10 Ways to Advertise Online (And Where You Can Get Started)

Most business owners fully understand that not advertising is the surest way to kill your business.

However they are also bombarded by so much information and so many choices they quickly lose track of what options are available to them.

There are a number of cheap and easy online advertising options available to you.

 1. Ezine Advertising

Ezine advertising is one of the best ways to reach your future customers because it is often inexpensive and flexible as well as offering you the option to match the ezine audience with your product and ad. It also often offers a double benefit--your initial ad plus longevity in the ezine archives.

 2. Text Links

This simple tool is often overlooked by many. It is simply one of the least expensive and yet most powerful advertising option available. You can often buy text links for under $10 and the link will not only promote the specific site or page you choose but also connect it with the specific key words that will benefit you the most.

Text links also provide a double bonus. You can attract immediate traffic from the host site as well as achieve better search engine ranking which will further increase traffic.

 3. Pay Per Click Advertising

Just like it sounds pay per click advertising is simply paying for specifically targeted traffic. You can monitor and control these advertising programs very closely and tweak your ad copy and the key words that you are sponsoring. This can be a very expensive option but doesn't have to be if you plan carefully and watch closely.

 4. Email Marketing

Despite ever-increasing vigilant attempts to stop spam, we all know that email marketing is still alive and well. While it is foolish in the extreme to risk your business, web host, or internet connection, by sending out spam you can still use email marketing as a way to reach out and touch your customers and your future customers.

You just need to make sure that no one receives mail except the people who ask for it. People are still willing to sign up for mailing lists--especially if you have something to offer them in return for sharing their email address. Sponsor a contest; give away an article, ebook, or tutorial; or offer a discount and you will have people sign up willingly.

Then if you don't abuse the mailing list you will have the opportunity to reach them again and again!

5. Banner Ads

Banner ads have a bad reputation. In part because of the proliferation of banner farms that killed all the banner swap programs (or at least made them completely ineffectual). Also we all have memories of those hideous banners flashing across the top of so many web sites.

Banners have come along way since then and a cleverly designed banner can be a real asset to any advertising campaign. Also don't forget that you don't have to use one of those big giant banners that span the width of the screen. You can use smaller simple ads that can fit easily into the sidebar or special box on a web site so they can suit the design and work more effectively.

It is also important that you pay close attention to what sites you will choose for displaying your banner. IE. A site about web development for your web hosting service ad or a site about parenting for your ad promoting your potty training book.

Many text link and pay per click advertising vendors also offer the option of banner ads. Similarly many ezine and newsletter publishers sell space on their sites.

 Sell Your Knowledge

These next five advertising methods are all free or relatively inexpensive because you are trading something of value -- your knowledge and expertise -- in return for advertising.

 6. Publish a Newsletter

Creating your own regular newsletter or ezine offers you all the advantages of ezine advertising and email marketing offered above.

7. Publish a Blog and RSS Feed

While publishing a newsletter or ezine isn't that difficult it is much easier to create a blog and make its content available via RSS feed. This can offer you the benefits of regularly updated material for your web site which will be attractive to visitors and search engines alike. It will also help establish you as an expert in your field.

I personally like using WordPress on your own site but many web hosts now offer blogging services and there are many free blogging sites around where you can create a blog on their site.

 8. Write Articles

Take some of the material you have generated for your newsletter and/or blog and share it with others. Make it available in one of the many free content directories available on the web. This not only helps to establish your credibility but the contact info you provide in your resource box (which will run every time someone else publishes your material) will bring in both direct traffic as well as search engine attention.

9. Create an Ebook

Once you have enough material generated from your newsletter and blog then you can package it into a convenient Ebook and give it away. Make sure to collect names and email addresses and offer a coupon or discount to bring people back to your site!

10. Post in Forums

If you have the time you should start your own forum but even if you only have a few minutes a week to spare for this effort then it can be well worth the effort. Don't offer blatant spam posts but find a forum where you have something to offer. Make sure that you include an appropriate url and description for your forum signature and you will attract the double benefit of traffic and search engine attention!

No successful advertising campaign embraces one single method of advertising and no single method of advertising works for everyone. Advertising cannot be treated as a one-size-fits all proposition. However you know what your business needs and can offer--mix and match methods and make sure to track your results--to optimize your choices.

