The Best Successful Business Marketing

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Why we Should Hire A Business Marketing Consultant?

Small businesses are finding it harder than ever to compete during this economic crisis. Many businesses have been forced to close down simply because they were not able to attract the new prospects they needed to grow or maintain their current business. Today, it is more important than ever to be able to attract these new customers and the only way to effectively do that is through a well developed small business marketing plan.

 
Since many small businesses are spending the majority of their time trying to run their business and maintain their current client base to survive in this economy, there is little time to lend to the marketing of their business. On top of that, many business owners are unsure of the best ways to market their particular business. This is when a Small Business Marketing Consultant can help.


Understanding what a marketing consultant is and what they can do for your small business is important before you seek one out. Not only do these types of consultants have a strong background in advertising and marketing, they also have a wide range of experience in business management. In addition, most have an enormous amount of experience in the areas of online marketing. This is crucial in today’s marketing plans as over 70% of adults now shop online and this number will only grow over the next 5-10 years.



The role of a small business marketing consultant is not necessarily to create a marketing plan for you (although they can also do that), but rather to assist you in identifying your marketing needs and goals so that you are better able to create a marketing strategy that is best suited for your particular business.


Every business is different and what works for one may not work well for another. A small business marketing consultant can help you assess your business and see where you might make improvements so that you can become more competitive and attract the new prospects you are seeking to help grow your business. They can also propose certain specific marketing methods and solutions which can help to improve your company’s presence online.
How you utilize a marketing consultant is up to you. You can have them assist you in every step of your marketing strategy from the start up to full implementation or just have them review your current plan to see where you can make some improvements. It is entirely up to you.


Learn more about how a small business marketing consultant can assist you by contacting us below. We can answer any questions you may have and assist you in analyzing your particular marketing needs. We offer a range of services which can be customized to meet any size business and any budget. Let us help you create a successful marketing campaign designed specifically for your small business so that you can not only survive, but thrive. Join the many small business owners that have achieved success online utilizing our consulting services. Don’t let your small business fall behind.

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How can you get more visitors to your website? 37 Best Web marketing Strategies

How can you get more visitors to your website? What can you do to stimulate traffic? Here’s a checklist of 37 items you need to consider. Many of these may be doing already; others you meant to do and forgot about; still others you’ve never heard of. Of course, a great deal has been written about this. You’ll find many articles about website promotion on our site.
This article is designed to introduce you to website promotion — getting consumers to come to your website. It gives you the basic information, which you can then explore through links to other resources, many of them free. As one of our most popular articles, this was revised most recently on April 19, 2011.
While I’m not breaking any new ground here, I’ve tried to summarize some of the most important techniques.

Search Engine Strategies

 

 

Perhaps the most important — and inexpensive — strategy is to rank high for your preferred keywords on the main search engines in “organic” or “natural” searches (as opposed to paid ads). Search engines send robot “spiders” to index the content of your webpage, so let’s begin with steps to prepare your webpages for optimal indexing. The idea here is not to trick the search engines, but to leave them abundant clues as to what your webpage is about. This approach is called “search engine optimization,” abbreviated as SEO.


1. Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title. 

Write a descriptive title for each page — rich in keywords you want people to find you with — using 5 to 8 words. Remove as many “filler” words from the title (such as “the,” “and,” etc.) as possible, while still making it readable. This page title will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page is found. Entice searchers to click on the title by making it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: <TITLE>Web Marketing Checklist — 37 Ways to Promote Your Website</TITLE>. (It also shows on the blue bar at the top of your web browser.)
Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home page. If you specialize in silver bullets and that’s what people will be searching for, don’t just use your company name “Acme Ammunition, Inc.,” use “Silver and Platinum Bullets — Acme Ammunition, Inc.” The words people are most likely to search on should appear first in the title (called “keyword prominence”). Remember, this title is your identity on the search engines. The more people see that interests them in the blue hyperlinked words on the search engine, the more likely they are to click on the link.


2. Write a Description META Tag.
  

Some search engines include this description below your hyperlinked title in the search results. The description should be a sentence or two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and key phrases on this page. Don’t include keywords that don’t appear on the webpage. Place the Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format:
<META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” CONTENT=”Increase visitor hits, attract traffic through submitting URLs, META tags, news releases, banner ads, and reciprocal links.”>
The maximum number of characters should be about 255; just be aware that only the first 60 or so are visible on Google, though more may be indexed.
When I prepare a webpage, I write the article first, and then develop a keyword-rich title (#1 above). Then I write a description of the content in that article in a sentence or two, using each of the important keywords and key phrases included in the article. This goes into the description META tag.
Next, I strip out the common words, leaving just the meaty keywords and phrases and insert those into the keywords META tag. It’s no longer used much for ranking, but I’m leaving it in anyway. I think it may have some minor value. So to summarize so far, every webpage in your site should have a distinct title and META description tag. If you implement these two points, you’re well on your way to better search engine ranking. But there’s more that will help your ranking….


3. Include Your Keywords in Headers (H1, H2, H3). 

 Search engines consider keywords that appear in the page headline and sub heads to be important to the page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in one or two header tags. Don’t expect the search engine to parse your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to figure out which are the headlines — it won’t. Instead, use keywords in the H1, H2, and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. (Note: Some designers no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That’s a big mistake. Make sure your designer defines these tags in the CSS rather than creating headline tags with other names.)


