Internet Marketing – Do Your Research

If we used one piece of software to rapidly build SIMILAR sites in the SAME market, we might achieve some short term success but what happens when Google 'slaps' that piece of software or our target market becomes overcrowded or even worse, dead? You get the idea, that is why we must diversify.

You of course will choose your eventual target markets but to begin with, please follow me with your first EIGHT. I would like you to choose a target market from EACH of the following categories. Best to go with your first instinct, something you’re interested in or an area where you think there is potential. Just to whet your appetite, these are the average fees paid PER CLICK by the top advertisers for the following keywords:

Cheap flight $ 4.00
Credit Card $15.45
Holiday $15.53
Mobile ring tone $ 5.15
Smoked fish $ 0.20
Vegetable delivery $ 0.05

Source: Sunday Times August 2006

There are many sites where you can find the top paying keywords but we are not going to go down that route because we will follow the ‘road less travelled’.

One other important point:

When a surfer uses 1 to 2 words they are generally just doing research i.e. gifts. When they use 2, 3 or more words the surfer is generally looking to buy something i.e. traditional anniversary gift.

So ideally, we will be looking for business segments that we can wrap up in two or three words.

I will show you how to refine your ideas further but it’s time for less reading and more action:

Jot down on a piece of paper three potential web-site subject ideas from each of the following eight categories i.e. you will have a total of at least 24 ideas for your web-sites.

CATEGORY 1. Your Passion – What are you passionate about? What is your favourite hobby or pastime? What are you knowledgeable about?

Potential web-site subjects: knitting, cooking, gardening etc.

CATEGORY 2. Maslow’s Needs - A guy called Abraham Maslow figured out that humans are pretty simple creatures really. They all have, you and me included, a fundamental hierarchy of needs. This is what motivates people on a daily basis. Your web-site from this category will need to satisfy at least one of these needs. They are, working from the bottom up:

a) Physiological needs, for example, the need to eat, sleep, have sex, exercise etc. Potential web-sites: Diet, dating, relationship advice, exercise plans etc.

b) Safety needs, for example, security of employment, physical safety Potential web-sites: Computer safety, virus protection, home security, judo, health

c) Love/Belonging needs, for example, to be loved Potential web-sites: How to {insert phrase here}, relationship sites, intimacy, family themes, loneliness, social anxiety and depression etc.

d) Status (Esteem needs), for example, gaining respect and recognition Potential web-sites: How to {insert phrase here, for example, gain respect and recognition, fit in, be the life of the party etc.}

e) Being needs, for example, growth of the individual towards purpose or spirituality

Potential web-sites: Religion, spirituality, self improvement, philosophy, creativity

CATEGORY 3. Emerging – What’s hot? What’s new? Let’s get on at the front of the wave

Potential web-sites: bebo, skype, ipod, youtube

Warning: Using registered trademarks such as Bebo or Skype may lead to your site being closed down. You could try and use something like ‘voice over internet protocol’ or VOIP as your target word (or try and create a really useful site for bebo i.e. bebo useful tips and hope they look kindly on you)

CATEGORY 4. Self Help – We want to help and do some good, here’s another chance

Potential web-sites: time management, stress management, health, self improvement

CATEGORY 5. Out There – Here’s your chance to speculate. Go on create something really wacky. Finish this sentence, wouldn’t it be a good idea if there was a site that ………………..

Don’t worry about how you’re going to build it or do it. You just want the name at this moment. For example, the inventors of bebo had the idea and just picked the name because ‘it was available and memorable’. Estimates now value their site at around £1B. The important thing here is to have the idea, we’ll worry about the detail later.

CATEGORY 6. Expensive – This speaks for itself, big ticket, expensive items. There are some big dollars to be won here but be warned, the competition is fierce…

Potential web-sites: digital cameras, plasma TVs, jewellery, computers, software, mortgages, debt, credit, plastic surgery, diamonds, cars, travel etc.