3 Key Questions You Need Ask About Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is exciting, challenging, and confusing. It can make or break your internet business career and yet many people who depend on internet marketing don't have a full grasp of the essentials involved in internet marketing.

In fact, many internet entrepreneurs waste a great deal of time, energy, and momentum because they do not fully understand internet marketing. Don't let this lack of understanding undermine your income potential.

In order for you to better understand internet marketing and its impact on your internet business you must know the answers to these three key questions:

1. What Is Internet Marketing?
2. What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?
3. What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?

What Is Internet Marketing?

Marketing is actually rather simple. Marketing is communication about an idea, product, service, or organization. Marketing therefore encompasses advertising, promotion and sales as well as the various techniques and forms of communication used to advertise, promote and sell.

Marketing is broader than simple advertising or promotion in that it includes researching the market to learn what consumers want and then setting out to meet their needs with the appropriate product, price, and distribution method. Marketing includes market research, deciding on products and prices, advertising promoting distributing and selling.

Marketing also covers all the activities involved in moving products and services from the source to the end user including making customers aware of products and services, attracting new customers to a product or service, keeping existing customers interested in a product or service, and building and maintaining a customer base for a product or service.

Internet marketing includes these same activities but also pulls in various internet tools including web sites, email, ezines, banner advertising, blogging, RSS, text links, search engine optimization, affiliates, autoresponders, and other ecommerce applications.
   
What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?

The range of expenses for internet marketing is huge. There are a number of promotional and marketing ventures that can cost you nothing or only pennies a day while other advertising efforts can cost you thousands a day.

It is important to consider your goals -- both long-term and short-term -- as well as how much each prospective customer is worth to you. This will help you determine a workable budget for your internet marketing campaign.

Many internet promotions are free, you can set up a web site and/or blog for $250 a year, and you can buy text links for $10 a month. You could easily spend $25-50 a day for advertising but there are many cheaper ad options available.

The best program is to start small and cheap and slowly build as you test and learn what is successful for your market and product. There is no perfect acvertising solution that works wonders for everyone. Each marketer and each product has a different formula.

What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?

Internet marketing offers more benefits than many traditional marketing mediums. The very nature of web sites and blogs is that they continue working to promote and market your product long after your initial marketing effort is over. Similarly many advertising efforts, such as ezines, newsletters, banners, and text links also continue to increase in power over time.

Email marketing can be a tremendous surge in contacts and sales and offers the ability to personalize your message as well as reach a targeted audience so your chance for sales goes up exponentially.

The other tremendous benefit of internet marketing is that it offers convenience and immediate satisfaction. Your potential customer sees your marketing message when it is convenient for them -- and often when they are seeking information about your specific topic. Then you offer them the ability to act on that interest right then. They can locate your product and buy in the time it would take to watch a commercial on television or turn a page in the newspaper. That is the power of internet marketing.

Now that you have the answers to these three key questions, you are ready to begin your own internet marketing campaign -- and succeed with your internet venture.

10 Quick Fire Tips to Get A LOT More Targeted Visitors to Your Website

If your website traffic has suddenly come to a stand-still, you may need to give your site a marketing jump start. This is really directed towards Information Marketing (one of the best markets around) but can really be applied to anything. Here are a few ways to get your traffic flowing again.

1.Buy hits for your website.
Pay for targeted hits to your web site. You can do what is called “pay per click” advertising. This is where you pay search engines  every tine some one clicks on your link for your web site. A great advantage to this is it almost instantly gets you visitors.

2.You can also send out a promotional email to the opt-in email list you SHOULD be creating by offering free reports or courses to your visitors.

3.Pay your competition a flat fee to email your promotional offer to their lists. This is a great way to build relationships with your competitors.

4.You can do what is referred to as a Joint Venture. This is when you pay someone a commission on sales when they email your promotional offer to their email lists.

5.You can pay for advertising on someone else's website by paying a flat fee up front to put an ad, banner or link on the site.

6.You can pay for advertising by offering a commission to your competition or anyone on sales when they put your ad, banner or link on their site.

7.You can submit your website to search engines with your keywords and website description.