4. Position Your Keywords in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text. 

 Search engines expect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for the document — where most people write an introduction to the content of the page. You don’t want to just artificially stuff keywords here, however. More is not better. Google might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so don’t overdo it.


5. Include Descriptive Keywords in the ALT Attribute of Image Tags. 

This helps your site be more accessible to site-impaired visitors and gives additional clues to the search engines. The ALT attributes dohelp get your images ranked higher for image search (see #12 below).


6. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks.

Search engines are looking for clues to the focus of your webpage. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and key phrases. To emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have a page name with the keyword or key phrase, such as blue-widget.html– another clue for the search engine.


7. Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly. 

You want search engine robots to find all the pages in your site. JavaScript and Flash navigation menus that appear when you hover are great for humans, but search engines don’t read JavaScript and Flash very well. Therefore, supplement JavaScript and Flash menus with regular HTML links at the bottom of the page, ensuring that a chain of hyperlinks exists that take a search engine spider from your home page to every page in your site. Don’t set up your navigation system using HTML frames (an old, outdated approach); they can cause severe indexing problems.
Some content management systems and e-commerce catalogs produce dynamic, made-on-the-fly webpages, often recognizable by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes have trouble parsing long URLs and may stop at the question mark, refusing to go farther. If you find the search engines aren’t indexing your interior pages, you might consider URL rewriting, a site map, or commercial solutions.


8. Create a Site Map.  

A site map page with links to all your pages can help search engines (and visitors) find all your pages, particularly if you have a larger site. You can use free tools, XML-Sitemaps.com to create XML sitemaps that are used by the major search engines to index your webpages accurately. Upload your sitemap to your website. Then submit your XML sitemap to Google, Yahoo!, and Bing (formerly MSN), following instructions on their sites. By the way,  Google Webmaster Central  has lots of tools to help you get ranked higher. Be sure to set up a free account and explore what they have to offer.


9. Develop Webpages Focused on Each Your Target Keywords.

 SEO specialists no longer recommend using external doorway or gateway pages, since nearly duplicate webpages might get you penalized. Rather, develop several webpages on your site, each of which is focused on a target keyword or key phrase for which you would like a high ranking. Let’s say you sell teddy bears. Use Google Insights for Search or the free keyword suggestion tool on Wordtracker to find the related keywords people search on. In this case: write a separate webpage featuring the keyword “teddy bear,” “teddy bears,” “vermont teddy bears,” “vermont bears,” “the teddy bears,” teddy bears picnic,” “teddy bears pictures,” etc. You’ll write a completely different article on each topic. You can’t fully optimize all the webpages in your site, but for each of these focused-content webpages, spend lots of time tweaking to improve its ranking, as described in point #10.


10. Fine-tune with Careful Search Engine Optimization. 

Now fine-tune your focused-content pages and perhaps your home page, by making a series of minor adjustments to help them rank higher. Software such as WebPosition allows you to check your current ranking and compare your webpages against your top keyword competitors. I use it regularly. WebPosition’s Page Critic tool provides analysis of a search engine’s preferred statistics for each part of your webpage, with specific recommendations of what minor changes to make. The best set of SEO tools is Bruce Clay’s SEOToolSet. You can find links to many SEO articles on this site.
Frankly, this kind of SEO fine-tuning is time-consuming, painstaking work that takes a lot of specialized knowledge. For this reason, many small and large businesses outsource search engine optimization. If you’ll explain your needs to me on my online form, I can refer you to appropriate SEO firms that I know and trust.


11. Promote Your Local Business on the Internet

These days many people search for local businesses on the Internet. To make sure they find you, include on every page of your website the street address, zip code, phone number, and the five or 10 other local community place names your business serves. If you can, include place names in the title tag, too. When you seek links to your site (see #15 below), you should request links from local businesses with place names in the communities you serve and complementary businesses in your industry nationwide.
Also create a free listing for your local business on Google Places for Business, Yahoo! Local, and Bing Local Listing Center. That way your business can show up on a map when people do a local search. For more information, see articles on local marketing on my site.


12. Promote Your Video, Images, and Audio Content. 

Google’s “universal search” displays not only webpage content, but also often displays near the top of the page relevant listings for images, videos, local businesses (see #11 above), and audio clips.  Therefore, consider creating such content appropriate to your business and then optimizing it so it can be ranked high enough to help you. For example, if you were to get a top-ranking, informative video on YouTube that mentions your site, it could drive a lot of traffic to your site. For more information, search on “optimizing images” or “optimizing videos.” You can see how I use videos to promote my business on my Web Marketing Today YouTube Channel.

Linking Strategies

 

Links to your site from other sites drive additional traffic. But since Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links to your website (“link popularity”) as an important indicator of relevance, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines. Google has a measure called PageRank that reflects the quantity and quality of incoming links. All links aren’t all equal. Links from trusted, popular sites help your site rank higher than links from lower traffic sites. You’ll find articles on linking strategies on our site.


13. Submit Your Site to Key Directories 

Since a link from a directory will help your ranking — and get you traffic. A directory is not a search engine. Rather, it is a hierarchical listing of sites sorted according to category and subcategory. Be sure to list your site in the free Open Directory Project, overseen by overworked volunteer editors. But if you don’t get listed right away, don’t be impatient and resubmit, or you’ll go to the end of the queue. A link in this directory will help you a lot.
Yahoo! Directory is another important directory. Real humans read submissions; so be careful to follow the instruction given. Hint: Use somewhat less than the maximum number of characters allowable, so you don’t have wordy text that will tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping. Yahoo! Directory Submit requires a $299 annual recurring fee to have your site considered for inclusion within seven business days. Other paid business directories that might help are About.com and Business.com.


14. Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories.  

Some directories focused on particular industries, such as education or finance. You probably belong to various trade associations that feature member directories. Ask for a link. Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank.
Marginal directories, however, come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up, so don’t try to be exhaustive here. Beware of directories that solicit you for “upgraded listings.” Unless a directory is widely used in your field, a premium ad is a waste of money — but the (free) link itself will help boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking.
SubmitWolf is a directory submission tool I’ve used with good success. You complete a listing form in the software interface. Then they submit your listing to all the appropriate directories they know of, plus links to sites that require manual submission. It’s a timesaver and works well. Just be careful to submit only to actual directories, not “linking sites.”


15. Request Reciprocal Links. 

Find websites in your general niche and request a reciprocal link to your site (especially to your free service, if you offer one, see #24 below). Develop an out-of-the way page where you put links to other sites — so you don’t send people out the back door as fast as you bring them in the front door. Your best results will be from sites that generate a similar amount of traffic as your own site. High-traffic site webmasters are too busy to answer your requests for a link and don’t have anything to gain. Look for smaller sites that may have linking pages.
Check out Ken Evoy’s free SiteSell Value Exchange. It (1) registers your site as willing to exchange links with other sites that have a similar theme/topic content and (2) searches for sites with similar topical content. Additionally, two automated link-building software programs stand out — Zeus and IBP Link Builder. Both of these search the web for complementary sites, help you maintain a link directory, and manage reciprocal links. However, use these programs to identify the complementary sites, not to send impersonal automated email spam to site owners.
When you locate sites, send a personal email using the contact email on the site or to the administrative contact listed in a Whois Directory. If email doesn’t get a response, try a phone call. As a warning, only link to complementary sites, no matter how often you are bombarded with requests to exchange links with a mortgage site that has nothing to do with your teddy bear store. One way Google determines what your site is about is who you link to and who links to you. It’s not just links, but quality links you seek. Reciprocal linking as hard, tedious work, but it doesn’t cost you a dime out of pocket! Keep working at this continuously, a little bit at a time. Patience and persistence will get you some good links, so keep at it.


16. Write Articles for Others to Use in Websites and Newsletters. 

You can dramatically increase your visibility when you write articles in your area of expertise and distribute them to editors as free content for their email newsletters or their websites. Just ask that a link to your website and a one-line description of what you offer be included with the article. This is an effective “viral” approach that can produce hundreds of links to your site over time. You’ll find lots of information on how to do this from the most popular article-marketing site, EzineArticles.com. When you create a free membership account, they begin sending you instructions and ideas each week.


17. Issue News Releases. 

Find newsworthy events and send news releases to print and Web periodicals in your industry. The links to your site in online news databases may remain for several months and will temporarily improve traffic to your site and increase link popularity. Use an online news release service such as PR Web. Placing your website URL in online copies of your press release may increase link popularity temporarily.
Two additional linking strategies, discussed below, are to ask visitors to bookmark your webpage (#20) and to develop a free service (#23), which will greatly stimulate links to your site.

Social Media

 

Our next type of website promotion comes from the mushrooming field of social media, in which people are encouraged to interact with each other, and respond to each other’s blog postings and comments. You should be aware of four types of social media: (1) blogs, (2) social networking sites, (3) social bookmarking sites, and (4) forums. Don’t be upset if the distinctions between types of social media tend to blur. Social media help promote your site by sending direct traffic, producing links to your site, and generating awareness. The subject is too diverse to go into detail here. You can learn more in our social media articles on this site.


18. Begin a Business Blog. 

Want links to your site? Begin a business blog on your website, hosted on your own domain. If you offer excellent content and regular industry comment, people are likely to link to it, increasing your site’s Page Rank. Consistency and having something to say are key. If you have a blog on a third-party blog site, occasionally find reasons to talk about and link to your own domain.


19. Become Part of a Social Media Community. 

Some of the best online communities for business include Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. In addition, you may want to participate in a social bookmarking community in which members share with each other information about websites, articles, or news items that they like (or don’t like). These include Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Google Bookmarks. Search engine spiders troll these sites looking for links to something new and relevant. You can usually place a link to your website in your profile, but the biggest gain comes when other people mention you (which generates traffic to your site), link to you (which increases your PageRank and brings traffic), or bookmark you (which increases your Page Rank and brings traffic, see #21 below).
One important reminder, don’t join a community to spam them or talk incessantly about your business. Like any community you must listen, comment, and make a genuine contribution for the good of others. Don’t hog the conversation. Otherwise, your self-serving links and comments will hurt your reputation.
Don’t bother with groups consisting of pure spam. Instead, find groups where a serious dialog is taking place. Don’t use aggressive marketing and overtly plug your product or service. Rather, add to the discussion in a helpful way and let the “signature” at the end of your email message do your marketing for you. People will gradually get to know and trust you, visit your site, and do business with you.


20. Promote Your Site in Online Forums and Discussion Lists

 
“old school” social media. The Internet offers thousands of very targeted email based discussion lists, online forums, and groups made up of people with very specialized interests. Use Google Groups to find appropriate groups. Search online for blogs or other forums.


