, throw their hands in the air in frustration and wonder why Google can’t just figure it out.

Let’s take a look at another issue. Recently the Food 52 had an article about how Google’s new recipe algorithm was biased towards large sites that had IT staff who could republish their entire site with recipe meta data so Google could understand it. The writer also made the argument that larger sites with the budgets to do calorie computations would receive an unfair advantage.

…I do know the economics of advertising and production will choose the winner …

If you read further into the article, you’ll notice what’s really lurking under the surface is the author’s personal bias against fast and easy low calories recipes. In the article, she uses an example, an extremely complicated French recipe called a “cassoulet”. Now we’re confusing someone’s love of haute cuisine with the reality that most people simply don’t want to cook on a daily basis. There’s a reason Rachel Ray will sell more 30 minute meal cook books than David Chang’s Momofuku. It’s not that her food tastes better; it’s that her recipes and cooking style are much more accessible to most people than David Chang’s. Some of his recipes take days to prepare–trust me, I’ve tried.
But back to the recipe argument. Iis there some truth to her assertion? Yes. For example, Aaron Chronister, creator of the Bacon Explosion, showed me how he doesn’t rank for a recipe he created.

Bacon Explosion Recipe Search

In this case Google got it wrong, and they are partially to blame because they changed the rules in the middle of the game without realizing that not everyone will be able to update to the new format so quickly. Some people are in the game because they love to cook and, for them, it’s not about the money.
We are at a disruptive time in the publishing world. The barriers to publish are so low they are non existent (see Cognitive Surplus Review  by Clay Shirky). Google’s adsense allows anyone to monetize a website via adsense without needing a sales or accounting team. Large publishers have scaled creation costs so low that content is a commodity just to wrap advertising around . The New York Times is trying to find a balance between setting information free and charging for access and failing miserably at it. I can’t tell you where we are going to end up, but I do know the economics of advertising and production will choose the winner. The question you need to ask yourself is whether you are in the game for love or money … cause you can’t have both.

Why Google's +1 Needs an On Page Component

Last week Google announced a new addition to the search engine results page: the +1 button. While there was a huge amount of press surrounding the launch, after playing with it for a few days, I don’t think it’s going to work unless it has an on page component … soon. Let”s talk about what Google got right. The button is easy to use, unlike sidewiki or the privacy invading Google buzz. They also mimicked the Facebook link button closely enough that the average user will get the concept pretty readily. The “your friends also liked this” functionality also closely mimics Facebook. If you think this wasn’t intentional, you are a bit naive. That said, what Google got wrong was the omission of a button on the landing page. At the time this post was written, there is no button that publishers can put on their website pages. You can only get on the mailing list to be notified when one becomes available. IMHO this is a huge mistake. For the like button to “work” as it currently stands, one of two things have to happen: A user has to do the same or similar searches often and click the +1 button before clicking the SERP listing The user clicks the SERP listing and loves it so much, they go back and click the +1 button IMHO neither of these scenarios seems very likely, and it shows that Google really doesn’t understand how or why customers really use social media. Businesses “think” people “like” them out of a sense of loyalty; while that may be true for some, many are just looking for “sales”, “discounts” or “promo codes”. Let’s be honest–the most likely reason that someone would fan Williams Sonoma on Facebook is to get a discount and to see new recipes. There are hundreds of other little reasons, but those two are the biggest “value adds” to the end user. No one REALLY wants to be friends with a company. If Google really wants people to use the +1 button, they are going to need to make it REALLY easy to use. They are also going to have to create some way for the customer to get something from using the +1 button. Without those two factors, the only reason people will use the +1 button is if a marketer incentivizes it with cash or free samples. The eggheads in the Google ivory tower may think people will work for free to make the world (and the Google index) a better place, but in the real world people will work harder on the things that bring more cash into their own lives, not into someone else’s.