8.You can submit your link to other websites, and in return, add them to yours.

9.You can write a free report or course to give away to other websites in your market and allow them to put an affiliate link inside (so they have an incentive to give it away), and give that away for free.
If its good information, it will spread like a virus. This marketing concept is known as “viral marketing”.

10.If you have good material you can have a nice marketing edge because people will share the website because the enjoyed it. You can also offer affiliate programs so your customers can earn commissions when they refer some one to buy your product .

These should give you some good ideas to get more traffic, and maybe even spark some ideas of your own!

13 Tips To Make Your Website More Successful

I was looking around at some websites to see what things I liked and disliked about them. There is no doubt that there are things that attract people and there are things that totally turn people off.

I have made a list of 13 tips that can help make your website more successful. Most of them are simple but quite effective at making your site more user friendly.

1. Make your site simple - With all of the bells and whistles available, too many people are trying to see how impressive they can make their websites. They may be attractive but unless your goal is to win a contest for best site, impressing people with glitter will not make sales.

2. Make sure your site loads quickly - You do not have long to grab your customer's attention. Make sure that you at least get a fair shot at grabbing his attention. If your site takes too long to load, you will lose a lot of potential customers without even giving your site a chance.

3. Don't have too many items on one page - You do not want to confuse your visitors. You want to make sure that they understand th purpose of your site. Too many items on one page can make this difficult for some. Don't take the chance. Make all of your pages simple.

4. Make sure every page lings to home page - It is much easier for your visitors to navigate if all of your pages link back to the home page. You will not lose as many potential customers if you make your site easier to navigate.

5. Get your own domain name - Free servers are great for some things but trying to gain credibility in a business is not one of them. It is well worth the price to get your own domain.

6. Make sure your hosting service offers full support - You want your service to have CGI access and offer secure ordering. This is a place that you don't want to go for cheap. Make sure your service offers the things you need before you choose and save a lot of headaches down the road.

7. Offer as many options for ordering as possible - The more options you provide for ordering, the fewer cutomers you will lose. You should have a secure order form on your site. Offering the options to order by phone, fax and by regular mail can also increase the number who will order.

8. Make sure you accept credit cards - If you don't accept credit cards, you are making a huge mistake. The biggest percent of your customers will pay this way if the option is available. Don't take the chance that they will choose another method if credit cards are not a possibility.

9. Offer free information on your site - You will want to offer some type of free material on your site. Free material such as courses are a very good way to build yourself as an expert in the eyes of your visitor. Free ebooks are another good thing to offer. Make sure these freebies are good solid information that can help your visitors.

10. Get your visitor's email address - You can accompish this in quite a few different ways. Giving away the courses or ebooks is one great way. You can publish a newsletter or ezine that your visitors can sign up for on your site.

11. Make sure to build your site with purpose in mind - If you are trying to sell a product on your site, then sell that product. If you are just trying to get addresses and make the sale later, then make that your purpose when building your site.

12. Encourage feedback - Make your visitor feel like his opinion is important. Offer him the chance to provide you with feedback. Don't be too proud to make changes if you start hearing some of the same things from your visitors.

13. Remember that you are building this site for your customers - This is not a site to fulfill some fantasy of yours. Remember the purpose of your site. Keep your customers wants and needs in your mind as you design it.

Your website is one of those things that will determine if you are a marketing success. Make sure that you make your website user friendly. Also make sure that you don't lose sight of the purpose of your site. If your sit e does not come across direct to your visitor, you are going to lose many visitors before you can even make a pitch.

5 Tips for New Affiliate Marketers

Affiliate program is the starting place for a big majority of home entrepreneurs and beginners in Internet Marketing, because of the small amount of work involved. There is some elements that you must absolutely look for before you start promoting an affiliate product...


Tip #1. Promote a unique product  to get better results.

Promoting a product which is already being sold by hundreds or affiliates will not give you the same results as if you have a unique proposition. A different product that only some affiliates distribute. That  kind of program is a little bit difficult to find because it is not in the interest of the merchant to do so in the short term.

Tip #2. Powerful and effective affiliates tools.