CATEGORY 7. Teenagers – Yes, they are turning off their TVs and tuning onto the Internet, in their droves. This is where tomorrow’s market is going to be. You need to speak to a teenager and between the grunts see what they are into:

Potential web-sites: computer games, teenage dating, chat, music, CDs, DVDs

CATEGORY 8. Internet Marketers – Along the way we will uncover a lot of secrets and tools that other Internet marketers will want to know about. I think it will be a good idea for you to tell them and show them these (for a fee). In this category we may also include those people who are looking for money making ideas and ‘get rich quick’ schemes. So in short we will be creating a web-site that is specifically aimed at other webmasters or people looking to make money.

Potential web-sites: internet marketing, make money online, get rich quick, affiliate schemes

Okay, you should now have a decent list of ideas and a minimum of 24 potential subjects. Now, we need to sort the wheat from the chaff and I will cover that in the next article in this series.

To build the most effective for your new business venture go to SiteSell.

The Funnel vs. Variety; Which Will Net You More?

The controversy over a functional sales model has been raging for years. Well before the online information age, and probably well after those who read this have retired from marketing.

There are two basic situations and some variations. Some people have been able to merge these models to some degree but you'll find customers get confused when the merger is complete. You'll lose more customers if you try to maintain both models with the same list.

In the first situation you have what has been referred to as a sales funnel. In this model the marketer entices people to his list by giving away some information. After a time the marketer makes a product offer at a low price point. At this time the list is segmented into those who purchase and those who didn't. The same offer might be made again and the segmentation happens again.

The second offer made is for a slightly higher price point. The marketer will find that the list that originally purchased from him has a higher likelihood of purchasing the second product at the higher price point than the first list who have never purchased. At this time the marketer may or may not segment the list into those who have purchased the higher priced item.

This same pattern continues with the marketer offering several items always higher than the last. This method of marketing offers the client the best of the marketer and offers the marketer a list of clients who might like to purchase into a higher priced coaching program. The marketer is also able to segment out those customers who will purchase the lower or middle price point products and consistently offer their choice of price point.

The opposite of this model is much like an affiliate sales pitch. The marketer finds a customer and offers him high quality information to sign up for his list. The marketer then sells the only product he has to offer at a higher price point. He might then find affiliate products to offer but the offers are haphazard and the newest products on the market that week.

Either model will net sales. The first model will net a business empire where the marketer can offer affiliate products when they fit very well with the needs of his client base. The second model will net a continual flow of customers in and customers out who may unsubscribe after purchasing any product that feel meets their needs. In both models the marketer must continue to add customers to their list to continue to make money.

The second model may not be the most efficient but it takes less work to set up and run. The first model may take more effort up front but will net a long-term relationship with their customers. It is really the difference between having clients and customers.

A definition emerged recently by a ‘guru' who said it this way: "I offer various products because my list is not all interested in the same thing. I want to offer everyone something that satisfies them." Again, this is the difference between having a specific targeted list of clients and customers.

The more important process is to iron out which concept works best for your particular business model and then stick with it. Switching models mid-stream is almost next to impossible. You'll lose more business than you anticipate gaining by switching camps. If you are committed to trying another sales model then start another niche and test it there.


For additional information go to www.kooldownloads.com

** Rasheed Ali is CEO and founder of the Internet Coaching Academy http://www.InternetCoachingAcademy.com where he and his team of internet business experts are helping people from all over the world start, build and profit from their own internet business. He also offers a FREE newsletter and FREE video course on building a profitable home based business on the internet. **

Are You Marketing Viral?

Are you Marketing Viral? What can businesses do now to increase their marketing viral viral effectiveness for existing websites and what marketing viral facilities should be an essential part of new website design and promotion?

1) TechnoratiPinging

If you haven’t heard by now, Technorati is the Daddy of blogging. Part of the reason why blogging is gaining popularity in the business world so rapidly that it has the capability of automatically listing the most recent blog post with hundreds of different directories and search engines. Simply paste a piece of hidden code from Technorati on your blog and you can start to benefit from the automated blog marketing process.

