Global Marketing Research

1. Research and Optimize Your Keywords
This is a sticky situation for most people beacuse they know nothing or almost nothing about SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Instead of targeting just your niche try investigating just what people are putting into the search engines when they think of your niche, you may be suprised at what you find. You will also find that using keywords that don't have that much competition can quickly move you up in the search engine rankings.

2. Create Landing Pages
If you're going to use landing pages you must remember one Golden Rule and that is Keep It Simple Stupid or K.I.S.S. Short, sweet, and to the point will make your landing pages more attractive to customers and give you a larger conversion rate. Your landing pages should also target different audiences if you have more than one product. For example if your business is in the fitness industry and you offer both weight gain and weight loss products you should have landing page for both products.

3. Create Business Profiles in Online Directories
When first starting your marketing projects you should create a business profile in as many online directories as possible. Make growing your business name online your first priority. Be sure to update these profiles as your business grows and changes. This will keep your business profiles consistent and your business information correct.

4. Buy Relevant Domains
In other words if your business name is BOBO you will want to create websites like bobo.com, bobo.net and bobo.org. The larger your company the more relevant domains you may want. If you are an international company I would suggest you buy them all. Nothing could be worst than someone messing with your brand name because you didn't buy a relevant domain name. You may also want to make a domain name for any new products you release with backlinks to your main site. Several relevant domain names will facilitate your company in tracking what gives you the most inbound traffic. Once you have this information you can repeat the process for your other domains.

5. Start a Blog
Write or hire someone to write creditable, informative, unique content for your blog. You'll find it's an easy way to establish your buiness online and most webhosting services will include a blog in one or more of their sales packages. Make sure you cover your industry-specific news, advancements, how to information if possible. Whatever you do don't make your blog a big sales and product information page. Also make sure you are archiving all of your blog post. By archiving your content unlike deleting it, you will be able to keep all of the inbound links you have built.

6. Don't Start PPC & Ad Words Campaigns
Starting an PPC or AdWords Campaign at the beginning of your marketing endeavours could easily start your company losing money investing in campaigns that need to be tested again and again to be truly successful. It is much wiser to be seen in organic search rather than in paid content early on.


By
Michael Murdock
Global Research Team

Image by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten via Flickr

1. Demonstrate a Reliable Internet Presence

If you are reliable and responsible, many people will spread the good word about you and your product or whatever it is you do online. Social networking is much like being at a party and letting people get to know you. Your business traffic will start to flow once you assume a credible and trusted voice in the social media arena. If you treat social media as a party and act as you would at a party without the drinking you should be fine. Don't start selling as soon as you walk through the door of Twitter or Facebook...why you ask? Because nobody knows who the heck you are. You will need to be more interesting, personal, genuine and active with your customers than traditional advertising. Get to know them and what they want and let them know you and what you have to offer.

2. Start Blogging and Deliver Content, Content, Content

Instead of pushing sales and product information messages the way most people would with traditional advertising, give good content for your target audience. Let them gain some knowledge about your industry and about how knowledgeable you are about your industry through your posting. You will have to to modify your merchandising mentality about how trust works in the social mediasphere. Companies that simply push sales messages just won't last in the social mediasphere, people won't like you and will tell others that won't like you as well. If you aren't liked you won't make any money in this arena and you'll be wasting a good amount of time to boot. You're going to need a blog to further interact with current and future customers. Through your blog you can deliver as much reliable and trustworthy content as you want. Be sure your blog is as informative, interesting, current and reliable as possible. Post at least 4 times a week or people won't want to come back to your blog...I had to find that out the hard way.

3. Developing Great Net Sentiment Is A Must

Simply put net sentiment is how much customers like or dislike your blog, website or products. If you are liked you will get talked about a lot if you are disliked you will get talked about even more! Interacting with customers by answering questions, sharing industry news, writing articles, writing blog posts, and leaving helpful content on social media networks should build positive net sentiment. Thourgh social networking consumers have the ability to influence each other like never before in the history of marketing. If you don't have time for social media yourself you should hire someone to do it for you or miss out on reaching millions of potential customers daily! It doesn't matter what industry you are in or what product you sell, at some point in time your company will be mentioned in the social mediasphere as either a honorable company or a scoundrel.


4. Monitor Everything You Do In The Social Media Network

The monitoring process can be a little time consuming but there are many online tools to help the process along. You should monitor conversion rates, consumer interaction, trade name sentiment, forum conversations, and respond to any questions about your company or trade name on a regular basis. By tracking the conversations focusing on your trade name, you can respond to requests for information, favorable and negative comments remain active on a daily basis. Everyday have something to say to your customers and potential customers, this is what social media is all about INTERACTION! Even if they don't interact with you interact with them to find out why they are not interacting with you and fix it.

