Archive for August, 2007
Write a Marketable Article
Posted by Gracie Browning in Affiliate Marketing, Article Marketing, Content Creation Tuesday, 14 August 2007 12:57 3 Comments
You can’t spend over five minutes on the internet without seeing an article about something on some website. And if you are looking for specific information about anything you can dream up, you will find a mind-boggling number dedicated to every subject imaginable.
Many of the articles that you see on the internet are articles that webmasters have downloaded from article directories. The same is true for the articles that are in those newsletters that so many people enjoy.
Marketers, including affiliate marketers, have found that by writing and submitting articles to article banks for others to download and reproduce, they have a lucrative and FREE avenue of advertisement for their websites and their products.
Now, not all articles are marketable. You can certainly submit them to article banks but they aren’t likely to be downloaded and reproduced (with your resource box which contains a link to your website or to your affiliate product) unless they meet certain criteria.
Truly marketable articles are:
- 300-500 words long. Seven hundred words is the absolute maximum and you are better off with fewer.
- Have a compelling headline that contains the main key word of the subject matter.
- Contain the main key word at least once in the first sentence and at least twice in the first paragraph.
- Contain true, accurate and timely information that is relevant to the subject.
- Have all words spelled correctly and have correct grammatical usage throughout.
And, of course, you want the resource box at the end of the article to contain your name, contact information and a link to your website or your affiliate product.
It sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? It isn’t! It takes practice and experience to write articles that webmasters and ezine publishers will download and use so that you get the FREE advertising.
The idea, however, is to keep working on writing marketable articles until you get the hang of it. Article writing and marketing is one of the keys to success in the world of Internet Marketing. If you do it right the first time, you will enjoy profits for years to come.
First There Was SEO – Then Along Came a Spider
Posted by Kathy Jackson in Affiliate Marketing, SEO, Upkeep Thursday, 9 August 2007 23:54 1 Comment
“Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly” is a line from a nursery rhyme that we have all heard from the time we were knee high to a grasshopper. And that was almost before anyone knew about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Those nursery rhymes and stories taught us to avoid trouble and “trouble” was often personified in the shape of a spider. (“Along came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.”) We all want to avoid those ugly creatures as often as possible but the search engine spiders are ones that we WANT to attract. They aren’t ugly. They get our websites INDEXED!
So, yes, we want to attract the search engine spiders to our websites. The question is how to do that. What does one use for spider bait?
Changing Content: Changing Content is terrific spider bait. Search engine spiders take note when content changes on a website and they are drawn to the site. So change your content and do it often.
META tags: The description tags that you put into your headers and graphics aren’t seen by your website visitors, but they are duly noted by the search engine spiders. Don’t overlook these tags. There are very good spider bait.
Site Popularity: The number of visitors to your website is noted by the search engine spiders. You want to do everything you possibly can to attract visitors to your website including writing and marketing articles and posting to blogs and forums.
Search engine spiders count visitors…not sales.
Keywords: Your use of keywords on your website is natural spider bait. Your main keyword needs to be in your heading once, in the first sentence of the first paragraph once and at least twice in the first paragraph.
Of course, there are some black hat SEO tactics, and we recommend that you don’t use those. They will attract the spiders and a lot of trouble as well.
Stick to white hat spider attracting tactics like those listed above and you won’t be killed by the Black Widow!
PPC: Revolutionary Advertising
Posted by Gracie Browning in Affiliate Marketing, PPC Tuesday, 7 August 2007 13:05 1 Comment
Advertising has always been a kind of ‘hit or miss’ proposition when you think about it. Advertising has also been less than efficient.
PPC advertising (if you do your homework) is not ever ‘hit or miss’ and it can be as efficient as you want it to be (if you do your homework).
Before PPC advertising, came on the scene back in 1998, advertising was all done much like throwing a bucket of paint at a wall and hoping that something stuck. It was put out there for everybody to see or hear in the hope that people who read or heard the advertising would, in fact, buy the product or service that was being advertised. Most advertising is still done that way and you see it every day.
- The billboards that you see when you drive are there for all who pass them to see.
- The advertisements on television are broadcast to ALL viewers.
- The advertisements on radio are, too.
- The advertisements in newspapers are printed in all of the newspapers and not just in the ones that might be read by potential customers.
- Circulars are sent to every mailing address in a zip code.
The very worst thing about typical advertising is that that the advertiser pays for the advertising whether it is effective or not. For example: if you place an advertisement in a newspaper, you will PAY for that advertising even if you don’t get one single customer.
PPC advertising is nothing at all like your typical “throw-a-bucket-of-paint-at-a-wall-and-hope-something-sticks” advertising. With PPC advertising (if you do your homework), you get to choose WHO will see your advertisement and WHEN they will see your advertisement.
The most beautiful part of PPC advertising is that you ONLY pay when and if your advertisement actually sends a potential customer to your place of business (website).
Now THAT is bargain advertising when you only pay for results!
PPC Advertising vs. Markmanship?
Posted by Kathy Jackson in Affiliate Marketing, PPC Friday, 3 August 2007 12:25 No Comments
I’m a big fan of marksmanship competitions. Now, I am not talking about people shooting guns at other people or at innocent animals. I’m talking about people shooting at targets and seeing who gets the closest to the bulls-eye the most often at both stationary and moving targets.
You’d be surprised how much fun these competitions are if you haven’t ever been to one. There are categories for both sexes and all ages……much like affiliate marketing. There are categories for all people and everybody can take their shot.
I was at one of these marksmanship competitions not long ago and it occurred to me that marksmanship competitions and PPC advertising have at least a couple of things in common. There may be more but I can think of two commonalities right off the top of my head:
In both marksmanship competition and PPC advertising the idea is to hit as close to dead center as possible. Hitting the bulls-eye in competitive marksmanship competitions means that you are a good shot…..a marksman, and hitting the target market dead-center in PPC advertising means that you are reaching your customer base and probably making money without wasting advertising dollars.
And, they both rely on single shot rather than scatter shot ammunition. Exactly! In competitive marksmanship competitions single shot ammunition is always used. The idea is to hit the target with one shot and not spray the area with bird shot or scatter shot and hope that something hits the bulls-eye.
There are, of course, a few significant differences between competitive marksmanship competitions and PPC advertising. For one thing in competitive marksmanship competitions there isn’t any doubt about where exactly the bulls-eye is but with PPC advertising, you usually have to do some serious research to determine dead-center.
Still the idea in both is to hit the target whether it is moving or stationary and to hit it as close to center as you possibly can with one shot.
