The basics of a mailing list structure
The short and sweet of it is that a mailing list is nothing more than a plain text file that contains email addresses. Sometimes these *flat files* also contain first and last names, as well as other additional and optional information.
A *flat file* is a term used to describe a storage file that is not a database. Generally, the flat file is a plain text document without the .txt or other file extension attached to it.
If a flat file contains more than one piece of data, then each additional item is separated from the next by commas or other delimiters. The pipe key (shift – back slash) or the tab key serve as the next most popular delimiters used in flat files.
Each new record will appear on a new line. The new line is signaled by the carriage return in the file.
Examples showing the use of delimiters & the reason for considering delimited files
Note: These examples show two leading spaces in front of each record. In real life data files, your records should not contain the leading spaces.
Mailing List Example A:
tom@domain.com
dick@other-domain.com
harry@third-domain.com
Example A permits the mailing list owner to only send an email
to a defined address.
Mailing List Example B:
tom@domain.com,Tom Jefferson
dick@other-domain.com,Dick Nixon
harry@third-domain.com,Harry Truman
Example B permits the mailing list owner to send an email to Tom Jefferson at tom@domain.com . Addressing the mail directly to Tom Jefferson encourages Tom to pay close attention to your email, since he knows that you have acquired his real name in addition to your email address. Most personalized emails will never be thought to be a s/p/a/m message by the person who receives it.
Mailing List Example C:
tom@domain.com|Tom|Jefferson
dick@other-domain.com|Dick|Nixon
harry@third-domain.com|Harry|Truman
Example C is the most versatile of the three examples. In some cases, it makes sense to personalize the list owner’s messages. Whereas, Example B will permit you to address someone by first name or first and last name — depending on how you direct subscribers to sign up — it does not always serve the more personable style of mixing and matching the first name and the combination of the first and last name as provided for by Example C.
Utilizing delimited data in your mailings
Depending on the software that you will use to initiate your mailing, you will be directed to show where you want the additional data fields in your mailings.
The range of software available makes it nearly impossible to quantify the various methods to get your personalized data into your mailing. As such, I will only define an example to show the basic idea of how to do this.
Personalization Example:
To: #FIRST# #LAST# <j#EMAIL#>
Dear #FIRST#,
Welcome to my example of a personalized mailing.
According to our records, your subscription information is as follows:
Name: #FIRST# #LAST#
Email: #EMAIL#
#FIRST#, we appreciate your attention to this information
as we feel it will help you better utilize the tools of
the Internet in your activities. In the end, the more
knowledgable you become, the more likely that the Internet
will become a more useful place for all of us.
Sincerely,
Your Publisher
As you can see, it can be far more useful to you and your purposes to address your subscribers as individual human beings with individual desires. As all of the sales teachers in the world will tell you, the one word that humans enjoy hearing most is the sound of their own name. Even in print, people appreciate being spoken to directly as an individual person.
Delimited files give you the power of utilizing multiple data resources connected to your individual records.
Methods of mail delivery
There are two basic methods of delivering your email to your mailing list. The first is by direct email, and the second is by a website interface.
Direct Delivery Method –
The direct mail method is the most complicated method from the programming perspective. If you are using a mailing list management company such as YahooGroups or Topica, then they will have done the hard work for you. If you are managing your own mailing list, then you will need to jump through some hoops to get your infrastructure set up for the direct mail method.
You will need to set up your server to take any incoming mail to a specific address and to process that email through a mail handling script. The script will search for and verify your posting password, and then the script will reformat your message for direct delivery to your mailing list.
Using this method, you will actually address your outgoing email to a specific email address, often accompanied by a posting password. The posting address may appear in this kind of format:
mailing-list-name-[password]@your-domain.com
Website Interface Delivery Method –
From the technical perspective, this is the easiest delivery method to construct. It only requires the publisher to visit a webpage, fill out a form, and click the send button.
Clicking the send button will take the placed information and send it to the mailing script. Once again, the mailing script will take the given information and format it into an outgoing email message for direct mailing to your mailing list.
Actual mailing list delivery process
Whether you are using the direct mail or website interface method to get your data into the mailing script, the next step is the same. It is important to note that by the time you reach this point in the process, the outbound delivery is completely out of your own hands. Now is the time for the server to deliver on its part of the process.
Your mailing script has taken your input and put it into a direct mail format. Once that is completed, it is time to mail the information to each and every email address in your list.
The basic message structure is kept in its own variable. This variable will not change during the entire mailing process.
The basic message structure is then copied into a second variable, and the final preparation is done on that message as each individual mailing is prepared.
The software will read each record in your flat file or your database, and then the personalized data will be exchanged for the #FIRST#, #LAST# and #EMAIL# as it appears in your message construct. Once the personalized data is swapped for the variables in the text, the message will be delivered to the defined email address.
This process is repeated for each record in your mailing list.
Depending on how busy the server is and the size of your list, the mailing process could take two minutes or even twenty minutes.
A suggestion for the actual delivery of your message
Having learned the hard way, I do highly recommend that you set up your posting address as a special email address that you do not use for everyday business.
The reason is simple. With each and every mailing, you will find a certain level of attrition in your mailing list. People change email addresses everyday without unsubscribing from mailing lists; people lose their email accounts due to unpaid ISP bills; and people exceed the size limits of their mailboxes. People quit the Internet and die. That’s the reality of life on the Internet.
But with some fore planning, you can prevent a nightmare in your own email box. Lists that I have managed have experienced as little as two or three people, and as high as a 5% attrition every month. The list that I managed that had the 5% attrition rate also had 20,000 subscribers. As such, I was receiving 1,000 bounced emails every month with that one list.
I did not utilize a special address for my mailings at that time, and as such, I was losing track of important messages under the barrage of bounced email messages. This is the only reason I suggest the use of a special limited use email address.
Another list I managed later had an attrition rate of about 4% with 100,000 subscribers. With this second list, my secondary email address was receiving 4,000 bounced messages every month.