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By
Blaine W. Stevens
Global Research Team

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Image by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten via Flickr

4 Steps To Help You Begin Social Media Marketing

1. Demonstrate a Reliable Internet Presence

If you are reliable and responsible, many people will spread the good word about you and your product or whatever it is you do online. Social networking is much like being at a party and letting people get to know you. Your business traffic will start to flow once you assume a credible and trusted voice in the social media arena. If you treat social media as a party and act as you would at a party without the drinking you should be fine. Don't start selling as soon as you walk through the door of Twitter or Facebook...why you ask? Because nobody knows who the heck you are. You will need to be more interesting, personal, genuine and active with your customers than traditional advertising. Get to know them and what they want and let them know you and what you have to offer.

2. Start Blogging and Deliver Content, Content, Content

Instead of pushing sales and product information messages the way most people would with traditional advertising, give good content for your target audience. Let them gain some knowledge about your industry and about how knowledgeable you are about your industry through your posting. You will have to to modify your merchandising mentality about how trust works in the social mediasphere. Companies that simply push sales messages just won't last in the social mediasphere, people won't like you and will tell others that won't like you as well. If you aren't liked you won't make any money in this arena and you'll be wasting a good amount of time to boot. You're going to need a blog to further interact with current and future customers. Through your blog you can deliver as much reliable and trustworthy content as you want. Be sure your blog is as informative, interesting, current and reliable as possible. Post at least 4 times a week or people won't want to come back to your blog...I had to find that out the hard way.

3. Developing Great Net Sentiment Is A Must

Simply put net sentiment is how much customers like or dislike your blog, website or products. If you are liked you will get talked about a lot if you are disliked you will get talked about even more! Interacting with customers by answering questions, sharing industry news, writing articles, writing blog posts, and leaving helpful content on social media networks should build positive net sentiment. Thourgh social networking consumers have the ability to influence each other like never before in the history of marketing. If you don't have time for social media yourself you should hire someone to do it for you or miss out on reaching millions of potential customers daily! It doesn't matter what industry you are in or what product you sell, at some point in time your company will be mentioned in the social mediasphere as either a honorable company or a scoundrel.


4. Monitor Everything You Do In The Social Media Network

The monitoring process can be a little time consuming but there are many online tools to help the process along. You should monitor conversion rates, consumer interaction, trade name sentiment, forum conversations, and respond to any questions about your company or trade name on a regular basis. By tracking the conversations focusing on your trade name, you can respond to requests for information, favorable and negative comments remain active on a daily basis. Everyday have something to say to your customers and potential customers, this is what social media is all about INTERACTION! Even if they don't interact with you interact with them to find out why they are not interacting with you and fix it.

Get your Free trial SEO Software and Free Gifts!

By
Blaine W. Stevens
Global Research Team

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Recent changes in the Google Adsense program has many online website owners and marketers seriously concerned. Many have seen their Adsense profíts and income flatline... seen their four or five figure monthly Adsense income disappear overnight. For many the Google Adsense bubble has burst. What happened? First, Google made a change in its Adsense program, letting advertisers choose between putting their ads in the search results or on the content pages of Adsense publishers. Search won out and started to receive the higher bids. Search results convert better than content ads.

Next, Google has cracked down on Junk Adsense sites, like they should. These sites consisted mainly of software generated re-hashed search engine links and were totally annoying to say the least. But Google also cracked down on 'squeeze pages' or 'affilíate landing pages' - a lucrative source of income for many online marketers, mainly because these pages helped marketers build an opt-ín list or use permission based email.

The results of these changes produced an Adsense meltdown for many online marketers.

Some Internet marketers are speculating recent changes could even mean the death of Adsense. One online marketer, Scott Boulch even published a free report entitled 'The Death of Adsense".

Many affilíate marketers would agree with Boulch on some of his points, especially the obvious fact that using Adsense on your web content is starting on the bottom rung of the online marketing ladder. Instead of receiving pennies per clíck with Adsense, alert marketers and webmasters have already discovered that by using CPA (Cost-Per-Action) and direct affilíate links, they can produce significantly more revenue from their web pages. Why eärn pennies per clíck when you can eärn $5, $10 or OVER $100 per clíck?

But the fine people at Google are catching on...

In the past Google has made its own swing to the Cost-Per-Action direction with its referral system for the Firefox Browser and giving webmasters credít for signing up Adwords and Adsense accounts.