When you are ready to promote, you may be lost if you are new to affiliates marketing. Actually, most of the beginners take months to make their first sale, because the merchant doesn't help them in their hard work. So be sure to find a powerful and clear affiliates resource section. That will skyrocket your chances of success. Also, a good communication with the merchant is hard to find, but it is a must.
Try to find these resources, or some of them.

Tip #3. Example of effective resources:

* Brandable ebooks to give away or sell at a little price with your own affiliate ID links to generate leads... and sales.
* Sales letters provided.
* Templates of the emails to send to your list(s), pre-writen email or even better.
*  Free promotional tips provided, to make money without spending thousands in the beginning (a must for beginners)
*  Advices and tips for paid promotional techniques (don't loose all your money in something that don't bring results).
* Redirect links through your own website. For example: www.yoursite.com/theaffiliatesite/
* Banners

Tip #4. Good Tracking software.

It is a very important part. You must be able to monitor almost everything in your resources section:
you must be able to track your sales, how many visitors came to your site and to the merchant site, by which page they enter to the merchant site(here is the importance of the redirect links).
You must be able to view your payment history, and also how many people signed up underneath you if it is a two tiers affiliate program.

Tip #5. Cookies plus IP addresses.

Today, it is a common practice by Internet users to clear their cookies daily or weekly. So if you spend money on PPC or any other paid advertising to get a customer, you do not want to see another affiliate get the commission you should have received. So try to choose an affiliate program with a tracking software which take also the IP address of your future customer. By the way, recurring commissions are a must.

Last but not least, try to find associate programs with generous compensation plan, and give a preference to the two tiers affiliates programs because you will be paid on two levels. Good promotion, and enjoy your affiliate life.

100% Conversion Rate on Your Website Visitors

Major television networks have been in control of what you watch, when you watch it and how often you watch the programs that interest you. With the social boom caused by web 2.0 including social networks and online movies and video, major television networks can no longer confine your mind to their broadcasts for entertainment.

Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail) hit the nail right on the head... In his book, he predicted that television's viewing audience will spend more time on the Internet than watching TV. This former viewing audience will entertain themselves by going to websites they are interested in (to do whatever is more interesting to them than watching TV). Chris predicted that people will spend their time more involved in their personal "long tail" interests.

This trend is bad news for the television networks!

The Internet offers television’s former viewing audience better entertainment because they can do, see and hear what they want and when they want. The big television networks no longer have a monopoly on the public’s entertainment and mind share.

To make matters worse... with the advent of DVR (digital video recorders) less and less people are watching television commercials (the lifeblood of the major TV networks). The average person with Internet access is spending 4 times longer online than watching TV. The effectiveness of television advertising is dwindling exponentially and to make matters worse, 90% of DVR owners are fast forwarding through television commercials!

The truth is, people hate commercials. We all know that sigh when you're intensely involved in your favourite TV show just to be distracted by 2 minutes of commercials. Most people have learned to ignore commercials, even if they are watching them!

All the big brand advertisers that you see on television are well aware of the fact that their advertising dollars are not as well invested in television ads as they once were. These major brands, including the BIG 8 in advertising, have been looking to the Internet as an alternate form of advertising for quite some time now.

For the first time in history thousands of people are going to share in revenue that was formerly paid to major television networks. Millions of dollars are going to be paid on a residual basis to a "core group" of marketing partners... No hype intended or implied!
PPP is a way for advertisers (Like Harley Davidson or Taco Bell) to serve a 5 second audio advertisement to website visitors. It is a way for advertisers to target their 5 second audio ad to specific interests, demographics and geographic locations.

Big TV's ad revenue is dwindling because PPP offers advertisers a more cost effective advertising solution that has been providing positive Return on Investment (ROI) for over 2 years. PPP offers advertisers a way to reach their target audience and is the only form of media whose impressions and ad placements are verified by an independent 3rd party.
PPP is not new, it has been running for 2 ½ years, has over 66,000 advertisers and over 550,000 websites that serve PPP ads to their visitors.

The 550,000+ websites that currently serve these ads are responsible for 43 million streams (impressions) of advertisers' 5 second audio ads on a monthly basis.