If you are using a mailing service such as YahooGroups or Topica, they will handle the bounced messages for you, so there would be no concern using your primary email address with those messages.
The process of subscribing & unsubscribing & the selection of the email server in the process
For the average mailing list, the process of adding or deleting an email address is as simple as going into the file or database and removing the record.
It must be noted that while there are several email servers available to webmasters, there are two servers that are used far more often than the others.
One email server software is called Sendmail. For the longest time, this was the most often used email server. It is still in wide use today.
The second email server software is called Qmail. Qmail is most often used by e-commerce mass mailers. Simply, Qmail offers more flexibility and speed and fewer bugs than Sendmail could ever dream of providing. It is also easier to customize.
If you visit a website and ask to be unsubscribed from the website’s mailing list, and the website notifies you that your name will be removed from the list within 48 to 72 hours, then you should assume that the website is utilizing Qmail as their mail server.
On the surface, this 48 to 72 hour window might seem like a scam — it is not. Qmail actually sets up an outgoing email and then queues that message for a later delivery. Qmail does this because it is usually set up on a very high volume mail server. By queuing the message for later delivery, the server can actually continue to process outgoing mail as long as the resources to do so are available for the task. If the messages were not queued for later delivery, multiple requests to deliver mail within a certain limited time period could crash the mail server. A crashed server is always bad news.
The site who is promising removal within the next 48 to 72 hours is actually telling you in advance how far ahead they have already queued outbound messages. Any piece of email that is already in the queue cannot be stopped from being delivered. Therefore, if a message exists in the queue with your address already on it, then there is nothing the webmaster can do to stop that mailing. Instead, all they can do is to let you know that you will no longer receive mail from them on any email that is sent to the queue from this point forward.
In conclusion
With this tutorial, you should now have a better understanding of the nature of a mailing list and how it works. For some of you, I will likely have provided too much information. For others of you, I will have not provided enough.
Either way, if you are looking for help in setting up your own mailing list, most web hosting companies that you might use to host your domain will have already provided an option to you for your mailing list management.
However, it must be noted that not all mailing list software is equal to the other. I have used some really bad software packages, and have yet to explore the full range of what is available to you. I do not have an actual recommendation for you as to a good software to use. What I can do for you is to provide a good starting point for locating that software you will need to run your mailing list efficiently:
http://cgi-resources.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Mailing_Lists/
By using an already developed mailing list manager, all you will need to know is how to install the software on your server and how to set the file permissions on the package files. Be sure to read the installation files that are provided with your new mailing list software. The creators of this software will tell you exactly what you need to know to get their software packages up and running.
Final precautions before sending your first email
One final but very important note. I strongly recommend that you select a mailing list management package that will install on your webserver. Additionally, notify your webhosting company that you will be running a mailing list through your account. And, for the purpose of self-preservation, always keep up-to-date backups of your website and your mailing list.
Some webhosts are very leery of letting their customers run a mailing list from the customer’s site. With all of the s/p/a/m accusations floating around, it can sometimes be a dangerous proposition to run a mailing list. Many smaller webhosting companies fear the rogue webmaster who will get their servers shut down for s/p/a/m. This is why it is so very important to notify your webhosting company of your plans to run a mailing list from your account. Make sure your webhosting company is aware of your intentions, and be sure to know where they stand on the possibility of s/p/a/m complaints. My webhosting provider takes the time to actually investigate a complaint before actually pulling the plug on any of their customers. For webhosting, I use http://www.site5.com .
Additionally, I am very serious when I say that you should never run a mailing list from your desktop. Local ISP’s are far more worried about the s/p/a/m issue than the webhosting companies are. Given that so many of us live in locations where we only have one, two or three ISP’s to choose from, we would run the significant risk of losing complete access to the Internet if we were to run a mailing list from our desktop.
Good Luck in your publishing endeavors.
Author Bio:
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to helping people to establish an Internet presence & promote their businesses through the use of Free-Reprint Articles and Press Releases. Articles are distributed to 6,000+ publishers & webmasters as part of the package. http://thePhantomWriters.com Do you write your own articles? Let us distribute them for you.
Introduction
Are you confused by the flood of information on how to improve your internet marketing results?
Mastering the search engines, pay-per-click advertising, affiliate marketing, website design, writing articles, and on it goes.
Doesn’t it seem more and more complicated to focus in on what really works and what doesn’t?
After working to build many businesses from the ground up over the last 10 years, it’s more clear than ever that there are 2 main principles that will largely dictate your success in any business. All of the other techniques build on these first two principles.
Think of these two main principles as the cement pillars that hold up a bridge – without them, no matter how well you construct the bridge, it will still fall down.
Focus your energies, time and resources around meeting these two key principles – you will immediately see a big difference in your results.
Principle #1
You must have a well positioned product, fulfilling a hot desire within a clearly identifiable and accessible target market.
Let’s break this down.
Making a profit in business is really quite a simple concept, you have to earn more revenue than your cost. Revenue minus cost is your profit.
So where does that cost come from?
The two big sources of costs are: costs associated with creating or finding your product to sell and cost of reaching your market to sell your product
It only makes sense then that identifying a hot desire within a market you know how to reach will mean much lower costs for your businss. Ultimately, this means more profit for you.
Have you ever run against the wind? Tried to swim upstream in a river? Walk one way in a crowd when everyone else was walking the other way?
It’s a very tough lesson to learn.
I’ve been brought it to consult with companies that have burned through millions of dollars before learning this lesson.
You cannot FORCE a low-demand product on a market – no matter how much money you spend on marketing.
You cannot hope to reach enough buyers in the entire marketplace even with a very high-demand product in one segment.
In fact, I’ve seen situations where unknown entrepreneurs enter a market, quickly identify a hot desire, address it with a less than perfect product and in a very short time have created wealth 100X higher than anyone else in that market.
An old mentor of mine used to tell me all the time, “focus on the low lying fruit – there’s far more than enough to go around”
Principle #2
You must reach your market with a clear, empathetic message that instantly catches your readers attention, interest, desire and moves them to see your product as THE answer to their deepest desires.