Many online marketers believe Google needs to expand on these baby steps and open their Adsense affilíate program up to third party products/advertisers. In a recent company statement Google offered some hope: "We're always looking for new ways to provide effective and useful features to advertisers, publishers, and users," the company stated "As part of these efforts we are currently testing a cost-per-action (CPA) pricing model to give advertisers more flexibility and provide publishers another way to eärn revenue through AdSense." Basically, in cost-per-action, advertisers pay for leads, purchases or customer acquisition. It would help with the clíck fraud issue and the monetary returns could potentially make Adsense's revenues pale in comparison.

As more and more commerce goes online... acquiring customers for such diverse services as ínsurance, real estate, telephone, marketing, web hostíng, travel, mörtgage loans, cable TV, banking... you name it, almost any service or product sold in the marketplace is now turning to the Internet for customers and lifelong clients.

Enormous sums of monëy will change hands. Perhaps, the most lucrative of these is customer acquisition. Advertisers are turning to the Internet and webmasters/marketers for acquiring these lifelong customers for their respective services and products. Businesses and companies are quickly realizing paying an attractive lead generating fee/commission is smart business. They quickly build a client base for their services or products and quickly recoup their expenses - realizing in the long run these leads will generate huge profíts.

It can also mean huge profíts for the CPA networks like ValueClick's Commission Junction and Rakuten's LinkShare who supply the advertisers with publishers and website marketers to harvest these leads. It can be a lucrative venture for all involved, especially for those online marketers who have cornered the search engines for lucrative niche markets in big ticket items. Even small ticket items pay quite well for those marketers who know how to market online.

Contextual advertising is fine, but CPA (Cost-Per-Action) will offer much better returns for the website owner. Making any profitable site much more profitable. It will and is opening up a whole area of marketing opportunities that nevër existed before we had the Internet. Creating a complex structure of advertisers, publishers and the Affilíate/CPA companies that connect the two.

Of course, cutting out the middle man has always been even a more profitable venture for most marketers. As more and more webmasters realize they can make much more with dealing directly with companies, rather than going through a middle process like Google Adsense or the countless other affilíate/CPA networks ... online marketers can reap even bigger rewards.

For an online marketer when you get a telephone call or email from the CEO or the affilíate manager with a company or service you're promoting with your website - you know you have made it! Dealing directly with a company usually means bigger commissions and special exclusive deals just for you or your sites.

Only fly in the ointment, all that extra paperwork and business wheeling and dealing. Many marketers and website owners like the idea of someone else handling all the tracking, collecting payments, promotional materials... they just like to sit back and build more websites and content. It gives the affilíate marketer a lifestyle that they are looking for on the web. They just like to market and promote with their sites and let someone else worry about the details. Therefore, there will always be a place for contextual ads like Google Adsense... "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

However, could CPA be a better alternative for the current Adsense contextual ads?

Google would be the natural choice for a middleman if there ever was one. Besides, many savvy marketers know the Google brand name is trusted online, any product/service promoted through Google would be an easy sell. Many argue Google already dominates the web, why should it not be the one to handle these CPA transactions through its Adsense program.

On the flip side, over countless updates and changes to its indexing, many webmasters have experienced more than a few negative dealings with Google. Many have won, many have lost in this Google Age, but all have realized riding the Google Search Engine is like running with the bulls at Pamplona, totally thrilling unless you're one of the unfortunate few who get trampled in the process.

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About The Author:

Titus Hoskins is a former teacher who now works full-time online operating numerous websites, including two sites on Internet marketing.

Image by Mark McLaughlin via Flickr

By Blaine Stevens

If you're new to internet marketing you may not know that you are able to build your subscriber base entirely by writing ebooks, articles and reports about your particular niche and submitting them to the different e-zine and article directories you can find online. Rather simply put this sort of internet marketing influence should certainly be the kickoff to any viral marketing campaign using viral article and report writing as your main technique and, when done by the book it will be exceedingly lucrative for you.

To put it pure and simple you'll be demonstrating your merit and exhibiting your expertise on your chosen niche whatever it may be, through viral articles. You should also consider writing viral reports as well as viral ebooks to expand your internet marketing empire, if you give it a little thought it would be the next natural step in a viral marketing campaign.

If you are new to internet marketing, you are also most likely wondering just what is a "Viral Article".

The quick & easy answer: A viral article is simply an article that is passed from one reader to the next; making the content of that article spread across any niche field you have written about just like a virus.

Okay, so how would a viral article help build a subscriber base?

The quick answer: To build a subscriber base virally you must write an article that is of exceptional value or at least great value to the reader enough so that they are willing to pass the information on to friends and colleges. Secondly you must submit the articles to e-zine, article directories and anyplace else that will allow you to post your article.

