Online Marketing – Where Do I Start?

I recently received this question on one of my YouTube blog marketing videos.

“I feel I am cut out for working in marketing, public relations and sales although, I’m stumped from there. What percent of marketing is online and how do I get started? – Fudruckus”

Well, Fudruckus, if that is your real name, ;) I honestly don’t know what percentage of marketing is done online but, I think it’s safe to say – A TON!

I mean think about it. When’s the last time you turned on the TV and didn’t see a .com tattooed onto the bottom right hand corner of the screen or scrolling across the bottom? Can you remember seeing a commercial that did not, in some way, include a web address?

Companies both large and small spend millions of dollars a year on Internet marketing campaigns and more and more people every year get on the Internet. In addition to that, there’s no other form of marketing that I know of that is easier or cheaper to get into.

Now, all of that having been said I think it’s important to know that marketing online does take work. Many people would have you believe that’s it’s as easy as buying a $497 product, working 2 hours a day and “BOOM” you’re rich. I’ve made a lot of money online since 1995 and believe me not once was it as easy as I just described.

That is a myth.

To successfully market online takes time, effort and some monetary investment.
Almost anything can be marketed online. But, not everything is good to market online. Some things do better than others.

A man, much smarter than myself, taught me to always ask 2 questions to determine if something is worth marketing online.

1. Where can I get it?
2. How much does it cost?

If those questions are easily answered then you probably shouldn’t market it online.

For example:

Tooth Paste: “You get it at any grocery store and it cost $2.”
Bad for marketing online.

Custom Skateboards: “I’m not sure where to get one or what they cost, let me ‘Google’ it.” This may be something good to market online.

Next, determine whether or not there are any good niche opportunities for the products and/or services you want to market.

What makes a good niche?

1. You can find them in groups. (i.e. bikers, scrapbookers, dog lovers, weight loss, woodworkers, etc… People who are involved in these types of activities like to hang out with others, in person and online, who share the same interest.)

2. They are passionate and emotionally connected. (i.e. Some pet owners treat their pets as if they were human. They are crazy about them and will do anything for them, including spending a lot of money on them.)

3. They spend money. (i.e. Some hobbies / interests require that the participant spend money and some do not. Obviously, you want to find a niche market where the members spend money on their interests and they do it often.)

Keyword Research

Next do your keyword research to make sure there’s enough search volume for the keywords you are going to target and to get a realistic idea of what it’s going to take to compete in your chosen niche. In general you want to target specific keywords / phrases that have high search volume (at least 200-300 a day) with fewer results. (This means less competition)

There are several good tools that will help you with keyword research you can read more about them here…

http://1cat.biz/if-keyword-research-is-so-important-why-arent-you-doing-it/

Size up the Competition:

Do a quick search in the top 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) for the keywords you want to target. Take a look at the top 10-20 sites and determine the following:

1.Are the sites professionally designed?
2.Do they have a clear call to action?
3.Is the content compelling and current?
4.What are they doing right?
5.What are they doing wrong? Find what’s missing and make sure your site includes it.
6.Are there any blogs or social networking types of sites associated with this niche? (Important if you want to use Social Power Linking methods to get large amounts of non search engine dependent traffic. Which I highly recommend!)
7.How can you make your product, service and/or expertise stand out from the others?

Ultimately, what you are trying to determine is whether or not you can realistically compete in this niche. Only you know how much drive you have for this project, how much time you are willing to spend on it and how much money you have to do the things that need to be done in order to really compete. So, be honest with yourself. If 15 of the top 20 sites are all big companies like Sony, LG and Mitsubishi then, you might not want to try and sell flat panel TV’s. ;)

Build Your Site

Once you decide on a market and you’ve done your research build your site and optimize it for your top 3 keywords/phrases. The quickest and easiest way to build search engine friendly sites, that are easy to manage, is to use WordPress. Even if you’re not going to utilize WordPress’ blogging features, which I think would be a mistake, it’s still an excellent tool for quickly deploying websites.

Getting Started with WordPress

Register a Domain – It’s best if your Domain Name includes your main keyword(s)

Setup a WordPress Friendly Hosting Account – I like Host Gator. They’re reliable and inexpensive.

Choose a High-Quality Theme – There are many free themes available but, I like to use premium themes on most of my blogs. They look more professional, provide more exclusivity and the code is clean. (Free of embedded Spam links and poor programming that may cause bad performance and search engine issues.)