2) del.icio.us Bookmarking

del.icio.us is the Mother of Social Bookmarking. Social Bookmarking is the phenomenon that not only lets the user keep their Website bookmarks online so that they can access them anywhere, it also lets them share their bookmarks with everyone else. This means that people around the world can now instantly see what website pages are particularly relevant for a tagged keyword.

3) Digg Digging

Digg is the Son of a PR firm. However, instead of charging you to promote your story, it lets the public decide how much promotion your story should receive. One ‘Digg’ is one vote for the value in your Digg release. If your story is one of the more popular among the new releases, additional exposure will be achieved through a listing on the Digg home page. This could bring you thousands of website visitors.

4) Article Publication

Something that has been around for a bit longer, but will also increase your viral coefficient is the submission of your own original articles to other websites in exchange for the additional inclusion of an ‘author bio’ section. One of the leading general article directories in this field is EzineArticles.com. An additional business articles directory is BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz.

5) eBook Publication

An eBook can be published and sold for profit. However, a free eBook is also and excellent tool for viral marketers. If you are able to write an eBook about a subject that you are knowledgeable about – and that people want to find out more about, then after a few months, significant volumes of people could be emailing their friends and colleagues copies of your book. (Remember to include your website address on your free eBook to take advantage of the marketing potential)


For similar information go to www.kooldownloads.com

David Bain is founder of the website promotion marketing resource, http://www.websitepromotionmarketing.biz.

Your On-line Success Blueprint

You've probably heard the story of the tourist who stopped the old timer to ask the way and the old timer replied, "If I were you, I wouldn't start from here!".

That's actually wise advice, if you're planning for on-line success, and here's why.

It's far easier to figure out how to get somewhere, if you start from where you want end to up, and work backwards. So, if you want to make the usual internet target of $1,000,000, the way to work towards this is to reverse engineer your steps back from this target.

First you need to know the profit you make on your products. Let's say, you make a net profit of $17 on your entry level product, $85 on your next most expensive, $237 on the next and $1,478 on your top of the range item.

So, for every 10,000 visitors to your web site, you can expect to eventually sell 150 items at $17 (150 X$17)= $2,550 -- depending how good your sales page is. Once these 150 customers find out how good your basic product is, they will be far more responsive to buying a second, related product, despite it being a higher price. So, you could expect perhaps 25% to buy your next product, which gives you (37 X $85)= $3,145 Because that product is also great value, you might convince as many as 60% of these to buy your third product, which gives you a profit of $237 a time (22 X $237)= $5,214. And of those as many as 85% of them might be so delighted with your products by now, they will buy everything you produce and so they will be happy to come along to your seminar at $1478 a pop, making (18X $1,478)= $26,604.

You can now see the real secret of marketing in any business: your real profits come from doing repeat business with the same people. This is because as their confidence in your products grows, they move up the purchase staircase, making larger and larger purchases with growing confidence. So always strive to keep the most important person in your business happy: your customer. Because it is not your detractors, the government, the IRS or anyone but your customers who will buy you that house at Huntingdon Beach, pay for these holidays in Bali and pay for the contents of your wife's very large walk in closet.

More than that, you now have a handle to see how much traffic you need to generate to make the link between where you are now and where you want to be. To do this you need to calculate how much each tranche of 10,000 visitors is worth to you. And that's now just a simple matter of adding up all the profit you made by selling your range of four items. That totals $37,513. Divide that total by 10,000 ($37,513 divided by 10,000) = $3.75. That means that every visitor to your site is worth -- on average -- nearly four bucks, even if they never buy a thing. You can now also see the validity of Vilfredo Paretto's 80/20 rule, because the bulk of your profits has come from the vital 20% of your original 10,000.

So, if you have a target of a million dollars, all you need do, to find out how many total visitors you need to visit your site, is divide $1,000,000 by $37,513 and multiply by 10,000. This comes to a target of 266,574 visitors to aim for. Break that down over a couple of years and it comes to just over 11,000 a month, which is not an unreasonable amount of visitors, to build up to, provided you are smart and lay proper foundations that are free and will continue to attract quality visitors for months -- even years -- to come.

