Posts Tagged ‘craigslist’

Most people think of websites as “passive marketing”.  Websites are passive marketing tools because customers have to come to the website on their own.  Websites do not find new customers, the serve customers that find you.  That’s not a completely true statement, but it is mostly true.
Passive Marketing
Passive marketing methods are dependent on people finding your website.  If we use that term liberally, then we can say that passive marking would include common search engine optimization (SEO), link exchanges, listings in link directories, word-of-mouth, business cards, etc.
Passive marketing strategies, such as search engine optimization, are very important.  I encourage you to use all those techniques. In this article, we are going to build on the concept with more aggressive “Active Marketing” techniques. Read the rest of this entry »

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most discussed methods for improving traffic to your website.  Search engines, such as Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and others are all trying to help web surfers find what they are looking for.  This is harder than it sounds.  Search engine companies are always working on their advanced algorithms in order to produce better results for web surfers.  It is a very competitive industry.  SEO experts work very hard to keep up with the changes in the search engine industry.

I strongly recommend you use a professional SEO consultant for all of this.  It is a lot of work and there are special tools that make all this much easier.  You can do it yourself, but is it worth your time?  Only you can say.

Know your baseline – Make sure you have statistics enabled on your site.  I recommend Google Analytics.

Know your objectives – Are you selling something?  Looking for phone calls?  Or do you want people to sign-up for your newsletter.

Keyword Analysis – Keyword research tells you what keywords you should target in your SEO strategy.  These should be consistent with your objectives.  I recommend Word Tracker

Competitor Analysis – Search the major search engines using the keywords from your analysis.  Learn who your competitors are.  You will want to out-perform them with better keyword densities, more inbound links, etc.  I recommend Web CEO.

On-Page SEO – There are a number of on-page things to do.  Here are the most significant areas to optimize:

• Pages should have keywords in the filename. These keywords appear in the address bar.
• The page TITLE should have keywords. These keywords appear on top of the browser.
• META Tags (keywords and description) should have lots of keywords in them as well.
• All graphics should have ALT tags with keywords in them as well.
• Page content should include heading tags and emphasis tags to draw attention to key words and phrases on the page.
• Page content should have a high density of critical keywords.
• All links on your site to other pages on your site should have keywords in those links. Avoid using [click here]. Use keywords in the link.
• Create additional site content if necessary. Make sure you have all your keywords optimized somewhere on your site.
• Update your site regularly. The more updates the better. This is why blogs are so popular.

Off-Page SEO – There are many off-page SEO techniques.  We can only cover a few here:

• Write keyword-rich articles and submit them to free article sites. Write a lot of articles. Use an article submission service to get your articles out to more websites faster.
• Write comments on blogs and social networks and include links back to your site. Make sure your links always include keywords.
• Post ads on craigslist.org, ebay.com, and anywhere else you can place ads promoting your products or services.

Your ultimate goal is to have as many pages on your site as possible and for those pages to be keyword optimized.  Then you want as many links to your site from other sites and those links should have keywords in the clickable part as well.   This is a never-ending process.  Always add more content.  Always produce more inbound links.  It is a lot of work but it can pay off big.

It can take a while for your SEO efforts to be fruitful.  Just keep at it.  Watch your website work its way up the rankings.  You will thank me when you are #1.

The internet is the first place to turn when you need information on virtually anything.  There is more information on more subjects on the internet than in every other source combined. You can find answers online faster than at the library and faster than at the book store.

With all that free information, why do people pay for information?

If you are searching for some quick fact, search the internet and you will probably find what you are looking for.  If you want comprehensive information presented in a structured format, you will do better with a book or some other form of training.

Information marketing has become a very significant part of internet business.  More people are willing to spend money online than ever.  Because people see the internet as a research tool, information marketing is a logical business for the internet.

What information products work on the internet?

Virtually any topic is a good fit for an internet information product.  Best results come with more exciting products, but that is true regardless of where and how you market.  Write a book on human cloning and it will outsell a book on cloning frogs.  The real objective is to choose a format that is great for your topic.  Choose multiple formats and you will do even better.

Do interviews and record them in video.  Include the video on DVD, the audio on CD, the printed book, and maybe throw in a workbook as a free bonus.  Sell the bundle for more money than you could get for the book.

What if I don’t have a book, CD, or anything else to sell?

You can create and market your own products or you can market someone else’s products.  There are also public domain books that you can use as your own.  Search for electronic downloads of “Think and Grow Rich” or “The Science of Getting Rich”.  These are free to use.  Update them and publish them as a revised edition.  Create add-on information to supplement the book and sell it as a bundle.  You can also purchase books that you are allowed to put your name on it and modify it as you wish.  These are called “Private Label Rights” (PLR) products.

Marketing Techniques

There are dozens of sales techniques.  Step 1 is to create a sales page that really encourages someone to purchase your book right now.  Offer free bonuses, time limited discounts, or other incentives.  Create scarcity and urgency in your sales page.

Promote your sales page everywhere.  Promote it in newsletters, web pages, craigslist, or with joint ventures.  Get your ad in front of as many people as possible and have your ad send them to your sales page.

I have just completed a book on this topic called “Become an Overnight Infopreneur”.  If you are interested in knowing more about this topic, visit www.anythinginternet.com and request a copy through the contact us form.   I am giving away copies for a limited time.