Website Marketing Strategies

Article Marketing - A popular and effective free method. By marketing with articles, you are building your credibility and authority in your niche market, while increasing your visibility.

In many cases, webmasters will visit the article directories where you have distributed your content, and post it on their own site or send out to their newsletter subscribers - increasing your traffic even more.

Here are a few good directories where you can distribute your articles:

• Ezinearticles.com
• Goarticles.com
• Searchwarp.com
• Articlecity.com
• Buzzle.com

To save time, you can also pay others to write articles for you. You can take that one step further and have them distribute your articles as well, putting your article marketing on autopilot.

Press Releases - Writing and distributing a press release is also free and effective for gaining visibility, traffic and links to your website. Like article marketing, you can pay others to write and distribute your Press Release for you.

Here are a few Press Release Submission Services:

• PRweb.com
• PRZoom.com
• Businesswire.com
• PRNewswire.com

Search Engine Marketing - Can be either a free or paid method. It's free if you do it yourself, however it can be very time consuming.

The topic of search engine marketing is so vast, there are complete home study courses created on the topic.

However, let me share the very basic principles for getting your website "ranked" (listed in the first few search results on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.)

OnSite Factors (elements you control that are on your own website)

It is best practice to include the keywords you want to target in your

• Heading Tags
• Meta tags
• Title Tag
• Body of your content
• Onpage links

OffSite Factors (elements outside of your own website) that influence your website ranking:

Links from other websites pointing to your website:

• The anchor text used when linking to your website
• The Google PageRank of the website linking to you
• The number of websites linking to the website that is linking to you
• How relevant the website is that links to you (whether it is on the same topic as yours)
• How many links you have to your website

If you want to know how to make money online with your own home based business then it is a good idea to follow in the footsteps of others who have already achieved success. A good number of successful online businesses began with a person promoting opt in offers.

An opt in offer is where you offer somebody something; a free internet marketing report for example, in exchange for them providing you with their name and email address and permission for you to send them emails.

Selling the Opt In Offer

As with any other product you have to devise a way to promote and market your opt in offer if you want people to give you their name and email address. Whether you offer a report, ezine or a white paper; you should make sure that the title of your offer is catchy and specific. If you want people to sign up then you have to devise attention grabbing headlines.

Tell your readers that what you are offering is a solution to their problems; this might be time management, writing a successful e book or tips and suggestions for monetizing their blog. Make sure that they know you have a solution that will fulfill their desires in a given area.

Whatever you are offering, it should be plain to your readers that any solution you come up with is a viable one - how to make your blog profitable in under a month for example. It is very often the case that more than one person is looking for an answer to that dilemma. If you can solve that particular problem for them then you have gained their trust and they are on your side.

Your opt in product should describe the benefits to your readers clearly and concisely. Use bullet points or numbers to highlight how this product you are going to give them in exchange for their name and email address will benefit them and solve a problem.

Try to elicit testimonials from people who are already signed up with you to further promote the opt in product you are offering and the ways in which it will benefit them. If they say that not only are they thrilled with the product but that they look forward to receiving your emails, this is an added bribe to get others to provide their name and email address.

People usually believe testimonials, this makes them a powerful tool in adding value to your offer and in overcoming objections to giving you their personal details.

Make sure that the emails you send out are personal; indicating to the subscriber that you have an ongoing interest in their welfare. You should also include your email at the end of every email; this is after all a one to one mode of contact and therefore deserves to be personalized.

Once their initial hesitance is overcome and the people on your opt in list have developed a trust in what you have to offer; it is much easier to get them to pay for an e book or an online course.

While you may have an affiliate program in place or have established a pay-per-click campaign in order to increase traffic to your online business, you still need to enhance your productivity and presence on the Internet.

When an online business is able to take advantage of multiple streams of traffic, the amount of money received in the end is much greater.

All too many times, entrepreneurs will rely on only one source of traffic. Unfortunately, when something goes wrong within the system they've placed all of their faith into - a serious setback or failed business is often times the result.

In order to reap the benefits of an online business that is strong and resilient to change within the industry, more than one traffic source is needed. While having two streams of traffic is a plus, having multiple approaches working in your favor will lead to higher profits in the end.

For example, search engines periodically change the criteria on which they rank websites. Some people are able to gain more traffic as a result of these changes, while others can find their traffic plummet to zero. Overall, it is not wise to rely on only one source of traffic generation.

Free and Paid Traffic-Building Methods

Learning what can enhance your business in terms of traffic generation is the best way to stay on top of the ever-evolving changes across the Web. For instance, you don't want to get married to search engine optimization and then suffer setbacks when Google changes their algorithm.

By embracing a new traffic source, your business is able to diversify without a lot of legwork or effort. Some entrepreneurs have found it helpful to set specifics dates on their business calendar for the implementation of a new traffic source.

Today, there are numerous online and offline marketing methods for driving traffic to acknowledge. Within these two categories, you can find free and paid approaches to consider. Two examples from each category would be pay-per-click advertising (paid traffic approach) vs. article marketing (free, only requires your time).

Hands Off Traffic Generation

Why Not Offer Bonuses?

For starters, when looking for free methods of traffic building, consider contacting other online businesses and offering them bonuses to give away on their website?

This traffic generation technique costs nothing, as you are able to gain traffic and sales from other people's efforts. All you have to do is approach an individual within your market who is selling a product or possesses a decent email or newsletter list.

Next, offer a free bonus that they can give to their subscribers, or a bonus that will add value to the product they are offering. This is a perfect way to tap into an audience that has already been cultivated. Some people have also made this approach a convenient marketing tool provided to affiliates.

Discover the Power of Social Networking Sites

Have you noticed the increasingly popular wave of social networking sites over the past couple of years? Many people have already discovered the potential for profit by using large social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook as a way to generate traffic. You too can take advantage of the millions of members who constantly surf and browse the many pages connected to these sites.

The option of passing along event invitations and posting bulletins allows you to keep the public informed on the latest happenings pertaining to your online business.

There are three simple steps to a successful business blog, and these are content, promotion and networking.

You should spend some time everyday working on your blog to create content, promote your business on your blog, and network with other bloggers. One thing that all bloggers should have is a Google Adsense account as this will eventually bring you in some regular income.

Time Commitment

Set yourself a time and a place where you will sit down for an hour every day to work on your blog. If your blog is to be successful then you must be consistent in this.

When you enter new content into your blog every day the search engines will take notice and will crawl your site on a regular basis checking for updates. This is one of the quickest ways to get indexed by Google.

Whenever you see an item or press release that is relevant to your business niche then write your own response to it in your blog. Search engines are interested in newsworthy material and this will make it even more likely that your blog will be indexed - once this happens you will see more traffic visiting your blog.

Consistency

Not everyone has the time to commit themselves to writing blog posts every day. If working at this on a daily basis is too much of a commitment for you then try to post twice a week.

The most important point here is that whichever option you choose you should be consistent about it - this consistency will pay dividends in the future.

Creating Content

You should keep a notebook where you can list subjects to post about on your blog when the ideas come to you. Having some notion of what you are going to write about when you sit down to post will make it easier to create appropriate content for your blog.

Always undertake some keyword research when you sit down to post as this will give you some idea of the kind of search terms your visitors might be using - then integrate these keywords into your posts.

Remember that keywords are an important element in blog posting and this will bring more traffic to your site - which means more potential customers. Extra traffic will increase your search engine rankings.

Check out other blogs in your niche and exchange ideas with their owners. This will add to your list of items to write about. Commenting on other people's blogs and leaving a link to your own is a good way of promoting your blog and building traffic.

Links

Links are almost as important as content when it comes to search engine rankings; obtaining links from higher ranking sites than your own will significantly increase your profile. Links are obtained by entering your blog into social bookmarking sites such as delicious and stumble upon. This gives your blog greater exposure to the rest of the blogging community.

Then when people are searching for sites in a particular category they will be presented with your url when this happens it is highly likely people will click on the link bringing you more traffic and increasing both your profile and your potential income.

With any successful online business, communication with current and potential consumers is vital. Today, one of the most common methods of reaching the public is to send an email.

However, the overuse of email marketing over the years has created the threat and fear of spam, now making it much harder to actually get your emails read. In order to take advantage of first impressions and capture your target audience, entrepreneurs should focus on creating reliability and trust by launching a successful email marketing campaign.

There are seven steps associated with creating money making emails that successfully market your online business. First, the email is written, followed by a proper send-off. The email is then delivered, and hopefully it is recognizable enough so that the receiver opens it and is able to identify you as a reputable sender.

It is also important that your email is immediately opened, as the chances are slim if an individual marks your correspondence for later reading. To encourage a reader to finishing reading your entire email - it needs to showcase an appropriate framework to gain the response you want.

In the end, your email should move a reader to take action (usually in the form of purchasing a product or service).

Tips on Writing Your Email

As you sit down to flesh out the structure of your email, remember that each message requires one single purpose and outcome. A common blunder that entrepreneurs make is to add a multitude of topics in one email that generally ends up confusing the reader.

As a result, their mind is going off in too many directions and they will never really settle on the point you truly want to make. As a rule of thumb, do not overwhelm readers with more than one topic of discussion.

A couple of tips to get you started in the right direction when writing your email includes creating a handful of subject lines to narrow down in order to locate the best fit.

Don't fall victim to perfectionism, as you'll probably always feel that your email isn't good enough to send out. If you concentrate on the email coming across as perfect, you may actually lose some of your audience in the process.

Also, it is essential to get over your fear of rejection and write an email that displays your own style of writing that effectively gets the message across in your own words.

Keep in mind that the reality is that not everyone will like what you have to say, and before your business begins to make money - you may run the risk of losing money first.

After sending off your first marketing email, you will encounter a mixed bag of results.

According to the National Speakers Association - 5% of your audience will love what you have to say no matter what you do; 5% of the people already have their mind set against accepting anything you have to say or offer; and the majority of feedback you receive will gauge the areas you need to improve upon or continue as part of your ongoing communication with the public.

If you liked this hub, I think you'll really like the FREE business building video called "7 Online Success Killers", which you can watch at http://www.NitroBlueprint.com. I also provide FREE internet business tips over at http://www.AllAboutWebBusiness.com

Thanks for reading and good luck with your internet business. :)