If you were reading closely, you’ll recognize Principle #2 as the same principles that underly great copywriting.
How do you become a great copywriter and master Principle #2?
1. Research, research and research. I make sure I have a pulse on my target market’s desires, needs, emotional triggers. Focus in on WHY they want a solution to a particular problem. Research takes many forms…
– speak with them
– survey them
– read what they read
– talk to others who do business with your market
– test using articles and special reports to guage the response
– do what they do
By doing this you should have content for 20-30 (at least) different benefits for your product.
Then….
2. Polish your benefit statements. This is where you can use books of action verbs, swap files (samples of great ads, letters and webpages), the services of a copywriter. This is the technical aspect of copywriting which can be learned by reading other great material.
Far too many people go right to #2, as a result their benefit statements seem bland, miss the mark or seem the same as everyone else.
Next time you get distracted by the latest and greatest tip, technique or strategy – know that focusing on these 2 fundamental principles: In-demand product ideas and effective copywriting, will make the most difference to your pocketbook in both today and in the future.
Author Bio:
Discover Little Known Secrets On Profiting From Your Own Information Products. Jeff Smith Shares How Easy It Is To Instantly Create Your Own Hot Selling Online Products With Knowledge You Already Have. Get Information Here: http://www.infoproductcreator.com
Introduction
Are you an online marketer? Or do you simply promote affiliate programs? Marketing is truly the most misunderstood word in use today on the Internet. Let me see if I can clarify this issue just a bit.
In Marketing 101 at your local university, marketing is actually the process of Product, Place, Price and Promotion.
Product
No business can exist without a product or service to sell.
In a nutshell, entrepreneurs are the people who believe in a product, service or idea, so much that they are willing to invest their lives into the development of their dream.
Historically, every major corporation in the world was started by an entrepreneur with a dream and the drive to make it a reality.
However, there comes a time in the life of every corporation when those who fear the gambling nature of their founder, squash the entrepreneurial drive that made the company a viable concern in the first place. The entrepreneur will either submit to the careful nature of the stockholders, or he will be forced to leave the company he created.
The only entrepreneurs who withstand the pressure to move more carefully are those who have maintained majority control over their companies.
Place
In the offline world, place is defined by location. On the Internet, place is defined by domain name and the web hosting service chosen.
Both online and offline, place can make or break a company without respect to the quality and value of the product, service or idea.
Price
Selecting a price is determined first on a basis of whether the company wants to be seen as a discount or a value company.
Take for example Wal-Mart and Staples.
Wal-Mart is the lead discounter in the marketplace. Staples on the other hand is the specialist in office supplies.
Both sell a significant number of office supplies despite the fact that the lowest price can usually be found at Wal-Mart. As a value dealer, Staples can afford to charge more for their products than Wal-Mart.
So the question for you is whether you want to position your company as a discount or value company.
Testing has shown that products and services can be sold at any number of prices and still reach a significant number of people.
The challenge of selecting the best price for your product or service will require a certain amount of testing.
Understanding the pricing equation
Let’s assume we are selling a product. Let us also assume that we know that the product can be sold for $10 or $50. Let us also assume that if the price dips below $10 or rises above $50, then the product sales fall off significantly.
Our challenge is to determine the best rate at which to sell our product.
Testing has shown us that we can sell 1000 items a week at $10. Testing has also shown that we can sell 500 items per week at $50. And testing has shown that we can sell 650 items per week at $45.
At $10, our projected weekly earnings are $10,000. When we sell the product at $50, we know that we can earn $25,000 per week. Most importantly, we know that we can earn $29,250 when our product is priced at $45.
With the imaginary testing we have done on our imaginary product, we can easily see that selling our product at $45 per item will earn us more money over the long haul.
Thus, when we make the decision for a national rollout of our product, then we will price our product at $45.
Of course, this is a very simplistic analysis of the point I am trying to make. Though simple, I believe this analogy will help you understand the methods of developing a product’s prices.
Promotion
Promotion, on the other hand, is the process of notifying the consumers for your product or service of your availability to serve them.
Methods of promotion vary distinctly and should be arranged to meet very specific goals.
As with product, place and price, promotion should not be left to chance. You should test every ad, every media, and every price point to determine the best bang for your promotional dollars.
Heads up!
If you are an online promoter or marketer, please factor in the most important element concerning the cost of your promotions.
What element is that? Your time!
Value your time at a certain dollar amount, and figure in your time into the cost of your promotional accounting.
I say this because too many online promoters lose sight of this concept and spend 20 hours to generate one sale while using free advertising. Even if you rate your time at the federal minimum wage, then you will have invested $105 of your time for one sale that might only net you a gross sale of $45!
Are you truly a marketer or just a promoter?
Most people who run a business on the Internet call themselves marketers. Yet, most of these same people are really just
promoters wrapped in the label of a marketer.
True marketers do not promote without a lot of advance work. They spend time planning, testing and measuring their actions
and results to get the most out of every dollar spent and earned.
Entrepreneurs finesse the art of marketing as they build their company into a major enterprise.
If you are a promoter who does not keep an eye on the total marketing equation, then you are bound to fail.
If you do call yourself a marketer, then do what a professional marketer does. Make sure that every dollar spent is spent well. Make sure that every dollar earned is put to good use. Market well so that when the people of the next generation look at your life, they will see a fine example of a successful entrepreneur that they will strive to emulate.
Author Bio:
Stone Evans owns the Home Business Resource Directory where you can find everything you`ll ever need to start, run and grow a home based business at: http://www.Home-Business.com
Introduction
How often do you visit the search engines looking for the information that you seek? Twice a week? Every day?
According to SearchEngineWatch.com, seven of the top search engines process over 300 million searches a day! Additionally, Search Engine Watch documents an item called the GVU Survey Results from the Georgia Institute of Technology which shows that 85% of all web users admit to regularly using search engines to find the web sites they visit.
