Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Increase Affiliate Marketing Sales by Increasing your Keyword List

Any affiliate marketer who has a website is in business to lure potential buyers and monetize them into paying customers. Every internet marketer knows that keywords achieve this objective. Keywords are the means in getting targeted traffic to your site. Keywords are niche focused and are the means by which you sell a product or service.

Most of those in internet and affiliate marketing create their master keyword list and then leave it alone. The real trick is to never stop developing your keyword list. You have to keep brainstorming your list to increase the flow of traffic to your website. By doing this you also increase your market potential and make more sales.

You may even succeed in doubling or trebling your sale if you keep working at this process. Here are a couple of tricks so you can increase your internet marketing sales.

Use Long tail Key Words or Phrases

Using long tail keyword phrases is one of the best means to attract targeted visitors who are in a buying frame of mind. Using long tail phrases also usually results in overall more sales than single keywords, especially those that are more competitive. Long tail keyword phrases also allow an affiliate marketing web site to achieve greater depth and may even allow you to dominate a particular niche.

If you are selling coffee you could consider ‘specialty coffee products” or ‘espresso Christmas gift packages’ for example. It all depends on what your SEO keyword research uncovers. Long tail keywords may have less demand but they also invariably have much less competition. People who search with keyword phrases do so because they are more focused on what they want to find. These web searchers tend to also be your best monetizes.

Don’t be remiss about incorporating synonyms into internet marketing research either. By exploring words which relate to your affiliate web site theme, you have the opportunity to attract a whole new host of surfers to the products or service you are selling. It’s what it’s all about isn’t it? More traffic means more sales. It’s that simple.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Niche Marketing Domination Strategy

Learning how to dominate a niche in internet marketing is a subject of much debate. Finding out how you do this successfully is crucial to your success especially if you into affiliate marketing.

It comes down to one simple marketing strategy:

High Search Volume + Low Competition = A Profitable Niche

This is the only way you are going to make any real money on the internet. It is the key to successful internet marketing and SEO.

How do you achieve this goal? There are 4 steps you have to take. Let’s review these 4 critical steps.

1. Find the Best Keywords

Successful niche internet marketing cannot succeed without doing this first. This is your most important first step. If you neglect this then you are as good as floundering in the dark.

The best place is to use this free tool to start your research here:

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/

This tool shows what the daily search terms are used for Google, Yahoo and MSN. Not only can you get this information but the site also provides numerous resources on how to optimize your keyword research. You need to learn what you doing before you can take advantage of the information you glean from your research.

2. Get the Right Domain Name

The keyword /keyword phrase you select has to go right into a domain name to secure your niche domination. You can use Register.com or your blog host to check on the availability of the domain name. Don’t despair if it appears to be taken as you can do dashes to alter the domain name and yet secure the name for yourself. You can mix in the dashes such as by using only a single dash between a three word name for example. Play around with it and see what’s acceptable and what isn’t – but always keep the keyword phrase in the order you’ve originally selected.

3. Deciding on Web Platform

Essentially you are going to choose between a blog or a normal website. Blogs are a lot easier for affiliate marketing products in the short term and for testing purposes. There are plenty of free hosts out there for you to choose from. If you are going for the long term and want to do a website, choose a good web host and spend the few extra bucks because it is well worth the investment. Going cheap or using a free web host will do you a whole lot more harm than good. I recommend sitesell.com as one the best buys for your dollar. Their reputation with Google is impeccable.

4. Optimising Your Site for SEO

Learn how to use keywords in the site. Your primary and secondary most valuable keywords have to appear in your title. A successful Niche domination strategy can only be accomplished by using your primary and secondary keywords sparingly.

The best strategy is roughly about 4 times each in a 500 word article, intro, or sales page for example. Don’t overkill them. Learn how to incorporate the right mix.

Add you keywords in to the Meta descriptions as well. Use an SEO analyzer tool to go through your site to see if you achieved this goal.

Summary

This is of course the simplified version in learning how to dominate a niche but if you understand these basic 4 steps in detail and follow them methodically you will be successful in internet and affiliate marketing.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

How to Find a Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niche

Finding a profitable niche to sell an affiliate marketing product doesn’t need to be hard. Many affiliate marketers start backwards and this is the most common reason why most don’t make money. Their biggest mistake is that they find the product first and then try to find the market to sell the product – Wrong! This is a guaranteed recipe for failure.