These are, of course, hypothetical figures and theories are all very well, up to a point. But let's suppose, despite your best efforts, you can only get 5,000 visitors a month. Does that mean you will only be a half-millionaire? Not at all. Because there are many things you can do to increase your visitor value from $3.75 each and get it up towards eight bucks. That will make up the shortfall of visitors by squeezing double the value out of your existing visitors. You can do this in several ways. You can survey your satisfied customers and ask them what other products they need and provide them. You can offer affiliate products you have tried and tested (but don't risk your customer base by offering any old stuff). You can create a member's area for a monthly fee.

Believe me, when you get to that stage the level of success you have already achieved will impact on your confidence and you'll have more ideas than you have time to action.

Copyright 2006 Paul Hooper-Kelly and www.InternetMarketingMagician.com


For more information and tools go to www.kooldownloads.com

You can get tons more useful insider secrets, free articles, free software, product reviews and much, much more at http://InternetMarketingMagician.com/

And Paul has also written an amazing new FREE course for you: "Zero To Hero In Seven Days", so grab your copy now, before it disappears! Free_Internet_Marketing_Training_Course

How One Simple Question Can Be Worth Millions

There is a question all successful marketers must ask themselves, if they want to be rich and successful.

These five simple words can make the difference between rip roaring success and miserable failure.

That question is: "What am I really selling?".

Don't put another pixel on your web site, until you've really figured out the answer. And, to show you how powerful this concept is, think about this.

A century ago, the railroads dominated mass travel, but, today, the jet plane is king. Yet how many railroad companies diversified into the airline business? Exactly!

Why is that? Because they didn't ask the question: "What are we really selling?". If they had lifted their eyes to the far horizon, they would have realized they were not just selling railroads -- they were selling mass transport.

Had they had this vision, their business would now encompass boats and planes as well as trains.

In the automobile industry, Henry Ford's famous slogan: "You can have any color, as long as it's black", gave him an early stranglehold on car sales. You see, Henry F had asked the right question: "What am I really selling?" and came up with a pretty good answer: "transportation".

Sometimes stiff competition proves to be the grit in the oyster that produces the pearl. So Ford's rivals asked the same question and came up with a different answer. They decided they were really selling "prestige" and found many people, who wanted to be different to their friends, were willing to pay more for the kudos of owning a car more stylish than the basic Ford. This allowed them to compete successfully with Ford by identifying a different market. Cars may be made by robots, today, but these two concepts still drive the car market.

So what are you really selling?


For more information and ideas go to www.kooldownloads.com

Copyright 2006 Paul Hooper-Kelly and http://www.InternetMarketingMagician.com

You can get tons more useful insider secrets, free articles, free software, product reviews and much, much more at http://InternetMarketingMagician.com/

And Paul has also written an amazing new FREE course for you: "Zero To Hero In Seven Days", so grab your copy now, before it disappears! Free_Internet_Marketing_Training_Course

Online Niche Marketing And Your Bottom Line

The Internet is tailor made for niche marketing. As more and more people turn to the web to find the information and products they need, opportunities for online marketers to cash in has never been greater. Buyers now look to the web to find countless products and services not available in their own local areas.

Niche marketing is a simple marketing technique you should be using with your online marketing. Targeting small sections of the vast online consumer marketplace is one of the fastest and surest ways to produce an online revenue stream. Are you taking full advantage of this marketing strategy with your own site or sites?

The web and niche marketing has opened up this whole new area in the worldwide marketplace; delicately balancing supply with demand, no matter how obscure or unique the product or service may be.

Niche marketing is catering to these small segments of the marketplace, from mountain climbing footwear to fly tying equipment to home entertainment systems. Narrowing down and targeting a specific market niche or group has proven to be a very effective online marketing strategy.

Internet marketers and webmasters who have searched out and optimized for these small niche markets are reaping the rewards. Those marketers who find the niche markets where there is high demand but very little competition are benefiting the most.