Learn how to to make your fortune on-line and successfully run your digital marketing campaigns  visit WWW.HARRISONKENYON.COM now

8 Strategies To Catapult Your Copywriting Skills To The Next Level

I am about to share with you 8 quick ideas and suggestions to dramatically help you improve your copywriting skills as you get going.

You can use these tips when it comes to creating offers, E-mails and sales letters that grab people’s attention.

So without further ado, here they are!

Number one:
Always write your sales letter with the individual in mind.

Whenever you’re writing a sales letter or an E-mail, you want to write that E-mail or sales letter as though you were talking to one person.

Number two:
Pull them in with the first line.

You’ve got to create interest with the reader, the very first line that they read.

Number three:
Use bullets.

People like to scan, they like to quickly read things as fast as they can, and using bullets makes that whole process a heck of a lot easier. So use them.

Number four:
Just let it flow.

When you’re starting to write a letter, it is very difficult to just start from top to bottom and write everything. When it comes to writing it and actually putting everything down in order, I want you to just write as it’s coming out. You’re going to have moments when inspiration hits you and your pen is going to go like crazy or your fingers are going to go like crazy on the computer keyboard, and I want you to just let it flow.

Number five:
Write like you speak.

I briefly touched on this in one of the earlier points. But it’s much easier for you to envision that you’re communicating with one individual as though you’re having a conversation with that person, because when that person reads your sales letter or your E-mail, they’re going to feel like you’re talking right to them, and that’s exactly what you want.

Number six:
Make your communication easy to read.

What I mean by that is use short paragraphs. Use pictures. I want you to bold certain things. I want you to highlight important areas.

Number seven:
I want you to stress the benefits and not the features.

I want you to put yourself in the shoes of the person reading your communication piece
The number one question that they’re going to be asking is: What’s in it for me? You have to address those things, and you’ve got to stress the benefits of your particular communication piece that you’re trying to use.

Number eight:
I want you to keep the reader interested.

How do you do that? On a sales letter there are a ton of ways that you can keep the reader interested, and I’m going to give you a few of them right now.
-     You can use graphs.
-     You can use pictures.
-     You can use audio.
-     You can use video.
-     Another one that people love to see are testimonials.
-     Another one that you can always use is giving examples of proof.
-     Do you have checks?
-     Do you have screen shots of people registering for certain things?

Whatever you’re trying to sell or promote, I want you to give proof that it works or that it would provide benefit to the person that is reading it – screen shots, pictures, testimonials – these are all great things of proof.

So there you have it… 8 quick tips to improve your copywriting skills. This is not the be all and end all of copywriting techniques but they will definitely help you jump over some of the hurdles that are standing in your way!

If you want simple effective digital marketing e-courses that help you build authority, increase your targeted traffic and build a social media following a rock-star would envy you need to click here now

Copywriting For An Online Audience

So what’s the big deal about copywriting for the Internet? It’s the same as any other form of copywriting isn’t it? In a word, yes. But in another word, no. Confused? Sick of all these questions? I had better myself explain then.

No matter what medium you are using, all copywriting should have one prime objective - create an effective message that appeals to the audience it is intended to influence. This golden rule applies to websites, brochures, and sales letters, even adding a nice message to Grandma’s little pink birthday card. However, the Internet presents a number of unique challenges for a copywriter, even if the people reading your sales letters are the same ones reading your website.

Think about it for a minute. Do you read on the Internet the same way you read on paper? Not for long. First of all, there are comfort factors such as the monitor resolution, colours, glare, and a reading surface that doesn’t move. Secondly, we are conditioned to read websites in a different manner. Online, we are quite comfortable scanning sub-headings, clicking on hyperlinks, and jumping between pages.

Thirdly, the majority of people looking at your business website are there because they seek a service that you provide. After all, they made the effort to visit you didn’t they? The online reader can be impatient and demanding, and they usually know what they want before they click through he door. If your business doesn’t impress them straight away, it’s a quick tap on the keyboard to find someone who will. Even if you do provide the product or service they need, it doesn’t take much effort to duck into your competitors store for a browse around. Website copywriting is a bit like speed dating – you have to make a big first impression and leave them thinking “I bet we’d be good together".