The truth is, if you are seeking sales at your website, then you should be looking for traffic too. While sales is your true goal, no sales can take place until traffic occurs.
A lot of people scream to the high heavens that search engines do not work. The fact is that search engines do work. It is just that the people who are shouting do not understand how to make search engines work for them.
Different types of search engines
We will not go into great detail right now about how to make search engines work for you. We will only touch on the differences between the search engines of which there are three types: Pay-Per-Clicks, Directories and Spiders.
Pay-Per-Clicks require that you open cash accounts with them before you will be listed. While there are often ways to get into the PPCSE’s without opening an account, we will not discuss that here.
Directories limit your submissions to page title, link and a short description.
For this discussion, we will be speaking about Spider Search Engines. Spiders are in fact software that visits your site and gathers the data from your website to determine how to tell people about your website.
Content delivers traffic and sales
While some Spiders gather a limited number of words from each website, others gather all of the words listed within your website. This is where we come to our point today.
Spiders gather data from your site to provide a title and description for your readers. Additionally, Spiders gather the words from your website and rank those words to determine which sites to return to their users.
The words they gather from your website are referred to as keywords. Search engine keywords exclude pronouns, prepositions and other very common words. All others provide rich fodder to the Spiders.
To get the best use of Spider search engines, you must feed them what they want — you must feed them lots and lots of keywords. It is important to note that the best use of keywords on your website is using keywords that are relative to your products and services.
Where to find content
When you do not have the time or creativity to provide that information on your own, you could realistically tap into the free-reprint market to attain the content you want and need. To browse what may be available to you in the free-reprint market, you can browse the archives at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles
Here you will find over 7000 articles available for your use.
While some writers are the same, there are other writers that have submitted some 1400 articles to:
http://topica.com/lists/FreeEzineContent
The only drawback of using content created by another for the free-reprint market is that the terms for using these articles is to set up a hyperlink to the website of the author as given in the resource box attached to the article. The resource box serves as a small advertisement for author of the article which must appear with all articles used. This is actually a small price to pay for getting high quality content for you to use on your website without monetary cost attached to them.
If you feel that printing someone else’s resource box is simply too high of a price to pay in order to provide content to your visitors and keywords for the Spider search engines, then you should strike out on your own to develop your own content in this format.
Generating targeted keywords and keyphrases
However you cut it, any article placed on your website will generate 300 to 500 specialized and targeted keywords and keyword phrases to feed the Spider databases. In turn, as time progresses, you will discover more and more people flocking to your website from the Spider search engines.
That is what you want isn’t it? Traffic that can be turned into sales? Of course it is.
The time has come to start developing your website to take advantage of the power of the Spider search engines.
Author Bio:
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to helping people to establish an Internet presence & promote their businesses through the use of Free-Reprint Articles and Press Releases. Articles are distributed to 6,000+ publishers & webmasters as part of the package. http://thePhantomWriters.com Do you write your own articles? Let us distribute them for you.
In the beginning…
Create your website. If you don’t know how, there are many free templates offered on the Internet. Search on “free website templates” to find one that appeals to you.
If you’d like to learn how to design your own website using HTML there are several tutorials out there:
Boogie Jack’s Dennis Gaskill has an excellent website with tutorials to get you started, along with many “tricks of the trade”. An excellent resource! http://www.boogiejack.com/html_tutorials.html
Also, Joe Burns has a very informative and helpful website for all new and seasoned website designers; with HTML tutorials, primers and loads of “goodies” to add to your web pages http://www.htmlgoodies.com
1000-Calorie Content
Fill your website with keyword-rich content. Write a description of your product or service and create your keywords to match the content in your description. For example, if you sell stuffed animals the keywords by which you’d want to be found in the search engines could be “stuffed toys, stuffed animals, plush animals, stuffed dogs, plush pets”, etc.
Search Engine Buffet
Submit your site to search engines and directories, whether manually submitting through each or using a free multiple submission service that will submit your site automatically to search engines and directories of your choosing or theirs, depending upon the submission site you use. One such site is http://www.submitexpress.com
Chain Links
Exchange links with similar and complementary websites, but not your competitors – I don’t think you’ll hear from them! Email the site’s owner and ask for a reciprocal link. If they agree to add your link, return the favor and add their link on your site. You can create a special page for your favorite links or if you have only a few, simply add them to your main page or any other page on your site.
Snappy Sig-File
Create an interesting signature file to be automatically included at the end of your emails. A small, descriptive “blurb” about what you do along with your website address will do it!
Newsworthy
Write an ezine, or online newsletter. You can find interesting articles on any subject on the Internet that you can publish in your ezine (search on “free content”) or even write some of your own (see #12). Decide whether your ezine will be produced monthly, biweekly, weekly or even daily if you have enough time and info to share! Always be sure to give the author proper credit! Include his byline at the end of his article and email him a copy of your ezine when it’s ready.
This site has a good article on how to write an ezine:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/ezine.shtml
Extra! Extra!
Offer a gift for new subscribers. It can be a report that you wrote on a subject of interest that the new reader can download; or a small sample of your product, or even a coupon for 10% off your products or service.
What’s Behind Door #2?
Run a contest to name your ezine. Create a special page with a subscription form on your site. Explain the details and prizes. List your contest on as many contest announcement sites that you can find or publish your contest on discussion groups and forums (see #10 and #11) and other newsletters.
Some contest announcement sites are:
http://www.theprizefinder.com/asp/addacompetition.asp
http://www.loquax.co.uk
The prizes you offer should be related to your business. You should have a deadline, say a month or so, and be sure to indicate the date on your contest page.
Example ad for contest:
** We need you! **
Get creative…Win prizes!
Our newsletter needs a name;
If we use yours, you win!
http://www.whimsies-online.com/ezineform.htm
Publish the winners on your website and in your next ezine – newly-named, of course!
All in the Family
Submit your ezine to ezine lists such as http://www.list-a-day.com. They may even feature your ezine as their daily pick!