Finding these profitable niche markets is easier than most people believe, mainly because most of the activity on the web is keyword driven or powered. All a marketer has to do is find the keywords or phrases potential customers are using to search for the products they want to acquire.

Savvy online marketers use different keyword research software and online sites to find these profitable keywords. They use software like Nichebot or Keyword Elite and sites like WordTracker and Overture (Yahoo Marketing) to find profitable keywords in their respective niches.

Before any content is created, before any sites are made, before any products are born -- these marketers do extensive keyword research to find out exactly what people are looking for on the web. How many searches are made each month and the keyword ratio or competition for their niche keywords.

The objective is to find little known niches where there is great demand but very little competition. Many marketers also use the 'Long Tail'; a whole long list of keywords or keywords phrases that relate to their niche. Creating webpages or content for this Long Tail has proven to be more profitable then targeting general popular keywords.

For example, someone searching for the keyword 'vacation' may just be shopping around or dreaming - whereas someone looking for 'honeymoon vacation Jamaica' may have their minds already made up and are ready to buy... finding a whole (Long Tail) list of keyword phrases where the customer is ready to buy will obviously prove more lucrative than a general list of keywords.

Many niche marketers also use this Long Tail keyword list in combination with targeted articles which they submit and syndicate around the web through such sites as Ezinearticles, GoArticles or IdeaMarketers. Thus, creating high search rankings for the profitable keywords in their particular niche.

Many smart marketers also tie in an informative 'How To' 'Further Information' or 'Special Deals' autoresponder series to keep in touch with their visitors. Knowing that many interested parties may not buy on their first visit, it has been shown that it takes around six or seven follow-ups before many consumers will buy.

For those webmasters who are not extensively into web marketing, joining a free affiliate program like the Amazon Associates program and creating an aStore is an effective way of promoting niche products on the topic of your site. Products can be hand-picked to perfectly fit the content of your site or niche.

Niche marketing is not a complicated process. Anyone can take advantage of these small marketing niches and exploit the demand for countless products and services that have no or little competition. There is no reason why you shouldn't turn the information highway into your own private source of income.

Your bottom line will be the first to thank you!

For even more web marketing information and tools go to www.kooldownloads.com

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites, including two sites on Internet marketing. For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools For the latest Internet Marketing Strategies Go here:Internet Marketing Strategies

7 Ideas For Increasing Your Internet Marketing Presence

Marketing online is a critical part of any marketing plan. Here are seven Internet-based marketing ideas you may not have thought about for your 2007 marketing plan:

Volunteer for Internet Interviews

Podcasts, Webcasts, blogs, RSS feeds and newsletters (ezines) are all venues for online interviews or discussions. You'll want to approach publishers who regularly conduct interviews with guests of your caliber, so finding opportunities will take some research. Do this by searching general search engines (such as google.com) or directories. Some directories to get you started: podcast.net (podcasts), ezinehub.com (ezines), syndic8.com (RSS feeds/blogs)

Approach Bloggers Interested in Your Type of Product

Send your product to bloggers as a gift. You are doing this to expose your product to influencers in your category by giving them an opportunity to try it free (not to bribe or beg them to mention the product). If the bloggers like it, they may give it a mention in their blogs. Note that this is a subtle Internet marketing technique. Choosing to mention (or not mention) your product should be solely up to them.

You can find and read blogs by searching blogging directories such as technorati.com.

Join One or More Online Networks

Online social networks allow you to set up a profile page and interact with others who have your same professional (or personal) interests. Each network has different features and may appeal to a different kind of user. As with all Internet marketing techniques, there are dos and don'ts, so you'll want to read some of the profiles and learn a particular site's rules before aggressively working the network. Some networks to explore: linkedin.com, ryze.com, myspace.com, orkut.com, friendster.com

Send Out One or More Press Releases

First and foremost, the release must be something newsworthy to the media (if you need ideas, read the article here: http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/pr/NewsAngle.htm). Also, be sure to include a link to your Website or blog in the press release. Finally, distribute the release through an online press release service such as PRWeb.com.