The formula for successful online affiliate marketing begins simply with taking this 3 step approach:

Find a Market – Find out What the Market Wants – Authenticate the Market Potential

This is the core of successful niche marketing. It is only after you take these 3 steps do you seek to find the affiliate product that suits the need and then, market the dickens out it. If you don’t this you are most likely be going to be wasting your time and money. Let’s analyse these 3 steps further.

Finding a Market

Okay – you have some ideas on what you think you would like to promote. Does anyone need what you would like to sell? Or, is there something completely different but related to the concept of the product or idea you were thinking about?

The easiest and quickest ways to find what people want or are asking about is through forums. There are forums on practically any topic, subject you can think of and probably a whole bunch that never occurred to you. Pick what interests you and join the forum.

Yes, it is a bit time consuming but by observing the threads and discussions, you gain a good sense what is of interest to these people. Affiliate marketing success can only be achieved with research.

What Does your Niche Market Need?

What are these people looking for that they can’t find? In a manner of speaking – think of forums as niches in themselves. These are people who gather to discuss a common interest. They will discuss their needs and what problems they need solved.

Your potential markets are people who use the internet to seek information and to find solutions to problems. Join these forums and learn about what they want and need.

Here’s another neat trick to learn about what people are looking for – are you ready? The answer is Ebay! Yes, that’ right. Why is this important? The main reason is that these people are looking to buy and they want it now. So, how can you find out what they’re looking for on Ebay? Well there just happens to be an index of Ebay searches which reveals exactly what people looking for and here is the url:

http://pulse.ebay.com/index/

Checking out this site will give a whole host of ideas to find really unique niches and what affiliate marketing products to look for.

Wait! Don’t jump the gun because there is one more and perhaps the final and most crucial step you need to do before you start marketing.

Authenticate the Market Potential

Even though it looks like you found a market and a need, is it going to be profitable? What is your competition? How much competition is there? If a market is saturated with competitors then you are going to end up being just another small fish among thousands of others in a very small pond. All your affiliate marketing efforts will lead to squat.

You have to authenticate there is a potential to make money first. How do you do this?

Simple really! Just go to Google and type in a query about what market and check out the results. Scroll down the first 10 or 20 to check the relevance of their sites. Maybe put quotations on the search term as well. (This can be more relevant in finding you competition). Keep your query as simple as possible as the keyword search comes later in the marketing process.

Then, find out how many searches for this term come up monthly. You can use the Overture Keyword Selector or you can find out through Google Adwords Keyword Tool at:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordsToolExternal

and this will give you an idea. Ideally you want a lot of searches with a low number of results. This means there is a lot of interest with low competition. If you find this then – Bingo!

Word of caution though – if the results are low it might mean there is interest but not much profitability so there is one final check to make.

It’s the sponsored ads on the right that can give you a clue. If there are only a few – they aren’t making money then neither will you most likely. If there is a lot - say about at least 11-30 then you have potential here to make a decent profit.

Conclusion

Successful niche affiliate internet marketing occurs when you take the time to do the prep work first. If you do this, you will make money. If you don’t - you’re just nailing your foot to the floor.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Selling your Services as an Online Business through Internet Marketing

Practically everyone who works has a potential services they can sell online using a website. Not o do so can cost your business big time. Then again, many service sellers have a website but aren’t seeing the returns they thought they would.

From a clockmaker to someone to organic herbs or a private investigator to a women’s garment maker, the service you provide can be anything. It doesn’t even have to be a full time profession either. Maybe you’re a serious hobbyist who makes that one special thing. Maybe you have tried to sell on the net, but after you built the site you discovered that nobody came.

There could be many reasons why you aren’t getting that traffic which might become your next customer. Any service which we sell is in itself its own niche. There’s always a market for a service because that’s just the way it goes for supply and demand.

Let’s examine a few possible reasons why you aren’t getting that traffic. If there’s a problem there’s likely the right solution.

Who’s your Web Host?

If you tried using one of those free web hosts or economized with a cheap web host, then that’s likely to be a big part of your problem right there. On today’s web, free or cheap not only doesn’t cut it, it just doesn’t work because the search engines just aren’t taking you seriously. This will especially happen if aren’t doing anything to refresh the site once in awhile. Your web pages will slip rapidly in popularity and eventually be as good as disappeared.