Optimize Your Images For Search Engine Traffic

How to Optimize Your Images For Search Engine Traffic

The following is part of a multiple part series covering image optimization techniques. This article is intended for beginners through intermediate SEO's; if this doesn't pertain to you, you may want to skim as most of this will probably be review material for you. Some of the big questions many people ask are why would they even want to perform image optimization? Doesn't it just help people who want to steal or hotlink images? And is there really any meaningful traffic or links that you can get from image optimization? IMHO the answer is yes. Let's say someone is going on a trip to Italy. They might do image searches for things to do or see in Italy and for famous Italian landmarks like the Leaning Tower of Piza, the Trevi Fountain, or St. Peter's Basilica. Thanks to Google's universal search results, images provide a way to get onto the first page (or, in some cases, the top result) and get a click through, an ad view, or adsense impression. It might even get a lead generation completion. Maybe you run a fish store. If a university professor or government agency needs a picture of a fish and your image result appears, and you allow your images to be reused in exchange for a link, this can be huge way to passively build links slowly over time (true story! It happened for a client I used to have). Now that we've got the why out of the way, let's talk about the "how" of image optimization. Filenames This is one of the most basic elements of image optimization. If you have an image of blue widgets, I would name your image "blue-widgets.jpg" or "blue-widgets.gif". You can use other formats like PNG, but I have gotten better results with "jpg" and "gif" files. You can use other characters like underscore as word delimiters, but I get better results with hyphens. You can run the words together if they are separate in other factors. I have found stemming plays a role (ie widget vs widgets), but you can get around it using other factors. I haven't seen capitalization play a role, but I prefer to use all lower case because I usually use Apache servers and case sensitivity matters. If you are going to have multiple images of the same object-type, I suggest adding a "-1″, "-2″ onto the end. Now, before the hate mail or hate tweets start, it is entirely possible to have an image rank without the keywords being in the file name–IF there are enough other factors in place. However, you should ask yourself why would you give up a chance to give a search engine a signal about what an image is about? If you work on a large ecommerce platform or other large database application, chances are good that your gold diamond earrings will have an image file name like "GDX347294.jpg" that corresponds to the item's SKU or other internal classifier. So, yes, you will have to sacrifice the keyword for business reasons. ALT Text Let's get the basic information out of the way: ALT text was designed for screen readers or visually-impaired people to know what they weren't seeing. Your goal is to use it to satisfy the screen readers while being keyword focused enough for the search engines and without being a keyword stuffing spammer. Here's an example of ALT text variations: Keyword stuffed: discount hotel room paris france ALT text only: Eiffel Tower SEO optimized: Eiffel Tower from Louvre Bons Enfants hotel room Striving to find a balance between pleasing the search engines and text readers can be a juggling act. If you are risky with some of your other SEO techniques, I'd play this on the safe side. Headings and Bold Text If image optimization for a particular image is important, I really like to optimize the image with bold or a heading tag of the term I'm chasing right above the image. I've found this really helps give a strong signal to the engines Oceanus Statue from Trevi Fountain Image Captions Image captions like the one to the right are another way I really like to give the search engines a good nudge in the direction I want them to go. Try to place the search term you are trying to optimize for at the front of the caption. Image size I've found that if you keep your images a reasonable size you generally do better with image optimization. That's not to say really big or really small images won't rank, just that images that are larger than 100×100 and smaller than 1200×1200 work best. Using a thumbnail that links to a larger picture can be helpful. Image Traffic So what can you expect from image traffic? Like all things, it depends on what you are chasing, but I have one image that ranks on the first page for a single word term that brings in hundreds of views for me every month. The page has adsense on it and, over a single year, it brings in several hundred dollars worth of revenue. It's something to think about before you write off image optimization. Images Traffic Data So what are the takeaways from this post: Try to name your images with your keywords if possible, using the hyphen as a delimiter. Shorter names are better than longer. Avoid using more than 4 words if possible. Keep your ALT text keyword focused without being stuffed or spammy. If possible use headings or bold tags above or directly next to the image. Use captions if at all possible and keep the keywords closer to the front of the caption. Keep the images a reasonable size. They should be large enough for people to see but small enough to fit on a screen. If you own the image, encourage people to reuse your image in exchange for a link. Try to find a way to monetize image traffic with CPM advertising, adsense, or affiliate links.