Survey Your Website Visitors

Surveys can help you identify opportunities for improvement. Since online attention spans are very short, try asking a single two-part question such as Fred Reichhold's Ultimate Question: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend __________." Fill in the blank with your Website name (or other relevant product). To those who reply with a 6 or lower, ask why they are not more likely to recommend. You should see a pattern in the comments. These will lead to ways of improving your site. There are software packages to help you set up an online survey. Also, surveymonkey.com is a popular Web interface for producing online surveys.

Convey Patrick Hanlon's 7 Primal Branding Pieces Online

According to Hanlon, the seven "Primal Branding" pieces -- a creation story, creed, icons, rituals, sacred words, nonbelievers and leaders -- form belief systems that inherently attract people who want to believe in a product. Those people form the communities that surround successful products and services. Conveying as many of these as you can online can help build followers online.

Study Your 5 Closest Competitors' Websites and Online Marketing Activities

By studying the competition you will not only gain a better understanding of trends in your industry, but also gain new insights into promotional strategies for your own business. As you research, brainstorm a list of ideas and use that list to plan a new online strategy or technique for your own business.

There you have it -- seven ideas for improving your Internet marketing presence. Integrate one or more into your 2007 marketing plan and you'll be on your way to greater success.

Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and marketing MBA as inspiration for her writing.


For more marketing ideas go to www.kooldownloads.com

The Engagement Movement Set to Dominate in 2007

The engagement marketing movement is gathering pace all the time, with new converts joining every week. We now have an official motto (definition), a conference in its honour and blogs taking root all over the web. A leading market research firm has now heralded that 2007 will be the year that we begin our full scale assault. Big brands are joining our cause all the time – soon there won’t be a traditional marketer left to stop us!

I was made aware of the news, that engagement is set to dominate marketing, by the ‘Engagement Principles‘ blog of Tom Chandler, a fellow copywriter also tracing the evolution of our trade. It now seems inevitable that businesses will start turning to professional writers to fuel their websites. Web surfers are getting hungrier for content all the time. Being able to apply time proven copywriting techniques should come in handy as well.

Engagement marketing was hailed by Dr Robert Passikoff as one of the biggest marketing trends for 2007. His company, ‘Brand Keys’, is a leading research consultancy specialising in consumer loyalty and predicting the ROI of any marketing initiative.

Brand Keys’ business revolves around understanding what consumers want through a complex algorithm of polls, statistics and trends. He should be ably qualified to predict how people will be responding to brands in the years to come.

His other future trends follow along the same engagement philosophy: consumer generated content, touch point focused media, better usage of technology and using innovation to inspire loyalty.

Dr Robert’s assessment fits in with what every engagement marketer has been preaching. Consumers are now smarter, have greater access to information and are more cynical than ever before. They are in control of how they receive the message and that message had better be of value otherwise they’re not going to listen.

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) have even set-up a specific blog featuring videos of leading figures discussing the evolution of their industry.

One of the videos features Dr Robert. He evokes how some advertisers are starting to panic because they can’t simply bombard consumers with messages like they used to and expect an ROI. The solution, he suggests, is to start thinking of marketing as a multi faceted campaign designed to subtly change how prospects respond to a brand. It is no longer a one way conversation.

The gospel of engagement is now spreading beyond the realms of the internet and into the mainstream. Earlier this week it was announced that Kevin Adler has left his Vice Presidency at Relay Worldwide to start his own new integrated marketing agency. The agencies name? Why, ‘Engage Marketing’ of course.

Relay are an event marketing company and specialise in creating associations between brands and sports events. The ‘Cola Copa’ for example: a football (soccer for my US readers) tournament for young teens worldwide.

Adler defined his business’ philosophy, “Engagement Marketing represents a fundamental paradigm shift in how brands enter into dialogues with their consumers, by putting the needs, desires and interests of the consumers before the needs of the brand.” In other words, to stop carpet bombing audiences with marketing messages, but instead to sit down and find out what it is they actually want.