Get a good web host. Many of the top web hosts offer simple and easy tools which don’t require any particular desktop skills. If your site looks cheap then that’s the impression people will have about the quality of your service.

What do you have for Content?

It’s a simple fact that the search engines love original well written content which is pertinent to the niche theme of service seller site. People search the web for 2 main things – information and finding a solution to a problem. If you can create original and informative articles for your web site or newsletter you will attract a lot more traffic. Content is important and perhaps one of the main reasons why your site can attain a high ranking in the search engines.

Learn how to Successfully Sell your Services – FREE COURSE to SELL your SERVICES!

If you are still uncertain where to begin in learning how to sell your services on line, or don’t knpw much about internet marketing then I would like to recommend that you consider downloading this no obligation FREE Internet Marketing Course which covers specifically how you can sell your services online for any home based business:

SELL YOUR SERVICES – THE MASTERS COURSE

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Make your Web Site More Popular with SEO Friendly Content

Creating Search Engine friendly content is crucial if you want to improve your page rankings with the search engines. Every home business web site or affiliate marketer needs to learn how to craft their content which appeals to the search engines. SEO is a challenging concept that is difficult to master. Here are a few home business resource tips to enhance your chance to get your site ranked higher and to be more visible.

How to Craft Content which is Search Engine Friendly

Although the use of key words is an important inclusion, you must do so in a manner the content will be written for your target audience and not the search engines. Loading up your first paragraphs with too many keywords can cause you to be penalised as the SEO algorithms have wised up to that tactic. Also, such tactics are a complete turn off to your potential customers or clients as well.

When you write content, do so as if you were having a conversation or speaking to your targeted audience. The use of keywords should not be more than 2 percent. Also, remember not to include text embedded images or Flash because the search engines do not acknowledge them. What does work well though is to use alt image tags instead. Each picture should accompanied by a sentence or so of text containing a couple or so keywords. You should also include heading tags but don’t try to trick the search engine by using keywords which are the same colour as your web page. The search engines will penalise you.

How to Write Good Copy Content

Your home page is key. Don’t ramble by trying to include a lot of keywords. The writing must be tight, concise and informative to entice the visitor to explore your site further. This means you have to be very precise in choosing which key words you want to optimise to get maximum affect. Creating a landing page may allow you to increase the number of keywords you want to include.

Remember that the main premise or reason why people want to visit your site is to learn more information about your area of expertise or they have come to page seeking to solve a problem. Your content should be designed along those lines of thought. It’s not about making the right sales pitch but being able to offer them useful and informative information, or telling them how you can solve their problem to fill a need. The question to ask yourself when you write – what are the benefits a reader might gain from using your product or service?

Writing content that appeals to your targeted market audience AND the search engines is something that should be done in conjunction.

Monday, July 14, 2008

How to Attract Perpetual Traffic to your On-Line Business

Attracting targeted traffic to your home business website can be achieved using a variety of techniques. If used in tandem, it is very possible if not likely that can actually achieve a perpetual traffic system. It takes work, patience and some tweaking to get it right but it can be done.

Here are the best techniques to create perpetual targeted traffic to your internet business:

Create original reports, articles and ebooks that are viral. Any article or ebook you generate must be an informative original work and must contain useful or helpful information. You make your work viral by including a backlink to your site or specific web page. Asides from generating traffic by readers clicking onto your backlink because they like what you wrote, other web masters will include your work in their sites. The resulting affect will spread virally generating even more traffic because good quality articles are invariably spread about the net.

Include RSS Feeds and Blog Sites to Spread the Word. RSS Feeds can be employed to attract fresh content to your web page and spread new content as well. Encourage readres to comment on your site or affiliated blog. This in itself will generate new content simply to keep your site refreshed. However, one caution is that you might need to add some anti spam software so you don’t get inadvertently penalised because someone abused the use of your site.

Create Lists to Attract Repeat Visitors. Offer your readers something free such as an informative newsletter or an ebook which contains backlinks once again. Include an option on your site which allows the reader to email your article or web page to a friend.