How Many Websites Should I Run

A question that I get asked fairly regularly is “how many websites should I run? Am I better with one website or lots of little ones?” The question has some different aspects, so, as someone who runs more than one website, I’ll try to share some of my experience.

… no website will ever be finished, but it can reach a point where it covers everything it needs to and just runs in low maintenance auto pilot mode …

If you are brand new, or even if you’ve been doing this for a while, and you aren’t having much luck, my advice is to do exactly what Lynn Terry says and concentrate on just one website. You need to concentrate on making this website as complete as possible. No website will ever be finished, but it can reach a point where it covers everything it needs to and just runs in low maintenance auto pilot mode. The tricky part is figuring out if the website has reached its earning potential or not. If you are ranking in the top 5 for your most profitable and sought after keywords, you might be there. If you have set your website up to be an industry leader, and it’s the brand people think of when they think of your niche, then you definitely are there. Sometimes, if your space is dominated by large brands with a larger staff, higher budgets, and an offline marketing component, it’s hard if not impossible for a small guy to break into the top results. Sometimes competing at that level costs you more time then you will make back in dollars, but that’s something you have to figure out on your own.
Hopefully, along the way of building your first successful website, you learn to do two things: 1. minimize the amount of work and maintenance your website needs and 2. how to outsource effectively. When you are first starting out, you usually have more time than money and end up doing things yourself. It’s pretty rare that you find someone who can write well, do design and graphics, and understands marketing and information architecture. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and figuring that out is part of the learning process. Learn what your weaknesses are.  Those should be the things you outsource first. Learning to outsource and remain profitable is a skill you also need to learn. In fact, I think it’s the biggest lesson people can learn from the leaked AOL document (see what you can learn from content farms).

… Learn what your weaknesses are. Those should be the things you outsource first …

Once you have your website ranking for its terms, it’s near the top of its earnings potential, and you have employees or subcontractors who can keep it running without your day to day intervention, then its time to start thinking about building or buying another one. In the olden days, it used to be sexy to be an SEO with thousands of churn and burn websites. Now, I’m not saying that’s not a money making strategy but, unless you are there now or have access to a lot of tools to create that kind of stuff, it’s probably not worth it. The time it takes to get a spammy website to rank isn’t that much shorter than a good brand-able one, and the brand-able one will last longer unless you use high risk tactics on it.
At this stage of the game, Google is heavily biased towards brand websites or websites that at least mimic signs of being a brand. There is so much emphasis on these signals that I strongly recommend having a smaller amount of quality websites as opposed to a large quantity of crappy ones. This doesn’t mean you should build one huge sprawling website. It means you should focus on quality: start out with evergreen content, mix in seasonal content, and linkbait no matter how boring your subject is. Do content audits and regularly prune out the under-performing pages and keep your evergreen content updated. You want a fast, lean shark who can be large but deadly. You don’t want to  be a fat, bloated whale of a website that’s slow to move or adapt. This doesn’t mean I recommend you have only one website–after all, a diversified income stream is better than one that comes from one source. It just means I think you need to be sure a website supports itself before you move your focus on to something else.
So what are the takaways from this post:

• Do regular content audits, prune dead or under-performing pages, and update out dated ones regularly.
• Build links on regular basis even if you have a boring topic.
• Outsource skills where you are weakest first. Look to keeping the maintenance as low as possible.
• Once you have top rankings and can do all of the above profitably, look to expand.
• It’s better to have fewer, high quality sites than a greater number of low quality websites.