Other lists are:
http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/submit.html
http://ezine-universe.com/search/getlisted.html
Group Therapy
Join Yahoo groups and other similar newsgroups/discussion lists. Subscribe to similar ezines and then exchange ads with ezine owners. List your contest with group owners. Submit your articles too!
http://groups.yahoo.com
http://www.topica.com
The Gift of Gab
Participate in discussions on various online forums and message boards, of course using your signature file!
Bank on this!
Write articles and submit them to article banks such as http://www.goarticles.com (search on Free Content) and groups (see #10). You can basically write about anything you know, write short stories about experiences you’ve had, helpful articles, your view on a subject you’re comfortable with, for example. Make sure you include your byline or writer’s resource box at the end of your article or story. This can be a short description of your business, a link to your website and a link to your subscription page.
How to write an article:
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/articles/write_article_profit_strategy.asp
And: http://www.accordmarketing.com/tid/archive/write.html
Please release me!
Write a press release about your business, your contest, an organization you’re sponsoring or anything you think is newsworthy. Send it to your local newspapers, to magazines and online press release services (see http://www.whimsies-online.com/newsrelease2.htm for an example)
Here’s an excellent article on how to write a press release:
http://www.lunareclipse.net/pressrelease.htm
You can post your press release at
http://www.prweb.com/
The Paper chase
If you get featured in your local paper or in a magazine, mention the story in ALL of your promotional materials. Scan it and add to your website or link to the original article if it’s available online.
Pick a card – any card!
Distribute your business cards EVERYWHERE. Print a money-saving coupon on the back. Voila! A double-duty card!
Fashion Plate
Wear your ads! No, put away that spray paint – it’ll clog your pores! I have t-shirts that I printed on using my color printer and t-shirt transfer paper. Print your logo and/or business name and website address, and wear your creation everywhere (but I’d rethink that black tie event, if I were you!)
For a low-cost logo, visit these guys: http://www.GotLogos.com.
They designed my logo for their flat rate of $25 and it is top-notch. I’d recommend them to anyone. Check out the logo they designed for me here:
http://www.whimsies-online.com – it’s at the very top of the page.
Nifty Gifty
Send an inexpensive but useful gift with each order. Helps your customer remember you and they might re-order from you at a later date. It can even be a coupon for 10% off their next purchase. One of my gifts is a laminated bookmark personalized with the customer’s name. It also shows a miniature edition of the cartoon they just ordered! Everyone loves personalized items. Another idea would be a personalized coaster using CD’s you no longer need, or the freebies you get in your mailbox (the metal mailbox outside your house, not the virtual kind!). See how to here:
http://www.whimsies-online.com/cdcoasters.htm
Mention “gift with purchase” on your website and include the approximate value if they were to purchase it separately.
Mug Shot
Another idea would be to use your logo or a catchy phrase and your website address to print on mugs, mouse pads, and other items. Cafe Press prints the design you upload onto any articles you choose from their vast selection. They do the production, shipping, collecting the funds, and will send you your commission cheque. When you create your online store with them (they have a free version as well as an upgrade to a Premium Shop) be sure to include a link to your own website.
Here’s an example:
http://www.cafeshops.com/animal_house which links to http://www.whimsies-online.com/whimsieswear.htm
The Cafe Press website is http://www.cafepress.com
Happy Campers
Always ask for testimonials. Ask your customers and subscribers for a word or two about your product. If a customer has emailed you to thank you for the handy widget/thing-a-magig/whatchamacallit you sent them, ask if you can use their comments in your next ezine and your “testimonials” web page.
Analyze this!
Send samples of your product to influential people for a testimonial or for a small write-up in their publication or website.
Ad-Vantage
There are many ezines and online companies that offer free ad submissions. Check out Bob Osgoodby’s website. He offers a free ad service (he also has three very informative ezines!). You can check out his site at http://www.adv-marketing.com/business/
These are just a bunch of creative ways to promote your online presence. Try some or all, and when you get the hang of it you’ll probably dream up some more. Have fun with them and see what works for you!
Author Bio:
Heather Diodati is the owner of Whimsies! By DDesign featuring Personalized Cartoon Designs for all occasions. Heather is also the creator/distributor of the Pet Computer Virus, a novelty designed for the computer user; as well as other unique computer novelties. Sign up for our free ezine, On A Whim, for your free time management gifts; and if you looooove ballroom dancing be sure to subscribe to Dancing On Air ezine, for your free gift, The Dancer’s Notebook! http://www.whimsies-online.com
High Google Rankings: Frequency vs. Positioning
There’s an assumption that the higher a ranking or positioning you have with major search engines; the more people will beat a path to your web doorstep. But based on my experience, that’s simply not true! There’s another factor that is just as important and may actually drive more traffic to your site.
This big secret is frequency: The number of times your name appears when someone enters a key word in a search engine. I believe that the more times you appear in a search, the greater the likelihood of someone actually clicking through to your site.
How do you get frequent listings in search engines? Write quality content articles.
I’m an investment advisor and a while ago I started a second web site (www.successful-investment.com) to promote my weekly mutual fund newsletter, capture potential prospect names and house a library of my published articles.
To get people to the site, I naturally wanted to move up in the search engine food chain. I did the usual meta tag things, but that didn’t cause my rise in the rankings. What did cause it surprised me.
One of my first articles (“Do lifestyle funds provide greater security?”) was submitted to some 30 article banks and web sites. Many of them reprinted it, which increased the number of appearances of my name associated with the topic. Since many of these sites were already ranked high on the search engines, I rode on their success.
Searching Google for “Lifestyle funds” produces over 3 million results. On the first page of results my article is listed four times, on the second page three times and on page three it’s listed three times, and so on. If you were searching this term, with that much presence you would not likely overlook me.
In addition to generating hits on my web site from potential clients, my frequent listing in search engines yielded another benefit: I was invited to CNNfn’s Hollywood studio to discuss my article “How to evaluate load vs. no load mutual funds.” They found me by searching Google for “load vs. no load.” That produced almost 5 million results and on the first page my article appears three times, on the second three times and on the third three time as well-and some included my company listing. I was an authority!