21. Ask Visitors to Bookmark Your Site. 

It seems simple, but ask visitors to bookmark your site or save it in their Favorites list. I use a widget called AddThis. When you put the AddThis JavaScript on your webpage, it automatically determines the title and URL of that page. When visitors click the button on your page, they are automatically taken to a page that allows them to choose which bookmarking service they prefer, and then pre-populates the appropriate form with the title and URL of your webpage. I use AddThis throughout my website, as well as in my newsletters. If you have good content that people want to bookmark, this can generate hundreds of links to your site and significantly raise your rankings.

Traditional Strategies

 

Just because “old media” strategies aren’t on the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t effective. A mixed media approach can be very effective.


22. Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature.  

Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company’s URL. And see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct. In print, I recommend leaving off the “http://” part and including only the www.domain.com portion.


23. Promote using traditional media.  

Don’t discontinue print advertising that you’ve found effective. But be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages, etc. View your website as an information adjunct to the ad. Use a two-step approach: (1) capture readers’ attention with the ad, (2) then refer them to a URL where they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order. Look carefully at small display or classified ads in the back of narrowly targeted magazines or trade periodicals. Sometimes these ads are more targeted, more effective, and less expensive than online advertising. Consider other traditional media to drive people to your site, such as direct mail, classifieds, post cards, etc. TV can be used to promote websites, especially in a local market.


24. Develop a Free Service. 

It’s boring to invite people, “Come to our site and learn about our business.” It’s quite another to say “Use the free kitchen remodeling calculator available exclusively on our site.” Make no mistake, it’s expensive in time and energy to develop free resources, but it is very rewarding in increased traffic to your site — and a motivation to link to the site! Make sure that your free service is closely related to what you are selling so the visitors you attract will be good prospects for your business. Give visitors multiple opportunities and links to cross over to the sales portion of your site.

Email Strategies

 

 

Don’t neglect email as an important way to bring people to your website. Just don’t spam, that is, don’t send bulk unsolicited emails without permission to people with whom you have no relationship. Many countries have anti-spam laws.
I’ll mention just a few important elements here. You can learn more from our articles on email marketing.


25. Install a “Signature” in your Email Program

 To help potential customers get in touch with you. Most email programs allow you to designate a “signature” to appear at the end of each message you send. Limit it to 6 to 8 lines: Company name, address, phone number, URL, email address, and a one-phrase description of your unique business offering. Look for examples on email messages sent to you.


26. Publish an Email Newsletter.  

While it requires a commitment of time, creating a monthly email publication is one of the most important promotion techniques. It could be a newsletter (“ezine”), list of tips, industry updates, or new product information — whatever you believe your customers will appreciate. This is a great way to keep in touch with your prospects, generate trust, develop brand awareness, and build future business. It also helps you collect email addresses from those who visit your site, but aren’t yet ready to make a purchase. You distribute your newsletter inexpensively using email marketing services such as: iContact, ConstantContact, and AWeber. If you have a very small list, some of these services let you use their services free until you grow larger. Blogs are very popular, but don’t really replace email newsletters. You have to go to a blog to read it, while an email newsletter appears in your inbox asking to be read.


27. Aggressively Ask for Email Sign-ups.  

If you want to get subscribers to your email newsletter, you’ll need to work hard at it. Include a subscription form on every page of your website. Promote sign-ups through free whitepapers, e-books, or other products. If you have a local business, ask customers to sign up for your email list to get “special Internet only offers.” Also ask other businesspeople when they give you a business card if you can send them your email newsletter. While only the email address itself is necessary, I always ask for a first name also, so I can personalize the newsletter and the email subject line with the recipient’s name.


28. Send Transactional and Reminder Emails.  

A transactional email is sent to an existing customer to initiate, remind, confirm, or thank the person. Be creative. If you keep careful records, you can send emails to customers on their birthday to remind them to return to your site. Subscription confirmation emails can also mention several popular products. You might remind customers that it has been three months since their last order and ask if it’s time for a refill. Thank you for your purchase emails can offer a coupon to bring your customer back for a future sale. Use your imagination, but don’t pester your customers. You’re there to serve them, not the other way around.


29. Send Offers to Your Visitors and Customers. 

Your own list of customers and site visitors who have given you permission to contact them will be your most productive list. Send special offers, coupon specials, product updates, etc. They often initiate another visit to your site. If you have a regular newsletter, you can include many of these in your regular emailing.


30. Exchange Email Mentions with Complementary Businesses. 

You might consider exchanging email newsletter mentions with complementary businesses to reach new audiences. Just be sure that your partners are careful where they get their mailing list so you don’t get in trouble with the anti-spam laws in your country.
I’ll mention renting email lists in #37 below under Paid Advertising approaches.

 

Miscellaneous Strategies

 

Here are a couple of strategies that don’t fit elsewhere.
31. Announce a Contest. People like getting something free. If you publicize a contest or drawing available on your site, you’ll generate more traffic than normal. Make sure your sweepstakes rules are legal in all states and countries you are targeting. Prizes should be designed to attract individuals who fit a demographic profile describing your best customers.