Use the following posts at 1Cat.biz for setup and plug-in tips…
5 Essential Tweaks for all New WordPress Blogs
5 Essential Plugins for All New WordPress Blogs
The Next 5 Essential Plugins for All New WordPress Blogs

Getting Traffic to Your New WordPress Blog

Obviously, you need traffic in order to sell anything from your new WordPress site. The best way to get traffic quick and to build good search engine rankings is to learn from the masters. I’m a member of Social Power Linking and I highly recommend it. Traffic to my website has increased 10x’s since I started using the methods they teach.

Make Money Online With Your Own Paid Membership Site

Paid membership sites are one of the leading business models online today. This is mainly due to the fact that paid membership sites offers more advantages compare to other type of business. What are these advantages you ask? Well, there are three basic advantages and one is the steady stream of income.

With paid membership site you can have the steady income of a CEO but without the tedious responsibilities that comes with it. You see, subscriptions to paid membership sites are set up for a certain amount of time usually about by month or by year. So for instance you have a hundred people subscribe to your site for $20 a month. That would give you a steady cash flow of $2,000 for months to come, so long as your members remain satisfied and subscribe to your site. In a year you could make $24,000. That is more than the annual income of some people with normal office jobs.

Another advantage to having your own paid membership site is that the start-up cost is considerably low. Compare to other business, paid membership sites only requires a low capital. All you need to start up your site is a website design or template, a website host, a content management software or membership software (this includes all that you will need with the exception of the content itself) and of course the content. Most of which, you can do yourself to eliminate cost. As for the cost associated with website hosting services, they are very affordable with some as low a $5 a month.

The third advantage is actually the combination of the first and second advantage — high profit margin. The profit potential gained from paid membership site is unlimited. The actual amount of profit you gain would depend on how much time and effort you devote to your site. So if you are looking for a business that could provide you with steady income at a low start up cost then paid membership site is the one for you.

What’s great about starting your own paid membership site is that you are in control. You choose what kind of site you want to start up and how much to charge for it. It can either provide mentoring or coaching, or contain articles or information about various subjects. You can even offer some sort of specialized service like social networks. It’s all up to you! Just remember that your main goal is charge people before giving them access to your website.

So how would you get people to pay just to gain access to your website? Well, the key here is “specialized”. May it be information, product, coaching, or service it needs to be specialized. Why? Because these are hard to come by and would be too time consuming if it were to be done on your own.

When the Internet first came into being no one thought to charge for access to a website since just about every piece of information can easily be obtained for free. However, times have change. Not everyone has the time to devote to looking through endless pages of results just to gain a certain piece of information. So what do they do? They pay for it! Consumers nowadays are willing to pay for the information they need without the hassle of going through pages and pages of information. And that is one reason why it is the perfect time to begin your own paid membership site, the demand is high!

Now, how do you start your own paid membership site successfully? Well, the first step is to choose a topic. This is the critical stage, since it will decide the future of your business. So make sure that your topic is either in high demand or at least interesting enough to catch the attention of consumers.

A good place to start is within your own world. Ask your friends and family members for advice. It might also be a good idea to find a topic that you are passionate about and what would interest others. Since you will be spending most of your time working on your site, why not choose a topic that you can enjoy?

The next step is to creating a niche. You cannot start a paid membership site for the profits alone. You need to target your market and in order to do that; you need to find a niche that will target those who are looking for what your website is offering.

Make sure that your niche is fresh and innovative, but most importantly that it is not being offered for free on the Internet anywhere. This might proved to be a challenge but it is not an impossible feat.

Once you have your niche, next is you need to find prospects. This one is easier to accomplish and can be done for free. All you have to do is post offers on various message boards or forums. Just make sure that your posts can easily be seen by your target consumers. Interested prospects can easily reach you by simply using the private message feature right on the forum.

The next step is to set up your site. There are many tools available that can help you build and maintain your own paid membership site. You have the option whether to leave the website creation to 3rd party services at a very affordable cost or to simply do it yourself.

Another idea is to avail of one of those all-in-one membership management software systems. This will get your website started in no time at all, even if you do not have the technical knowledge, since most of its administrative features are automaton. These membership software programs will reduce your workload by 75%, it’s easier and faster!