As advertising and marketing evolves into the engagement philosophy copywriters are going to have to develop some new tricks of our own. It looks as though the old AIDA principle is going to need a few more letters in the years to come.

Matt Ambrose is a freelance writer from the UK. Please visit thewritewords.me.uk for more information about Matt and his web copywriting services.


For more information on Marketing go to www.kooldownloads.com

Why Niche Web Site Traffic Is Gold

The moment you will discover the value of niche web site traffic, your online life will never be the same again.

This realization came to me totally by accident. One day I came across an affiliate program that touched on the exact niche that I was regularly attracting to a new blog I had just launched. I quickly signed up and pasted the affiliate link and totally forgot about it. About a week later I received an email notification of an affiliate sale. To date this program has continued to send me monthly payments of increasing amounts. Yet I have never done anything more than that initial pasting of the affiliate link code to my site.

Considering that the site I am talking about receives very little traffic, less than 100 page views per day, then you begin to realize just how powerful the concept of niche web site traffic is. The effective way to pull in niche web site traffic is with the use of articles that address niche problems and target the exact niche that you are interested in. You will have to carefully select the right niche keyword phrases. Then you will need to ensure that you launch your campaign with enough promotional articles to attract enough traffic.

You will be absolutely shocked at the results you will get from attracting the right niche traffic that finds your web or blog site most relevant. Conversion rates will be higher and revenues are bound to shoot up dramatically.

Do not waste time and resources on schemes that only attract a general audience when there is pure gold waiting to be mined continuously and endlessly from the carefully targeted quality niche web site traffic that you should be attracting using promotional articles.


For more information on "Article Marketing" go to www.kooldownloads.com

5 Terrific Traffic Ideas That Don’t Include SEO, JV’s and PPC

Traffic. It's the all-important piece of the marketing puzzle that faces all web owners. Your product may cure cancer but unless there are people reading your information it won't matter. And not just any traffic. You want laser targeted, highly motivated customers ready to whip out their wallets and input their credit cards. You are searching for El Dorado. You know it's there. You've read that others have found it. There is a path and it starts here.

SEO, JV's and PPC traffic will all deliver targeted customers. These techniques require specific knowledge too lengthy to discuss in one sitting. Below are five diverse methods that you start to use to drive targeted customers to your site with the knowledge you gain here.

1. Join the world and start blogging! Blogging is an online weblog or diary that can be easily updated. Your readers can even leave comments or answer polls. Blogger.com, a large server based blog, is owned by Google. Although there are great advantages to posting to a Blogger site you always want to have a blog hosted on your own site. Blogger will take down sites and sometimes for no apparent reason. You can lose all your data and traffic in seconds. Use Blogger to point to your primary site. This gives your site one more back link, another source for traffic and a reason for Google to spider and index your primary site following the links from Blogger. You can post the same content on both blogs and redirect people to pick up an RSS feed from your primary blog.

2. There are people talking about your niche on any number of forums and groups. Join several and provide accurate content rich answers to their questions. Be seen as a helper, someone who is truly interested in the topic and the people. Do not spam. Do not advertise but place your site in your signature line. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the number of good customers you'll receive. If people are motivated enough to join a forum or group to discuss their issue then they most likely are motivated to find good information.

3. Article marketing has been a topic of conversation for several years now. People seem to attempt this particular avenue and get discouraged easily. Although this type of marketing will economically generate targeted customers it is a time consuming job. The best technique to use is to post at least three to four articles per week to two or three of the top article directories. It's not necessary to post to 300 directories, just the ones with high page ranks like ezinearticles.com. These article postings do three things. You have back links from a site with a high page rank; you have access to publishers and your content will be found on organic searches based on the keywords and phrases you enter when you post to the directory.