32. Devise Viral Marketing Promotion Techniques.  

So-called viral marketing uses existing communication networks to spread the word exponentially. Word-of-mouth, PR, creating “buzz,” and network marketing are offline models. Promotion strategy #16 above, “Write Articles for Others to Use for Website and Newsletter Content,” is a kind of viral approach.
The key to the best viral marketing, however, is create something that generates buzz and is so cute / fascinating / fun / bizarre that it gets passed by viewers to their friends via email and social networks — thousands of times — so that it propels more and more people to your website, and, hopefully, helps enhance your brand, produce sales, and ultimately boost profits. Internet marketers often seek to launch viral campaigns on Digg or YouTube. Digg is a social bookmarking site with such power, that if enough people “Digg” you, you appear on the Digg front page and receive a huge number of visitors in a few hours. If your video goes viral on YouTube, you could get tens of thousands of visits to the site you promote in the video. However, viral marketing is difficult to do well.

Paid Advertising Strategies

 

None of the approaches described above is “free,” since each takes time and energy. But if you want to grow your business more rapidly, there comes a point when you need to pay for increased traffic. Advertising is sold in one of three ways: (1) traditional CPM (cost per thousand views), (2) pay per click (PPC), and (3) pay per action (PPA) or cost per action (CPA) approaches. Examples of the latter are affiliate program and lead generation programs. Banner ads get such a low click-through rate (0.2%) that I don’t recommend paying much for them. Banner ads typically cost about 50 to $1 per thousand page views, except on targeted sites.  Do some small tests first to determine response. Then calculate your return on investment (ROI) before spending large amounts. Here are some methods to explore:


33. Advertise in an Email Newsletter.  

Some of the best buys are small text ads in email newsletters targeted at audiences likely to be interested in your products or services. Many small publishers aren’t sophisticated about advertising and offer very attractive rates.
More effective (and more expensive) is to send out an appropriate solo email to the targeted list’s subscribers. These often get a good response.


34. Begin an Affiliate Program. 

Essentially, a retailer’s affiliate program is a CPA program that pays a commission to other site owners whose links to the retailer’s products result in an actual sale. The goal is to build a network of affiliates who have a financial stake in promoting your site. If you’re a merchant, you need to (1) determine the commission you are willing to pay (consider it your advertising cost), (2) select a company to set up the technical details of your program, and (3) promote your program to get the right kind of affiliates who will link to your site. Software and service companies are available to facilitate the process. The problem is getting enough affiliates who will actually work hard to promote your products or services. These “super affiliates” will probably consist of only 1% to 3% of your total number of affiliates.


35. Purchase Pay Per Click (PPC) ads

 with Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, or Microsoft adCenter. This strategy is way down the list, but it is vitally important. Most Internet businesses will want to explore using Google AdWords to drive targeted traffic to their websites.
These PPC ads appear on the search engine results page, typically both above and to the right of the organic or natural search engine results. Since they are keyword-driven, they can be quite relevant to what a searcher is trying to find. Your ranking in this list of paid text ads is determined by (1) how much you have bid for a particular search word compared to other businesses, (2) the click-through rate on your ad, and (3) your Quality Score, which reflects the relevancy and quality of your ad and the landing page it points to.
PPC ads can be a cost-effective way to get targeted traffic, since you only pay when someone actually clicks on the link. But I strongly recommend that you study this carefully and expect a learning curve before you invest large sums of money in PPC advertising. You can find articles on Paid Search on our site.


36. List Your Products with Shopping Comparison Bots and Auction Sites. 

If you’re an online merchant, you’ll want to consider this. Shopping bots compare your products and prices to others. Some work on a PPC (Pay Per Click) basis, others on a CPA (Cost Per Action) basis, perhaps with a listing fee. Bots to consider include mySimon, BizRate, PriceGrabber, and Shopping.com. Shopping sites that include comparison features include: eBay, Yahoo! Shopping, and Amazon Marketplace. You pay to acquire first-time customers, but hopefully you can sell to them a second, third, and fourth time, later on.


37. Rent targeted, commercial email lists. 

The last website promotion technique I’ll mention is renting targeted email lists. We abhor “spam,” bulk untargeted, unsolicited email, and you’ll pay a very stiff price in a ruined reputation and cancelled services if you yield to temptation here. But the direct marketing industry has developed targeted email lists you can rent — lists consisting of people who have agreed to receive commercial email messages. These lists cost $40 to $400 per thousand or 4 to 40 per name. Do a smaller test first to determine the quality of the list. Your best bet is to find an email list broker  to help you with this project. You’ll save money and get experienced help for no additional cost. Realize, however, that due to the high cost of renting lists, many businesses won’t generate enough businesses to justify the cost. Run the numbers before you invest.

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Verify your website on Pinterest

Pinterest is a relatively new social network that revolves around the concept of image-sharing. With over 50 Million active users, it is fast becoming the largest such social network, which gives site owners and webmasters a good reason to get their websites verified with Pinterest. Recently, I wrote a post about Pinterest's latest Web Analytics program, after which a lot of people asked me how to get your site verified with Pinterest to access this analytics feature. So here's my attempt to answer the question, and tell you a bit about why you need to verify your site with Pinterest.

Verifying your site

To verify your site, go to your Pinterest profile. Click on the arrow next your profile picture on the top-right, and select Settings from the drop-down menu.

 

 

There, you'll find a website field. Enter your website's complete URL in that field, and then click the Verify button right next to that field.