Readers of hard copy sales material don’t have the luxury to pick and choose, so they become somewhat of a captive audience. After all, it takes a lot more effort to call or visit your competitors business in the real world. In addition, a brochure could sit on a potential customers desk for months, staring at them with puppy dog eyes, day in day out, until one day the customer decides to make some enquiries.

With these unique challenges in mind, here are a few copywriting pointers to help make your website a lean, mean, highly effective, sales machine:

1. Snatch their attention from the first paragraph
Most visitors spent less than one minute summing up a website before they decide whether to stay or go. There is no time for waffling paragraphs about who you are, where you live, and how your wife makes the best apple pie. You have to get to the point as fast as you can. If you don’t convey your key message in the first few lines, don’t expect many people to be around to read them further on.

2. Short paragraphs
If you want people to read your website, forget the long descriptive, romantic prose about the salubrious ambience of your pulchritudinous offer. They will only think you are stercorous (take my word for it, you really don’t want to be). Short paragraphs are most effective on the web because they can be differentiated and skimmed at a glance. Visual layout is the key.

3. Make sure your copy flows
Reading online is straining enough. Flowing on from the point above, using jargon, formal language and/or trying to impress your audience with your knowledge of words containing more than ten letters will only make the reader irritated, frustrated and start to think about places or sites they’d rather be.

4. KISS
Remember the old adage Keep It Simple Stupid? Write as though your audience is a bunch of twelve year olds. Don’t sound patronising, but don’t assume they know anything about your business or what you do. They have arrived laden with buring questions, “What are you selling?" “Why should I choose you?" “Where are you?" “How can I get some of this?" “How much is it?"

5. Appropriately tempt your audience
A lot of hot and personal activity goes down on the Internet, but lets face it, the technology itself isn’t causing readers monitors to fog up. The content is what makes things exciting. The Internet itself is just an impersonal two-dimensional screen. Good copywriting might not always be intended to get the heart racing, but it must connect with your intended audience to break through this impersonal barrier. Maybe you need a little humor, sophistication, cold corporate speak, personal touch, or yes, even something racy.

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Are you Blogging Effectively?

Perhaps “blogging” isn’t such a graceful word.  For me, personally, it sounds like a worded drudgery the way cereals can be soggy, skies can be foggy, and the way minds can be groggy.  But for now, it’s too late to rename this shortened word for web-logging.  Widespread blogging is nevertheless one of the most engaging Internet developments of the past few years.  As a medium it gives rise to many new and worthy voices and plays a new and vital force in shaping opinions, political realities, trends, and even our language.

I believe that a blog is simply a tool to use for someone who’s got something to say.  Let me be clear in saying that a blog is a poor choice for someone who needs a megaphone to scream out to cyberspace in order to elicit a meaningful response from Internet users. If you want attention and want it now and expect blogging to bring it to you, then this will surely be a disappointment.  However, if you like to write and engage others on subjects of which you have some command or experience, then it’s a wonderful application with which you can interact with people who share similar interests as you.  The hype is well founded.

Anyway, here’s a list of blogging tips…      

1.) Be topical.

Cohesiveness in message is not optional.  Readers may or may not be interested in your topic, but if your message is haphazard that few will bother remembering to return to your blog because it essentially would offer nothing to remember.  This doesn’t mean blogs can’t jump from subject to subject.  For instance, a blog with a humorous focus has all the leeway in the world for subject matter, but it would be foolish for such a blog to turn the humor on and off.  In such an example, the aspect of humor would be content’s glue, the strength of the blog.  The beauty of staying on point and on topic is that eventually, due to the nature of the Internet, you will find those interested solely in your topic.  (as opposed to online diaries.  There are millions of them on the internet, few have any readers.  Email me with examples if I’m wrong and I’ll be able to show you why you’re showing me a blog and not a diary.)

2.) Refresh your content

Create a schedule and stick to it. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of communication.

And remember, what’s old is not new and, for blogs, thusly not interesting.  2006 isn’t the time to rail against Enron or Vanilla Ice.  Insight doesn’t matter much to yesterday’s news.

3.) Clear Language Counts.

Blessed is the blog with a clear line of logic.  Write without inside jokes, clique-y catchphrases or ambiguous logic.  First time readers need to be close to your message.  They are more likely to return to blogs that strike them positively.  If the first read is confusing there will not be a second read.