Affiliate Marketer Tools

Before plunging in and dissecting the three most important tools you'll need to succeed in Affiliate Marketing, let me first list at least some of the questions which any hopeful affiliate marketer worth his/her salt should want answered before even considering entering this profitable field.

 1. What does it take to become a successful Affiliate
    Marketer?

 2. What are the key ingredients of an affiliate marketing
    success story?

 3. Is there a shortcut to Affiliate Marketing glory?

These are the kinds of questions that play around in the minds of hopeful affiliate marketers, and I'll do my best to answer them in this article.

Although affiliate marketing is touted as one of the easiest and most effective ways to earn money online, it's not as easy as it sounds.

The wise affiliate marketer plans every action and executes it the best way he can. Having the right tools can spell the difference between becoming a major success story, or winding up beaten and penniless, as many do.

It is vital that the potential affiliate marketer accept the fact that only by using the right tools will his/her Affiliate Marketing business become a profitable venture.

We have consulted some of the most successful affiliate marketers in the business in this regard and they have generously revealed what are, in their opinion, the top three Key Tools for a successful affiliate marketing business. Straight from them to you, these are discussed below.

     Key Tool #1: YOUR OWN WEBSITE

The most important and indispensable tool in Affiliate Marketing is having your own website. The first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website.

Your website is the jumping off point for all your marketing efforts. Thus, you must first build a user-friendly website which will appeal to your prospects and encourage them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting (and, hopefully, make a purchase).

It is vital, therefore, to focus your efforts on building a website that will cater to what your prospects need.

The most important thing you should always keep in mind is that almost all web users go online to look for information, and not necessarily to buy something. Above all else, make your website full of original, relevant and useful content.

People love articles that are appealing and helpful. Remember that, on the internet, content is king, and good, quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking.

By posting relevant and useful articles, you establish yourself as an expert in that field, making you a more trustworthy endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good reputation is a tremendous step in building up a loyal customer base.

     Key Tool #2: USING INCENTIVES

Competition is extremely tight in the internet world. You must always be one step ahead of your competition to ensure that you capture a significant share of your target market.

Therefore, you must use every possible means to encourage people not only to visit your site, but also to click and proceed to the websites of the products and services you're promoting.

Building an opt-in email list is one of the best ways to gather potential prospects. Start your own newsletter or ezine.

Then, offer value-added incentives to your prospects to encourage them to subscribe to your newsletter. You can give away fr.ee software, access to exclusive services, a fr.ee eBook, or even fr.ee access to any product you may have tried to market in the past which didn't sell well - this could be your own product, or one to which you have resell rights.

The fact that it didn't sell well for you doesn't mean that your prospect won't find it a valuable gift...particularly, when it's fr.ee!

     Key Tool #3: LINK POPULARITY

The importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website can't be overemphasized. The all-important web traffic is at the top of the list of the most important properties in the internet world. Commit this to memory.

Attracting people to your site should be your first, and foremost, order of business. Do everything to achieve a high search engine ranking. Link Popularity is one of the factors that search engines use to determine search engine rankings.

Thus, to enhance your link popularity, you must launch an aggressive, no holds-barred, reciprocal link campaign.

One of the best ways to do this, at no cost at all, is by submitting articles with your website's link in the resource box to e-zines and article directory sites. This will not only bring exposure, you will also have  the opportunity to advertise for fr.ee just by including a link back to your site. The more sites you submit your articles to, the better your link popularity can be.

Work diligently to make your articles are original, relevant  and useful, so that more websites will pick them up. It's impossible to put a price tag on the exposure these efforts will bring you.

  There you have them...

These are but three of the many tools that an affiliate marketer can use to maximize his/her earnings potential. The
possibilities  are endless and are limited only by your imagination, creativity, and resourcefulness.

And, it goes without saying, you're encouraged to explore other ideas, and adapt other strategies besides these, in order to help you become a high rolling, well paid, affiliate marketer.