You will get an option to verify your site by uploading an HTML file. This file will be given to you once you click on the verify button. Download this file, but don't close the Pinterest verification page. Go to your website's Cpanel or FTP account, and upload that HTML file to your root directory (www.yoursite.com/). Once you're done, go back to the page you were on, and click on the 'Click Here' link given in step 3 to complete the process.

If you run a Blogger blog, or some similar platform where you can not directly upload an HTML file, then you can go into your site's source code (template, or theme code), and upload a meta tag provided by Pinterest. You can get to this option from the same page as HTML file upload verification. Just click on the link at the bottom that says Verify with a meta tag. You can add this code in the header of your website.

Why verify your site?

For one, website verification establishes a link between a website and a Pinterest account. Accounts linked to a websites have more authority. These accounts are marked with a checkmark which displays next to their website on their profile page and below their name in search results

Besides, after verifying your site, you can access Pinterest Web Analytics which can give you insights into how well your content is doing, and what content is working and what isn't.

So get your website verified right now, and if you face any problems, just leave us a comment, and we'll try to reply it as best as we can.

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Webmaster Academy

When you really want to achieve something, then the limit of your knowledge no longer becomes a hindrance. This has held true for a lot of webmasters, who are self-taught, and rely on their ambition to learn and implement new things that they consider useful. But whether you are a beginner, or a seasoned veteran, there's always room for some improvement - for learning something new. That is why Google set up a Webmaster's Academy to teach everyone from a total newbie to an advanced user on how to better understand Google, and how to perform better in search results. This Academy was set up last year, but was only available in the English language up until now. Now though, thanks to Google, the Webmaster Academy has gone international, with support for more than 40 languages!

The purpose of establishing this Academy was to educate and guide webmasters into creating websites that perform well in search results. For any blogger, this can serve as the ultimate guide or a complete road map that webmasters and bloggers can follow towards success, since the ultimate goal is getting the best performance in search results. So if you haven't still heard of the Webmaster Academy, then you should start off with it immediately.

What it has to offer?

The Webmaster Academy is a fully-fledged academy in the sense that it covers a huge scope of topics, vertically as well as horizontally.

There are various sections in the interface for different type of users. These include Beginners, Advanced users, and Small business owners. Each section has a checklist where you can place a check-box next to each resource that you complete, and you will see your overall progress at the top. These steps are organized in a logical pattern, so you can move from one to the next in a sequential manner.

Once you're done with one section, you can move on to the next. It's a really well organized resource that you can master within no time at all. And now, it is available in a wider ranger of languages. Google says that the Academy is available in over 20 languages, but that number is actually 43, including English.

So what do you want to learn today? Head over to the Webmaster Academy, and start your training as a webmaster from Google itself! You'll be the master of your game in no time at all! All the best.

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The SEO benefits of using Tumblr for content marketing

Tumblr is one of the many social networks out there. But it's not just another social media network. Many people underestimate the usefulness of Tumblr, even though it has huge potential for SEO and social media marketing. Tumblr is quickly growing in popularity. But still many people are unaware of its benefits. So, in this post let's talk a bit about Tumblr, how it works and how to get started using Tumblr for online marketing. And most importantly, what are the SEO benefits of using Tumblr?

What is Tumblr?

Tumblr is a blogging and social networking platform that hosts more than 131 million blogs and is among the top 15 websites in the United States. Tumblr was founded by David Karp and currently owned by Yahoo. Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme's HTML.

• Social Networking and Blogging combined
  Tumblr includes both blogging (and microblogging) and social networking features. Tumblr has all the blogging functionality of a blog platform such as WordPress, blogger, etc. Tumblr also include all the social networking features of a social network site such as Facebook or Twitter. This makes Tumblr a unique platform.

Why Tumblr is a big deal?

• More than 131 million blogs as of 20th September.
• Tumblr is among the top 15 websites in U.S.
• More 50% of Tumblr users are under the age of 25.
• Many people are switching to Tumblr (most of them are teens).
• Tumblr has unique 300 million monthly visitors.

By 2011 Tumblr had three times more blogs than WordPress. Today Tumblr is the largest hosted blog platform on the web having 300 million blogs. And a large number of world’s largest, leading brands have presence on Tumblr.

Tumblr also has a huge potential for SEO and social media marketing .With user numbers and popularity on the rise, it’s a perfect marketing tool for businesses.

Tumblr – The Benefits?

1) Customization

You are aware that impressions do matter. Tumblr allows you to customize your page. Choose your layout style and find a design that matches your page’s theme. A variety of themes are available. Choose the one that fits your business.

2) Dofollow links

Most blog software creates allows you to create a link to yourself when you comment on a blog post. Links bring traffic to your site when they click the link, but each link can also count as a “vote” for your site with search engines. These backlinks increase your page rank and help your site rank closer to first in search engine results. Dofollow blogs create normal links that count as a vote for your site.

Tumblr offers you a Dofollow backlink for each link you share, which is the biggest advantage. Unlike Facebook or other social media, sharing on Tumblr can actually do you good outside of that social media, and aside from bringing you traffic, it will also help you increase your PageRank.

3) Tumblr tags

Tumblr features a unique tagging system. If you want to add a tag, simply start typing a word and Tumblr will suggest you the relevant tags. Unlike Facebook, Tumblr tags are already used for content discovery. Thus by using relevant tags, there is a good chance of your content to be discovered.

4) Microsites

You can use Tumblr to quickly set up simple, easy to manage and free microsites (Now called as Simple Sites). You can even use your own domain name with these microsites.