Build Back Links with a Social Bookmark. Make sure that your visitors can use a social bookmark to add your site to their favourites as this will generate valuable back links for you online business. Use programs like Blogroller.com, www.Addthis .com, or social networks like Digg It, Facebook, www.Technoracti.com, www.Squidoo.com or www.Zimbio.com to generate more back links and to gain greater visibility.

Create an Affiliate Program if you Sell a Product. Whatever your product and if it is an original product, you can create an affiliate program which pays a commission to your affiliate agents. In the process these agents will create their own sites and articles to spread the word about your product. This in turn will drive tons of perpetual traffic your site, creating many more valuable back links in the process.

FaceMake Every t of your Web Site Automated. A secure automated system such as PayPal or other noted and secure payment systems should be in place to satisfy the security concerns of potential customers. This should equally apply to your AR system, PPC clicks or use direct deposit such as through Google to free up your time.

Create Joint Venture Alliances with Webmasters Similar to your Niche. The purpose is that it offers both parties an opportunity to scratch each other’s back which helps create and develop many more valuable additional back links. Remember though, the higher their ranking on the web will add more weight or value to the back link which increases your own ranking within the major search engine. One high ranking back link can be worth more than 5, 10 or even many more low ranked back links.

Use PPC Advertising Wisely to Generate Traffic. This can be costly if done incorrectly. Make sure you are budgeted and know what you are doing before employing PPC to generate traffic. Sometimes, the lesser competitive keywords may be more cost effective.

There are many proactive steps you can employ to generate a perpetual targeted traffic system to web site or blog. If something isn’t working, don’t wait – keep tweaking until it does work. That little bit of effort can make all the difference between success or failure.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Techniques to Boost your Home Business Web Site Sales

Many new home business web site entrepreneurs enthusiastically launch their new site, eagerly rubbing their hands, and waiting for the sales to role in. A period of time goes by and these home business owners find their sprits sag with disappointment because there is no traffic. No visitors mean no sales.
What can you do to get back on the track and get people to check out your site? Here are a few tips and techniques you can apply to increase draw in targeted traffic to your site.

Offer your visitor good sales copy

Whatever you’ve been told, don’t distract the visitor with banner ads and don’t litter your site with adsense. They didn’t come there to be blitzed with unwanted advertisement. The only thing they want to know is information relevant and germane to the product or service you are offering. Do offer them testimonials and highlight the fact that you promise to give the potential buyer full satisfaction or they will get a refund. Use good sales copy to keep the buyer interested right to the button that invites them to buy.

Ensure there is a market for your service or product

Niche marketing research is a crucial step to find those golden nugget markets that has good volume searches but with low competition. DON’T waste your time with saturated markets. It’s simply not worth it and will waste your time and effort. Use Wordtracker or the Google Lab to help you conduct your research. Visit forums relevant to your subject matter. What problems are they having where your product or service offers them a solution?

Use Google Analytics to monitor your traffic

This tool is FREE. I could write a whole series of article about the benefits of this traffic monitoring site put out by Google but check it for yourself. You will learn so much about the traffic that visits your site you will be absolutely amazed. It even breaks down what headlines are drawing people in through the search engines. If you don’t use it, you’re losing out.

Play with your Headlines

Here again Google Analytics can teach you a lot about what headlines are compelling and which ones are not making the grade. In any event, play with your headlines .Tweak them every week or so to find what works and what doesn’t work. Leaving a headline alone which isn’t working is accomplishing nothing so you have to play around with ad copy headlines.

Maybe it’s the price that needs fixing

If you are drawing visitors in with your headlines but are still not making your sales then maybe it’s the price which is scaring your customers away. Did you bother to check and see you’re your competitors were charging before you decided on the price for your service or product. This is a key step in fixing your price. Perhaps you were just a tad too ambitious in your profit margins. I’m not saying you have to slash them right off, but maybe gradually lower them to see what makes people comfortable enough to click the buy button. And, consider the reverse – maybe you are charging too low a price. Many people believe that if it’s too good to be true than it probably is so they get nervous and lose their trust in what you’re offering. There is a right balance but your price is something you might have to tweak as well.

Do your order forms work properly?

Always make a point to perform some maintenance on your site. If one of the key links in order form process isn’t working properly then you could be losing a ton of sales. Make a point to regularly inspect and check each and every link on your site. Many people don’t do this for a multitude of reasons and end up losing sales and potential repeat clients.