Quatlity content is a key
In the past six months I have written and published 17 articles with the key search terms being part of the title. I pretty much get similar results with all of them. Why? I believe quality content is a key.
My core business is “personal investment management.” If you search that on Google you will get about 11 million results. I currently rank number 8. And that’s among the ‘who’s who’ in investment management, companies that invest big bucks to manipulate getting high rankings on search engines.
Can I improve on that? Probably not by trying to manipulate positioning, but definitely with frequency. And that comes from writing articles.
Now, maybe you like this idea but think you can’t write quality articles. I’m not a writer, but my articles get picked up by e-zines and article banks all the time. How does that happen? It’s actually simpler than you think.
Two aspects to writing
There are two aspects to writing; 1. the actual content and 2. the writing style. If you’ve been in business for any length of time you have a wealth of information that you take for granted but others would love to know about. You should be able to write a 300 to 800 word article about your product or service area. Don’t worry about the style; just write quality content that will be helpful to your potential customers.
Although my writing skills are pretty sharp because I do a lot of writing, I would not consider them to be on the same level as a professional writer. So I have a second secret to success.
One of my clients is an award winning Hollywood writer and he “enhances” my articles. It’s usually not a lot of work, but at times I need a better transition from point A to point B. Since the content is clear and basically organized, he doesn’t have to spend any time researching or “doing the heavy lifting.” He can devote his attention to enhancing the quality of the presentation, and that doesn’t take long or cost much.
[If you need help with writing you may contact Laren Bright (punster@earthlink.net) and tell him I sent you.]
I think you will find that writing articles becomes a lot easier once you have that kind of assistance. It certainly became stress-free for me when I didn’t have to worry about form and could concentrate on my long suit: content.
It’s hard to beat the results that my articles have produced for me in terms of exposure, Google rankings and new clients. Given these facts I propose that frequency beats positioning anytime. Try it and see if it boosts your rankings and your business.
Author Bio:
Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has written about methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He is stepping out of his comfort zone to write about different areas in which he has gained experience that can assist others. You can reach him at: http://www.successful-investment.com
Introduction
What strategies do the “experts” use to optimize their own Web sites? Haven’t you always wanted to know?
Did you know that there are SEO’s who have a dozen or more Web sites that they use for nothing but testing? What killer strategies have they learned by studying the results from these testing Web sites?
Though you can learn SEO strategies by reading forum posts or by attending conferences or seminars, speakers are rarely willing to share their best strategies with you. After all, if everyone were to use those strategies, their effectiveness could dwindle.
Where do the truly advanced, technical SEO’s go to learn new strategies that will take them to the highest possible level?
Where can they learn from the masters . . . from those who have devoted hours and hours to research, testing, and trial and error to come up with personal strategies that really work?
Introducing . . . The Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium
First off, what is a “symposium”? A symposium is generally associated with educational institutions where qualified presenters give technical papers on particular topics in which they are experts.
Symposiums are more private events with limited attendance. They’re not workshops, where you learn by doing. With symposiums, you learn by listening to the experts speak.
The Only Truly “Advanced” and “Technical” Event for Search Engine Optimizers
To date, there’s never been an event devoted just to the advanced and technical SEO that wants to be taken to the highest level.
Through our teaching of Search Engine Workshops, we’ve been asked time and time again when we were going to offer the “next step” in search engine optimization.
Now we have that next step: The Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium.
You Might Ask: Why Would These Experts Be Willing to Share their Best, Personal Strategies with Attendees?
Let’s discuss a few of the reasons
* Each attendee will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, agreeing not to publicize, promote, post to forums, teach, or announce the strategies in any way. The strategies are to be used for the personal use of the attendees only and for their clients.
* The symposiums will be private events without a huge attendance. So, the strategies won’t be given out to large groups of people.
* Attendees will often be divided into focus groups, and within those focus groups, the attendees themselves will be sharing their own strategies too. So this is a give and take symposium where the attendees and presenters can learn from each other.
* To be frank, the speakers are being paid well for sharing their strategies. In other words, we’ve made it worth their while to participate.
What Might You Learn at an Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium?
The topics you can expect to learn at this event include:
* Understand the new Yahoo! and related sites
* Understand what it takes to get firmly ranked within Google’s top results
* Untie Internet marketing’s “Gordian Knot” and leverage the true power of Cascading Style Sheets
* Discover “The Butterfly Effect”: how to build an authoritative theme
* Learn about integrated performance marketing and how to use the tracking power developed through affiliate marketing to track all sources of traffic and their results
* Learn how to generate large lists of relevant keywords in minutes, and then learn how to determine exactly which ones will generate the true actions (sales, signups, etc.)
* Discover at least four advanced optimization strategies that 99.9% of most SEO’s have never even heard of
* Learn how to legally determine exactly what your competitor is doing and find out how to do it better
* Learn how to penetrate cloaking methods and discover exactly what your competitor is showing the search engines
* Learn advanced tracking strategies, including how to install a freeware tool that will automatically compile your log files and give you the information you need at a glance. Attendees will also be given a script that will greatly enhance their lead generation.
* Plus much more . . .
The When, Where, and What of the Ultra Advanced Symposium
The Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium will be held on Saturday and Sunday, April 3-4, at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida.
The symposium will start at 8:00 a.m. each day and conclude around 5:00 p.m. However, depending on the needs of the participants, additional events may be scheduled at night.
The cost is $2,495 for the two-day event, which is 100% tax deductible as a business expense.
To put the cost into perspective, attendees will easily be able to apply some of these strategies and rapidly make their money back by an increase in online sales.
Remember: these are advanced, technical, and private strategies that you won’t have the privilege of learning anywhere else.