Microsites can also be used for redirection to your main website. By building a sleek microsite with quality content would increase your page rank within months.

5) Branding

Tumblr is an excellent platform for promoting your brands. With Tumblr becoming more and more popular, it’s a perfect marketing tool for businesses that are trying to extend their reach. With more than 300 million unique users, you can easily promote your brand. By posting quality content, you will have a strong online presence on Tumblr. You might have heard that “the best marketing strategy online is to Be Everywhere

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Make upto 25$ per Gig by using top 10 Alternative of Fiverr

Fiverr originally started out as a new and very unique concept. There were only the big freelancing websites like Elance and Freelancer etc back then. So Fiverr brought a very refreshing change. Whether you are a proper freelancer or just a regular office-going guy, Fiverr gives you a chance to earn some quick bucks so you can cover up your extravagances. Fiverr is also a great place to get your freelancing career started. But the trouble is, Fiverr only allows you to earn $5 minus their commission per gig. For some people, this might not be enough. Luckily for them, many alternative websites to fiverr have emerged over the years. Fiverr was such a success that many others adopted the idea and came up with their own version of Fiverr. Most of these aren't very good, but some might just be better than Fiverr! So here, we will discuss about the top 10 alternatives to fiverr you must try.

Why not Fiverr?

There're a few legit reasons why you would not want to stay with Fiverr. It might seem very attractive, but it does has short-comings. Firstly, it doesn't pay you very well. Now I know people make hundreds of dollars off it every month, but considering the effort, is it really worth it? %5 is sort of a bottleneck which you might want to eventually break out of.

Secondly, you don't even earn a full $5. Fiverr commission is 20%, which is huge by any standards! So essentially, you only get $4, and the remaining one dollar goes to Fiverr. Imagine you complete 200 gigs in a month. You will only get $800, where you could be getting a full grand. That's just $200 down the drain!

Fiverr is no longer what it once was. It started off as a fun place where people could make use of their creativity. But over the years, it has become quite competitive. Much more complicated jobs are being done now for a much smaller price. Let me give you an example. I spotted two different gigs on fiverr. One promised to "Suggest a professional name and motto for a website," while another said, "I will create an attractive dynamic website using HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript for $5."

Do you see the injustice? The guy who suggests professional names probably is a natural at this. He might hardly take 10 minutes to come up with a good name and slogan. But the web-designer has to work for hours, just for a petty $4. Both these guys will earn the same. The point is, Fiverr might just not be worth it if it takes more than 30 minutes t complete a gig. In that case, you need to look on to alternatives, some of which we have right here for you.

Top 10 Alternatives to Fiverr

1. GigBucks

GigBucks is is a very popular alternative to Fiverr. It hosts gigs for all the categories found on fiverr. It gives freelancers the opportunity to charge an appropriate amount of money for their services. A gig can be anywhere in the range of $5 to $50, definitely a big step up from the $4 on fiverr. Just like Fiverr, joining is absolutely free. And you can post as many gigs as you like. A must try for existing fiverr users or other people.

2. Zeerk

Zeerk is another big fish up for grabs. Working at Zeerk can be much more worth your while. You can charge as much as $100 per gig! Now, services can charged appropriately and no one needs feel left out! For small jobs such as $2 or $5 jobs, there is no commission! And I thought Fiverr was cool!

3. SEOClerks

This is one of  my favorite websites. It contains gigs relating to SEO, internet marketing, and other such web services. The great thing about it is, it offers the widest range of money you can ask for your gigs. You could either ask for $1 for a petty job, or you could ask as much as $999 for a high value project. Web masters would love this website. Just visit it and see what i'm talking about.

4. TenBux

TenBux is very similar to Fiverr. A lot similar, in fact. It has a similar interface, which is simple and easy to use.  It has almost all of the categories Fiverr has. Only big difference is, it allows $10 per gig, twice of what fiverr would allow. Out of the $10, you get $8, which is the exact commission rate as it is with fiverr.

5. FittyTown

FittyTown is another website that offers a large amount of money for almost the same things hosted on fiverr for far less. It allows gigs of only $50, nothing more, nothing less. After deduction, you will get $40, a 20% commission deduction. But overall, it's a good website that you must try. Who knows you might get lucky.

6. Dollar3

This website is a lot better than fiverr or some of its alternatives. For one, it pays out through both PayPal and AlertPay. Here, you can host any type of gig for $5, and some other multiples of 3; $3, $6, $9, $12, $15, $27, $45, and $90. Not bad eh? Sign up now and show the world what you've got!

7. TwentyVille

Here's another good alternative. If offers much more than fiverr does. You can host gigs for either $10 or $20. The commission remains the same @ 20%. So you will get $8 or $16. Still, you're better off with this than you are with fiverr.

8. Tenrr

This is another copy, if not a clone of fiverr. The name, you can see. But the interface is a little similar too. The good thing is, it has a lower commission rate than fiverr. And it allows you to post gigs ranging from $1 to $10. So that's pretty useful as far as categorization of work is concerned. But the problem here is, giggers have to post gigs with lower and lower rates to attract clients. And I must say, $1 is too low for any kind or work, unless it involves suggesting a name or slogan or something.

9. GigMe5

Website similar to Fiverr. The interface works very similar. And the services are the same too. $5 gigs, 20% commission etc.