The resource box you attach to your articles, reports or ebooks. In the resource box (a.k.a. bio box), you should include your name, title if you have one, a little detail about yourself and your web site address. I would ardently suggest that your resource box web address links to your mailing list's landing page or another page where you will be able to get your guest name and email address. Applying this method you are able to build your subscriber base at no out of pocket expense. Should your articles, reports or ebooks be declared worthwhile, ezine publishers will republish your reports and articles jointly with your resource box for their readers. The result should be a viral marketing campaign with very little effort on your part!

You'll be able to readily start by writing as well as presenting your viral articles and viral reports to trusted article submitter sites such as http://www.articlemarketer.com and commence your viral marketing campaign today. To build any subscriber base virally, you should start by offering a free giveaway product of some sort that has a viral characteristic to it and is related to your niche. It could be for example, only be downloaded if the person downloading it has to recommend it to one or more friends to get the download. Take a minute to just visualize the viral impact of a successful campaign like that! Your internet business and revenue could start flourishing for the foreseeable future in a rapidly growing fashion.

To build a subscriber base virally, you must offer something of exceptional to great value. Your subscribers must be willing to tell their friends, family and colleagues about what you are doing if your subscriber base is going to be genuinely viral. Therefore it's crucial to provide your visitors with the very best information, service or product you are able to offer.

Just what is the very best information, service or product for your site?

The truth is I don't know, because it's different for every niche, and different people consider the importance and value of information, services and products differently. Nobody can tell you what is the absolute best information, service or product for any website, it just can't be done. However using trial and error you'll be able to determine what type of information, service or product is pulling in the most visitors. Another way is to simply ask your visitors what type of information they'd like to see on your site through a simple questionnaire or site evaluation form and provide that information or whatever your visitors are asking for.

Once you create your free ebook, article, report or software and remembering it must have an opt in form for your subscriber base list to work virally, after that give it away like mad. Once other people start to give it away the viral effect has started, the people who download it will become members of your list when they read it, as will everyone else who can see the value in your giveaway offers. A free ebook, article or report is relatively easy to create, and can become the backbone of a strong viral marketing campaign. Using software as a viral campaign method is a little trickier unless you are a software programmer. Check the internet for software writers/programmers willing to create simple but very useful software products for your niche, they are out there you just have to look a little.

To be truly viral will demand some actual hard work on your part, however if you just add in viral components to absolutely everything you do, you will be able to develop an unstoppable viral marketing machine. Remember to keep viral marketing in the forefront of your entire internet marketing endeavors.

To Your Success
Blaine Stevens

About the Author: Blaine Stevens is an business and personal training author.

Image via Wikipedia

By The Dark Sage
Underground Marketing Guru
Contributing Editor for Global Research Team

Apart from selling your merchandise and associated bargains, the principal function of developing complimentary viral reports is to establish your subscriber based mailing list. The rationality for this is, whenever you're not able to sell the merchandise as well as any benefit highlighted in your complimentary report, your last minute effort had better be to accumulate a few leads. The bottom line is, if you can't convince your readers into becoming immediate customers, you ought to make an attempt at turning them into new subscribers. In this fashion, you are able to later follow through with your readers about future bargains and still give you a opportunity at turning them into your customers, if at all possible lifetime customers.

Should your readers feel the information you are providing is valuable and deserves sharing they will! You're always able to encourage every reader to share your reports by telling them they have permission to pass on your reports free of charge. This will enable you to have your contact info and any business links (affiliate or otherwise) within the report and be circulated with very little or no effort at all.

Here's a couple of easy ways to do just that, you begin by extending lifetime updates to your readers followed by a one of a kind beta product notice that your readers will be attracted to, which contributes to having them sign up to your subscriber base mailing list. The tricky part is the beta product and where are you going to get it. The beta product can be almost anything related to your niche, it can be an ebook that you wrote, an affiliate product or service you promote or even a software product you have had written. Obviously the first two suggestions are the most cost effective, because they only cost you time, while the software product will cost you time and money. You can find software programmers to create what you need for a reasonable price online.

The only two success components in viral report marketing you should concern yourself with are of course the quality and promotion of your complimentary report. Promoting a quality report is very easy, because people will always share quality information and products with the people they want to see succeed. However on the other hand if the report or products lack quality you will have an extremely difficult time building a mailing list let alone selling anything you promote. The easiest way to promote complimentary reports is to submit them to e-zine and article submission sites like INSERT SITE HERE. This type of promotion also works with ebooks and articles too.

All that's left is for you to get out there and start writing complimentary reports and articles, and give them away like crazy. Don't forget to submit to e-zine and article submission sites as well as any site that will allow you to post the report and you can start building your subscriber base mailing list immediately.

To Your Success
The Dark Sage

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