The symposium is being sponsored by Robin Nobles and John Alexander of Search Engine Workshops. Presenters for this symposium include Rachel Honoway of MyAffiliateProgram, Michael Marshall of Theme Master, Dave Barry of SEO Concierge, Rich Creal of Trade with Success, and Gene O’Neil with Advanced Search Engine Marketing Consultants.
Disclaimer: Legitimate SEO Strategies Only
While the strategies taught at these symposiums will certainly equip attendees to immediately apply them to their own sites and compete in highly competitive industries, only legitimate SEO strategies will be taught.
We will never promote or condone spamming practices of any kind, and neither will anyone associated with any of our courses, workshops, or symposiums.
Need More Information?
More information about the brand new Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium, visit http://www.ultraadvancedsymposium.com.
Or, call John Alexander. (905) 853-4472
We hope to see you on April 3-4 in Orlando!
Author Bio:
Robin Nobles with Search Engine Workshops teaches SEO strategies the “stress free” way through hands-on, search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe and online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). Visit the World Resource Center, a new networking community for search engine marketers. (http://www.sew-wrc.com)
Links & Linking
Website owners: do you know how many links are out there on the Internet, pointing back to your site? If you’re interested in getting free search engine placement for your site, you ought to know. An easy way to find out is to download the Alexa toolbar from http://www.alexa.com. One of its many useful features is that it shows you how many links are pointing to the site. High quality links are one of the most crucial aspects of good search engine optimization. When you think about it, this makes sense. After all, this is the Internet, the World Wide Web, we’re talking about. And in a web, everything is… right, everything is LINKED.
Links have always been a priority in search engine optimization. Search engines have long used link popularity as an indicator of a site’s “importance,” and this in turn affects the site’s performance in the search engines. Until recently, many different schemes existed that allowed a website owner to garner dozens, or even hundreds of links, simply by using specialized tools, reciprocal programs, and the like. Then came the Google “update” of November, 2003.
In that now legendary update, Google penalized tens of thousands of websites by dropping their placement in the index or eliminating them entirely. While Google isn’t talking about what happened, it is very likely that “undeserved” links, or links that do not have anything to do with quality content, played a role in this episode. Most website owners now seem to agree that while links are as important as ever, they have to be added the old-fashioned way, they have to be earned.
What does this mean? Simply put, it means that a link between two pages on the Internet should have some valid reason for its existence besides the desire of the website owners to hit page 1 on Google. So if Joe’s Auto Shop and Cindy’s Interior Design trade links, in order to boost their rankings, the link only exists for that reason, and it may well lead to lower search engine rankings for both Joe and Cindy. On the other hand, if Bud’s Cabinetry Shop, on its page describing different types of woods, is linked to the National Association of Wood Products, this is very likely to be viewed as a “quality” link by the search engine, and may help rankings.
How does one build these kind of quality links? There are at least four well-known methods, and creative website owners can come up with more. First, you can ask for them. At conventions, conferences, meetings, anyplace where the business of your website may be discussed, ask for quality links. If someone has a site you respect, and it relates to your product, simply ask them to link to your site. It’s good old networking at its finest. Second, you can write articles that promote your website, or your product or service, include a link back to your home page, and offer it for publication on the Internet. There are numerous forums for doing just this, try Googling some search terms to come up with them. Third, get on the Internet and find directories that relate to your product or service, and ask for a link to be placed. This is an easy step that most website owners can take themselves. Finally, and perhaps the best way to build a great site! Put up great content, and other sites will link to you. Because, in the end, that is what the Internet is all about disseminating information. Add valuable content, in terms of information, to your site, keep adding it over time, and gradually, people will link to you. If you build it, they will come.
Author Bio:
Neil Street is co-founder of Small Business Online, LLC, based in Wilton, CT., a website design, management, and promotion company dedicated to the Internet needs of the small business. His website is at http://www.smallbusinessonline.net. Send email to neil@smallbusinessonline.net He can also be reached at(203)761-7992
Increase Your Traffic
Gary Halbert once said that the ONLY advantage he wanted when it came to selling burgers was not a better sauce, or better grade of beef, but a STARVING CROWD.
It’ s a simple concept, but not many people get it.
#1. Find and Know Your Starving Crowd
You can have the greatest product in the world, but still sell squat if no one wants to buy your product. Who are your potential buyers? Do you know them like the back of your hand? KNOW your buyers. Head down to http://www.Overture.com, type in your keywords and take furious notes!
#2. Power Position Yourself
Understand that people online are looking for information.
They don’t want information from just anyone. They want good, solid information from people who have been there, done that. If you can provide valuable advice to your prospects, you can be sure that they’ll begin to trust you and develop a RELATIONSHIP with you. And just how do you position yourself as an expert? Easy, Become one.
Once you develop a reputation as an expert, the traffic will come in flocks. People NEED help. Help from experts.
Are you an expert? : – )
#3. Create an Epidemic
Imagine this. What if you could get a super salesman to spend 24 hours everyday, 7 days every week, 52 weeks every year, for the rest of your life… a salesman who never gets sick or tired and all he does is direct hordes and hordes of targeted traffic to your site?
Don’t even try to estimate the astounding value someone like this would bring to your business.
It is possible, and it’s called viral marketing. It’s the most powerful concept on the Internet. Many have tried using it and many have failed miserably.
People have this misconception that as long as they have an ebook that is “brandable”, it constitutes a viral marketing campaign.
They are dead wrong.
#4. Steal Traffic from Someone Else
Got you. Of course, there are ethical ways to do that. The most powerful way, is through a JV or Joint Venture. A JV does not mean shooting an email to someone in your field of high repute saying “Hey, wanna do business with me?”
You’re in for a big disappointment if you think that’s gonna work. Your potential JV partner is a human as well, and chances are, he/she is a SOMEBODY in your field. So make your JV proposal as benefit laden, and “hands free”
for your potential partner as possible. Recognize your JV partner’s accomplishments, be generous with your praise and above all, be sincere.
But never be afraid to ASK. If you don’t A-S-K, you will never G-E-T.