10. Fourerr

Another website very similar to fiverr. Only, it hosts $4 gigs. The rest is the same. 20% commission, payment through PayPal, similar interface, etc. Not better than fiverr, but definitely worth a shot.

That was a list of our top 10 alternatives to Fiverr. If you have more, then do share them with us. Hope this post helped. Go on and try these websites out! Good luck.

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Make money online with buy/sell photos on Depositphotos

Are you a blogger or designer who is constantly in search of high quality images and vector graphics to work with? Or are you an enthusiastic photographer and/or designer capable of creating high quality images and graphics or a Blogger who loves promoting affiliate products? In either case, Depositphotos.com is the place you want to be, because it's your one-stop-shop for stock photography, high quality vector graphics, and even videos. You no longer need to pay steep rates for buying photos, as you can obtain royalty-free images from Depositphotos at very inexpensive rates. And if you're a photographer, you can make money while sitting at home by selling your high-quality images!

 

What is Depositphotos?

Depositphotos is a U.S based microstock agency that has met with remarkable success over the past few years. It was founded in November 2009, and in a span of just over 3 years, more than 13.6 Million files have been uploaded to this site. It now serves customers in over 192 countries and over 15 languages.

So why Depositphotos, you ask? It is a creative content marketplace for your graphics, but there's a lot more to it than just that. Here are some of the reasons why bloggers and web designers should take a closer look at Depositphotos.

Smart search - You can browse images by categories, or search for them using advanced search filters with a lot of variety and sort options etc. You can search by category, contributor, keyword(s), file type, file size and orientation, and so on.
Depositphotos API - An API for developers that allows integration.
A plethora of files to choose from - From Abstract and Vintage/Retro, to Travel, Cities, Sports and Technology, there's a host of over 37 categories you can browse images from. And there are millions of files available, with new files being added daily. So you'll never run out of images and videos to choose from!
Pay-by-SMS - A great and flexible option for buyers in certain countries, who can pay via SMS. All they need to do is send an SMS, and the purchase cost will be deducted from their mobile phone credit.
Free trial-subscriptions
Inexpensive rates, free trial subscriptions, and attractive contributor incentives (see below).

Opportunities for Bloggers!

 

Now here are some special opportunities for bloggers to outshine others! If you're a blogger, you have the chance of obtaining a free subscription from Depositphotos for your personal use, or for holding a give-away for your readers. All you have to do is, write a well-written review for Depositphotos on your blog/site, and then follow the instructions given in the link above. If you pass their requirements, you will get a free subscription which will entitle you to download high-quality images for free!

Affiliate Program

 

Contributors and buyers get incentives in the form of an Affiliate program that rewards them for every friend, family member, or co-worker they refer to Depositphotos. They can also win rewards by promoting the company in several ways.

Bloggers who have photograph related websites/blogs can get $10 for putting up Depositphotos banner on their site. $20 if the site has an Alexa ranking of below 50,000.
If a contributor you referred makes a sale, you get $0.03 per sale. The more you refer, the more you earn!
For every purchase made by a buyer you referred, you get up-to 15% commission.

Pricing and payment options

Buyers have two options to buy photos from Depositphotos, i.e. via the "PRO Subscription plans" or the "Pas-As-You-Go Credits".
PRO Subscription Plans - With the PRO Subscription plans option, you can subscribe for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or an year. You can choose a subscription type as well, i.e. between 5 photos per day (minimum) to 200 photos per day (maximum), and this will let you download the respective number of photos per day. For most bloggers, anywhere between 5-20 photos per day should be sufficient. The longer and the more images you subscribe for, the better value you get. You can get anywhere between $0.46 per image to $0.15 per image this way.

Pay-As-You-Go Credits - Alternatively, you can buy credits, which you can later use to download images. There's no download limit per day for these subscriptions, as long as you don't exhaust all the credits. You can buy a minimum of 50 credits for $50, and the more you buy, the lower the cost per credit.

 

You can also buy stock images without a long-term subscription. The prices range from $0.5 to $9, depending upon the size of the vector image.

Depositphotos has flexible payment options, and you can pay through PayPal, MoneyBookers, or Webmoney. You also have the option of payment via SMS as discussed earlier.

Payout to sellers

That's a good question actually. Sellers can't set the price for their photos, because that's standardized by Depositphotos exclusively. So image prices do not vary from one to another. Rather, they vary depending on size.

As far as as the amount of money paid out to sellers is concerned, that also depends. There are five levels of contributors, and their rank is determined by the number of downloads they get. The rates for different types of subscriptions also vary, as in, purchases via Pay-As-You-Go and purchases via PRO Subscriptions vary in amount (since they vary in the price as well for buyers). The following table sums up contributor levels and their payouts.

 

		Purchase method
Level	Criteria	Subscription	Credits
Green	> 499 Downloads	$0.30	44%
Bronze	500 - 4,999 Downloads	$0.31	46%
Silver	5,000 - 24,999 Downloads	$0.32	48%
Gold	25,000 - 149,999 Downloads	$0.33	50%
Platinum	150,000+ Downloads	$0.35	52%

 

Your views?

So what are you still waiting for? This could be your chance to earn big money out of your passion for photography and graphic design!

If you need to ask questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section below. In the meantime, sign up with Depositphotos now, and start clickin' Especially don't miss it if you are good with Photoshop or any other image editing software.

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