So you already have your topic, niche, prospects and site. The next step is to decide how much to charge. This will depend on what your site have to offer, whether it’s worth paying for access or if it can be found somewhere else at less cost. Most paid membership sites charge anywhere from $19.95 to $69.95 a month. Whatever you decide remember that your product or service has to be worth its price. Otherwise, your customers will not continue subscribing to your site.

All across the globe, people are enjoying the large amounts of profits gain from their own paid membership site all of which are comes in regular basis and earned from the comfort and convenience of their own home. So do not be left behind! Start making money online with your own paid membership site.

How SEO Services Can Provide Traffic For Your Website

You might have heard about SEO services and how web entrepreneurs are using them to market their sites. Almost every website that provides services and has products to offer requires SEO services. These sites need visitors to promote their products and to continuously improve their sales and profits. Due to these reasons, almost all website owners are now applying and working with the SEO companies to achieve that precious first page ranking. Website owners are becoming more familiar with the benefits of the SEO services to their clients.

Through search engine optimization also known as SEO services a website is enhanced and improved in order to achieve its full function and higher search engine rankings. There are several SEO services that a SEO company can provide to its clients. These services includes analyzing the client’s website, analyzing the competitor’s website, working on the improvement of the client’s website, and continuous maintenance of the website to retain its ranking in the search engines.

SEO services start when they analyze your site. This is where the SEO services providers learn every part of your site. They study its present PR rank, competitors, inbound links and most and site’s content. They also find the flow of the audience going to your site. If and when these factors are correctly implemented they will lead to higher rankings and more traffic. These are the reasons why SEO services are needed, to be able to generate traffic and improve revenue and bottom line. The traffic is the life of a website. Remember, the more visitors that come and visit your site, the greater chances to convert them into a sale or a membership sign up. They can spread the information to others through social networking which can serve as a referral system.

There are several ways on how the SEO services help in increase the traffic of a website. These are through the Internet marketing strategies like the pay-per-click, link building and organic search engine optimization (SEO). The pay-per-click strategy is the process of purchasing space on the online where ads are displayed and the advertiser pays for traffic on a pay per performance. Further, the better the keywords that you use with respect to your products, the more chances that your site will be visited. For example, if your products are pieces jewelry, with the use of SEO services strategies, you can use keywords research and go for popular keywords like low priced diamonds, pure gold jewelry or even wedding rings and engagement rings in order for your site to be discovered first during the search. On one hand, if your products are related to travel, you can use keywords such as group package or cheaper seasonal rates and the like. SEO services providers would give you reasons why you need to use these well researched keywords that must be well written in the contents of the site.

What are all these SEO services strategies mean? Primarily, the more informative your site is the more and frequent the visits that you will receive from thousands and millions of online users globally. You’ll get all the help you need in optimizing your site’s contents through valuable support of the SEO services providers. What do these providers do actually? For one, to make the keywords more effective, SEO services try to find the keywords that are related to your products. You can also use the keywords that individuals frequently use when searching for your products through the search engines.

Another way on how to increase traffic in your website is with the use of link building strategy. Remember, SEO services aim at increasing your site’s traffic or visitors thus allow your site to be accessible whenever possible. SEO services determine that this strategy can either be paid link or free link. The paid links are usually associated with the membership for joining a certain directories or sites which offers linkage. The websites under these directories are usually high-ranking sites that make profit by accepting links. They allow newer sites to be linked with them but require payment in return. These sites usually have an area within their site where links are associated interchangeably.

On the other hand, other sites actually allow free links, as long as the site owners provide an exchange links to their site or they have to share the free links with other merchants as well. There are other sites that also offer free links but the exposure of the link is not usually that long compared with the paid sites. These sites are alternately paced with other sites that wish to be linked as well. This interlinking strategy is one of the best Internet Marketing promotion and strategy of the SEO services providers.

Finally, SEO services providers have this organic search engine optimization. This is the slow but sure strategy for websites. It is slow because it involves link building which is a very time consuming task. It is the most effective strategy among the three. This works by achieving a decent rank from the search engines and from that rank, you will slowly move upwards. The website is enhanced and improved by the SEO services applied for to be able to achieve a rank in the search engine. From its initial rank, it will slowly acquire traffic and will slowly increase in rank over time. This may take a long time compared with the previously mentioned strategies but it will last longer too. To invite traffic, your site must be attractive and filled with information needed by your target audience. It is important to consider the information written on it because it will help in the ranking of your site in the future.

SEO services needs to be continuous and used on an ongoing process in order to maintain the rank of your site.