4. Viral marketing has a mystique about it. The first site that accidentally took real advantage of this method was Interview With God. The owner of the site published a public domain poem on the net just a couple of months before 9/11. His site was ‘discovered' by many people who took solace from the poetry and began sending the site to all of their friends. The rest was history. The essence of viral marketing is sharing information with people you know. There are several avenues open to you and even more if you use your imagination. You can take advantage of social networking sites and social bookmarking sites where you can share your information with all of your new ‘friends'. Tell a friend scripts on your site can encourage your current visitors to tell their friends. You'll find that people will tell their friends if your site is funny, touching or if you offer incentive. Another technique is to offer free information through ebooks with links back to your site.

5. Do you have expert knowledge on a particular subject that relates to your website and business? You not only can share that knowledge in groups and forums but also by using answer sites through Yahoo Answers or eHow.com. In these arenas people post questions and others post answers. People who read the answers rate them. Your site gets traffic when people perceive that you are giving high quality answers.

You have the knowledge to drive traffic to your site. This may not be the flood of traffic that dreams are made of but they are targeted customers, the most important kind of traffic. As your skill using these techniques improves so will the number of buying customers visiting your site. And isn't that the point?

** Rasheed Ali is CEO and founder of the Internet Coaching Academy http://www.InternetCoachingAcademy.com where he and his team of internet business experts are helping people from all over the world start, build and profit from their own internet business. He also offers a FREE newsletter and FREE video course on building a profitable home based business on the internet. **

For more information go to www.kooldownloads.com

Internet Marketing Mentor: Guiding You to the Next Step to Success

If you need a guide in your internet profession to steer you and advice you on what you need to do, an internet mentor is for you. Being an internet marketer can mean hard work and dedication. You have to build your reputation as an internet marketer in order to make it in the internet world.

Since there are a lot of internet marketers today, you will need an internet marketing mentor in order to help you build your reputation as an internet marketer. You have to remember that people will likely hire people with a good reputation in the internet marketing business. So, find an internet marketing mentor who has established a good name in the field and have been successful with a lot of clients.

A mentor will not only help you achieve having a good reputation, but a mentor will also give you focus and guide you on your way to success. Without a mentor, you will likely end up skipping little details that are essential for success. You will only end up with too much time wasted and too little achievement.

A mentor will be there to guide you on a step by step basis on your way to be a successful internet marketer. You need to find a mentor who has been a successful internet marketer. These kinds of mentors have the knowledge in what the dos and don'ts are in the internet marketing business. They have vast experience that they can share with you and also help you avoid mistakes along the way.

A good mentor will be there to continue mentoring you until you achieve your goals in the internet marketing world. No matter how long it takes, it is important that a mentor will always be there to guide you until they think that you have enough knowledge to go on along the path of success alone.

You have to be sure that the mentor should be able to know reliable experts that he or she can recommend to you.

They should be able to recommend you a good web designer, a good autoresponder company and also a good payment processor. Having all these will allow you to have a worry free work in your internet marketing career.

Try and find a mentor who has a good status in the Internet world. Internet marketing gurus that you read about in the internet is one of the great mentors that you have. They made a lot of money in the world of internet marketing and they can also help you achieve the same success. You have to consider that mentors like these can be expensive.

This is why you should make sure that the mentor knows something about internet marketing and should be able to provide you with advice and guidance to your success. They shouldn’t just recommend a good e-book that you can read, but they should personally see to it that you will be successful in your internet marketing career.

If a mentor doesn’t even bother checking up on you from time to time, you should consider dropping him or her as a mentor. They should be able to contact you from time to time to see how you are doing with your career and advice you on what to do next and what not to do.

These are the things that you should look for in an internet marketing mentor. Always remember that they should be the ones who will guide you on your way to success. They shouldn’t just think of mentoring as another way to make money out of ignorant people who are also seeking success in the internet marketing world.

Remember these things and you will get the right mentor for you.

Steven Gerber is a professional copywriter and a protégé student of Dan Lok – The World's #1 Website Conversion Expert. Find the latest internet marketing and copywriting techniques and tricks at his website.

For more information also visit www.kooldownloads.com