4.) Feed the Spiders.

Search engines take notice of active blogs and blog search engines are especially sensitive to activity.  If nothing else, search engines are smarter today than they were yesterday and are only getting smarter.  In constantly improving they are seeking to aggregate quality; quality blogs are updated several times a week, if not daily, as opposed to once or twice a month.  I don’t mean to scare you but a big spider is watching, so dance for them.      

5.) RSS.

Think of RSS like a magic to blogging world, because that’s the effect it’s had.   RSS feeds are a way to exponentially sound your voice to the interested.  These feeds are a great means to increase the distribution and readership of your original content.

6.) Spell check. 

Hey man, use the spell-check.  I do – if I didn’t you probably wouldn’t have made it to #6.  It only takes a minute and can save you from looking like a hack.  

Your weblog audiences will be small at first.  And, frankly, that’s the way it should be.  Who are you to think that half the internet will flock to you after three or four posts of your blog, anyway?

If you tough it out while maintaining quality, readership will materialize.  You will link to good, relevant blogs and, in turn, they will to you.  While your voice may be unique, your niche likely isn’t and if your content is emitted smartly to the Internet those relevant readers will respond through readership and interaction.  That I guarantee.

How to Create Your Own Home Based Digital Business

Within this article today, we're going to look at creating a work at home business that focuses on the Internet and online.  There are many different businesses that you can focus on and we will look at what you should look for within a particular business that you want to do.

There are great many opportunities for you in creating a work at home business that focus on the Internet and online.  One of the best resources for you to find information about this is at www.affiliateprograms.com. You'll want to spend a great deal of time visiting this website because you can find many different affiliate programs that you can market in many different categories.  Some of the categories that they have that you can market include finance and investment, food and beverage, automotive, and health and fitness.  Take the time to read because each affiliate program will list their website as well as a small description on what they do and you will want to visit the website as well.  If you are going to be spending a great deal of your time promoting a particular website and program, you'll want to make sure that this is worth your while.  Also, with each of these particular programs, you should look at how much money you would be making by selling each of these.  You'll probably find several programs that seem interesting to you so see which one peaks your interest and pays well and head for that opportunity.

As far as fair warning for what seems to be opportunities on the Web for other things, there are many different websites that promise that you can make money through either taking surveys or through posting on free forums for several hours day.  This sounded good and many people have signed up and found that they have wasted a great deal of time and money in the end when trying out these so-called "opportunities. Remember to listen to your gut when you're thinking about this. There are many work-at-home scams out there so make sure to take your time in reading about what the different websites have to offer.

Another great work home business that has an online focus can be eBay.  This is stressed throughout some articles on this website but it is a great tool for you to begin your career.  You can learn how to write sales copy for your auctions as well as how to properly promote yourself.  If you take the lessons to be learned on eBay and apply them to other Internet marketing areas, you will find yourself ready to tackle almost anything out there.

Hopefully this article on creating a work at home business that focuses on the Internet and online has been beneficial to you.  When we designed this article and wrote it, we want you to know what to look for within a particular business as well as what to do for it.  It is important to know what to look for as well as what to avoid.

25 Quick and Dirty Tips for Marketing Your Blog

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. It’s simple. People want to read good content, and with good content comes ad revenue. Well, maybe it’s not that easy… We’ve finally unleashed the secrets of successful blog marketing. Do note that these are not guaranteed to increase your click-through ratios and they will not bring good karma to you or your ads.. If only.. Nonetheless, these tips should benefit your blog and make it more user-friendly, more easily accessible, and more content-enabled.

There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them, so here is a -short- list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:

1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!
2. Obtain and install customizable blog software - WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.
3. Customize blog look and feel templates - aka design.
4. Research keywords and develop a glossary - Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.
5. Optimize the blog:
 * Template optimization - RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap
 * Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT
 * Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)
6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.
7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.
8. Setup Google acount for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.
9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.
10. Format archived posts, related posts.
11. Enable statistics for tracking - Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.
12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.
13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.
15. Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs - Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.
16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.
17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.
18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.
19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.
20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog - Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.
21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.
22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.
23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.
24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.
25. Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.