#5. Become A Marketing PI
Here’s Industrial Espionage 101. The magic word?
Forums.
Forums will show you exactly what your target market is unhappy about and the problems they have. Lurk around forums. LISTEN. Forget about YOUR problems and listen to other people’s problems. Solve those problems. I guarantee you’ll become rich. Zig Ziglar said, the way to achieve success is to help others get what they want.
#6. Expired Domains Do More Than Expire
You can always use expired domain names as a great source of traffic. Search the expired domain databases, look on EBay. Some web hosts now allow multiple domains to park on a single account. Take advantage of that.
#7. Transform Words into Traffic
Articles are the best “Traffic Machines” that work for
ANYONE- no matter what product, service, or information they’re selling.
You get 100% targeted traffic, FREE! And, they position you as an expert, and improve your link popularity. Plus, articles are really easy to write as well.
If you have never written an article, go try writing one NOW!
All 7 steps above seem really easy. It’s one thing to read and go “ahh” and another thing to read those steps and actually take solid action. Nothing will happen until you take action. No action equals no traffic, equals no sales, equals no money to pay the rent.
Author Bio:
Jo Han Mok is a frequent guest and featured speaker at Internet Marketing bootcamps and conferences on subjects such as copywriting and Joint Venture Marketing. Find out how Jo Han’s latest web tool can help you get laser targeted traffic in the next 7 minutes! http://www.InstantVisitorSurge.com
Introduction
Most people have heard of the hall of fame, but to many, the hall of shame may not be as well known. My goal in this article is to help ensure that you never have an opportunity to be in it, not even from a distance! Here are some ways that a website owner or webmaster can get in trouble with some of today’s major search engines. This article is another way of saying: ‘The 10 steps to avoid at all times’, in preventing a site penalty or ban from the search engines.
Step 1: Build your entire site using graphics
One of the best ways to secure a front-row seat in the hall of shame would be to put all your links in Java script or use images or graphics for the links. Today’s search engines cannot ‘see’ or index sites that use such linking strategies. Make certain all your links are text links, using the standard H REF HTML reference. And while you’re at it, it’s always a great idea to include a sitemap of your site. A well-designed sitemap will ensure that all the pages in your site will be fully indexed.
Step 2: Design your site using Flash technology
Even today, I still encounter some websites that were entirely designed using Flash as its exclusive technology. No search engine can index or ‘read’ a site that was entirely created in Flash, since there is no text to crawl. Search engines only seek out one thing and that is content’ and then only in the form of text. You can use a bit of Flash, for example in a Flash banner or header, but make absolutely certain that there is lots of HTML text to crawl on that page and throughout your site.
Step 3: Use invisible text
One of the safest ways to ensure the Number One spot in the hall of shame is to use invisible text on your pages. Today, search engines are becoming more and more clever and can detect that sort of thing. For as long as I can remember, invisible text has always been prohibited by all search engines and you are almost certain of securing either a permanent ban, or a temporary penalty (which could become permanent). Stay away from invisible text and you will never get in trouble.
Step 4: Use doorway or gateway pages
A doorway or gateway (similar) page is a page that was designed specifically for search engines, and not humans! This happens when a website makes use of deceptive software or a script that relies on the IP address of a search engine robot to serve a specially written page for that robot. This process is called ‘cloaking’ and is another way of ensuring you a prominent spot in the hall of shame. Stay away from doorway pages and cloaking mechanisms. They are bad news and are forbidden by most major search engines today. Write your pages for real humans and fill them with good content and the search engines will rank your site with good marks.
Step 5: Forget all about your title tags and H1’s
If there is one element that will rank a site well it is the careful use of properly written title tags and H1 tags that are rich in keywords and key phrases. Neglect to do this and you will do well in the hall of shame. Search engines today rely on the keywords that are written in title tags, and the words that are contained in H1 or H2 tags. It’s also a good idea to use one or two headlines on your pages. These headlines of course need to contain the keyword (or keywords) used in that page for your maximum benefit.
Step 6: Be inconsistent and too vague
Another way where you can fast track your site to the hall of shame is to use themes that are irrelevant or inconsistent to the overall topic of your site. If your site sells blue widgets, red widgets and black widgets and nothing more, then it’s safe to assume that your site’s theme is ‘widgets’. Don’t talk of anything else but widgets and you will have an extremely relevant site that is entirely focused on widgets. This important step should steer you away from the hall of shame.
Step 7: Don’t ever use Wordtracker
A safe way to get an invitation to the hall of shame is by never using Wordtracker! Optimize a website for the wrong keywords or key phrases and you will end up with a site that has no or very little visibility in the search engines, plus you might even get enquiries or questions for products or services your company doesn’t even sell. Spend the time to properly research the real keywords people are using when searching for the products you sell. The only way to do this is by using Wordtracker.
Step 8: Link to bad neighbourhoods or link farms
One sure way to end up in the hall of shame is to link to what is called ‘bad neighbourhoods’. You obviously can’t control the people that are linking to you, but you certainly control whom YOU are linking your site to. If some of the sites you are contemplating linking to have been banned or penalized by Google or other search engines, you might incur the very same treatment.
Step 9: Build your site using frames
If your site isn’t built yet, using frame technology could place you in the hall of shame, since most search engines today have a hard time trying to index sites that employ frames. Although you can use the ‘no frames’ tag, building a site with frames is old technology and almost nobody uses them anymore. Design your site using HTML coding and stay away from frames if at all possible and it may help you to stay out of the hall of shame.
Step 10: Ignore what’s going on in the SEO industry
Today more than ever, the search engine industry and the SEO profession are evolving at breathtaking speed. Witness the many changes in the past 12 months. There has been (and probably will continue to be) mergers, acquisitions and buyouts in the search engine field. Combine all this with the constant modifications done to search algorithms, such as the huge changes implemented at Google in the past 2 to 3 months, and you start to get the picture. Keep informed by reading all the news in this industry and you might avoid a front-row seat in the SEO ‘hall of shame’.
Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales
