Archive for the ‘off-site’ Category

PPC Basics

PPC Spending

PPC Spending

Ok, by now and by looking at the title of this blog you’ve probably figured out that I am somewhat partial to SEO.  But I do think that PPC (Pay Per Click) whether it be Adwords, MSN Ad Center, or Yahoo’s PPC program, can be beneficial to your business…if used properly!  Its not hard to find a website owner who has lost a lot of money with PPC and in fact, you’ve probably lost a bit yourself!  So heres a couple quick tips for how NOT to get ripped of with PPC!

First of all, and probably most important is to track everything.  What is your Quality Score?  Do you even know?  What is your click through rate?  Do you even know how to find out?  I’ve run into way to many business owners that can’t answer those basic questions.  One way to prevent that is to install analytics, become familiar with it, and monitor it.  Now most people probably already have this covered, but if this is you, make this a priority!  I just talked to a business owner that had a monthly AdWords budget of $10,000.  But he had no way to track his ROI!  There was no way tot ell if this was working or not!  So he quit adwords.  When he quit, his opt-ins dropped by (more…)

Successful Email Marketing

Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

Can something be just as annoying as it is popular?  For some, email marketing comes to mind, all that spam in your inbox every single morning since it was all auto-sent at 9:oo AM every single day, that can really get on your nerves!  So how can you as a business owner and “Spammer” so to speak get around that stigma?  Well, there’s a couple really great ideas that I have come across that can help you in your email marketing campaigns, and also make your subscribers WANT to read your mail!

First of all, use moderation.  People don’t want to be bombarded with your newsletter every single day!  Ok, so they came to your site and signed up … but probably only because you promised them some cool deal or great tip if they did.  So if you ever want them back on your site again (and in a good mood, not to unsubscribe) take some cautions when scheduling out your emails.  Three times a week is probably the max.  Personally, I think twice a week is optimal to keep their attention and yet not annoy them to death.

Second, give them value!  So ya I signed up for Apples newsletter when I bought my Mac, but thats because I was lazy and didn’t uncheck the subscribe box!  But no, I don’t want your newsletter and sales every single day!!  Things like that will make people unsubscribe faster than anything else.  Instead, give them value.  Give them something they want.  Maybe its a weekly tip on how to use their Mac.  Or maybe its a new blog post you did on some new ways to save energy in the winter.  But whatever it is, make sure it benefits your reader.
While email marketing is a powerful tool that can be used to great advantage, many people overdo it and instead push people away from their business!  But with a little common sense and courtesy to your readers, making successful email marketing campaigns that convert on a regular basis can be fairly easy!

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20 Ways to Get Links … and thats only the beginning!

If you have been in SEO or internet marketing for long, you have probably heard the well-worn mantra of “Whoever has the most links wins!”  Guess what? – its still true!

Essential Link Building

Essential Link Building

Link strategies have come to be an integral part of successful internet marketing.  And from the looks of it, that is not going away any time soon, if ever.  So how do you jump in?  Where can you get the benefit from Link Building?  A while ago I was involved in a discussion that led to us building a list of 100 ways to get links.  THis included everything from article marketing, to developing Wordpress themes, all the way to hosting your own TV show!  So while not everybody has the capacity to use all of them, there were still some really good nuggets there.  So I figured I’d give you some of them! (For those of you in Stompernet you can get the entire list here and if you are not in Stompernet I strongly encourage you to join!)
So here it is – 20 ways to get links to your site.  ya I edited out some of the more Geeky stuff like Proxy servers and software creation – but I’m sure this will spark some imagination and ideas!
1. Directories
2. Article Marketing.. submitting to ezinearticles.com and other article directories
3. Web 2.0 .. creating a subdomain on wordpress and adding an article with links to it that links to your sites.
4. Blogs .. creating a blog and posting articles that link to your site.
5. Blog commenting and Forum commenting
6. Social Media Profiles Marketing. Creating profiles and putting links in the profiles back to your site.
7. Video Marketing
8. Guest Blog Posts… offering a guest blog post in exchange for links back to your site.
9. Recip link exchanges.. still works if done right.
10. Art. exchanges.. exchanging articles with other websites.  (different than guest blog posts)
11. Trackback urls … Posting on your blog and citing sites that have trackback urls enabled.
12. Authority Site Article Marketing.. writing quality content you submit one time to sites such as ehow.
13. PR Pumper sites.  Creating mini sites of 5-20 pages that have articles on them that link back to your sites.
14. Press Release Marketing.. writing a press release and distributing it for link purposes.
15. Twitter, Facebook, Social Media Marketing… entering into the conversation on these sites. Other sites can pull the rss feeds and these when published sometimes count as actual links.
16. Bookmarking
17. Hubpages, Squidoo type of sites.
18. Syndication of your RSS content (with e.g Webpronews or without permission splogs, blog networks etc)
Content distribution
19. PDFs
20. Video that links back to you

Essential Link Building

Essential Link Building

Essential Link Building

Essential Link Building

Link strategies have come to be an integral part of successful internet marketing.  And from the looks of it, that is not going away any time soon, if ever.  So how do you jump in?  Where can you get the benefit from Link Building?  A while ago I was involved in a discussion that led to us building a list of 100 ways to get links.  THis included everything from article marketing, to developing Wordpress themes, all the way to hosting your own TV show!  So while not everybody has the capacity to use all of them, there were still some really good nuggets there.  So I figured I’d give you some of them! (For those of you in Stompernet you can get the entire list here and if you are not in Stompernet I strongly encourage you to join!)

So here it is – 20 ways to get links (more…)

Blogging for Business

Blogging for Business

Blogging for Business

One of the most powerful mediums to reach your customers, and also to build links, is a blog. People love blogs, Search engines love blogs, You win!!
In a recent book about the changing face of Media Ken Aulletta noted that much of the traditional medias concern over slumping sales and viewers is attributed to blogs and Social Media. Why? – because we are dealing with people. If you can get the story from your best friend instead of some nebulous reporting mechanism, you probably will! Never mind that (more…)

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