I find that many website owners are divided into two camps. One camp is very good at developing unique content and garnering tons of search engine traffic, but they have a hard time turning that traffic into dollars. The other camp is great at monetizing traffic, but they can never generate very much traffic. In both cases the individuals involved eventually become discouraged … [Read more...]
Optimize Your Blog for Search
Some folks compare organic search marketing to public relations, where you are trying to get free attention for your business. They further link paid search to traditional advertising. If the comparisons make sense to you, then maybe we can torture the analogy by comparing blogs to press releases. Your company can write a blog post or a press release to try to attract … [Read more...]
Mistakes Lead to Success
Learn from your missteps and the path to affiliate success will be paved with opportunity.Lurk around any affiliate marketing forum for more than a few minutes, and you will surely encounter a post that reads much like this: "Affiliate marketing sucks! I'm not making ANY money and I've tried EVERYTHING - Google AdWords, AdSense and affiliate programs. NOTHING works. My … [Read more...]
A Brand New Day for BrandNewDad.com
Not every website sells widgets. But that doesn't mean every website doesn't need an effective home page.In this column, we chose an information portal as our subject. So instead of addressing questions like what the site is selling, and how to make a purchase, our focus was on the proper display of content, use of colors and communicating the benefits of registration.Our … [Read more...]
The Myths of Affiliate Marketing
There are many myths regarding affiliate marketing that ought to be tucked away where you keep the collected works of the Brothers Grimm, Aesop and Mother Goose. They may be fun to read, but they are disastrous to any affiliate marketing campaign. There are hundreds of these myths circulating, but I'll deal with the top 10 of them here: MYTH: It's good to have a lot of white … [Read more...]
The Race to Embrace
Online marketers and merchants are quickly adopting new technologies such as blogging to help drive traffic and sell products.Buzz Bruggeman, founder and CEO of ActiveWords, says his company has spent just $600 to advertise its ActiveWords software application. Yet thanks to his blog-centric marketing philosophy, ActiveWords was named the Third Best Software Product of the Year … [Read more...]
Killer Content Brings in Money
There are three main factors that determine the success of your Web site: Effective site optimization; Site popularity; and Great content.Site optimization is the process of placing your keywords in the right places and making sure your Web site is accessible to search engine spiders so that they can find you and index your content more easily.Site popularity can be achieved … [Read more...]
The Write Stuff
Imagine you're in a store. You're browsing and minding your own business. Then, all of a sudden, a pushy salesperson ruins your shopping trip. What could be worse? On the other hand, a helpful, honest, knowledgeable clerk can turn an otherwise annoying shopping errand into a pleasure.The same applies online. Blaring banners are like obnoxious sales clerks; shoppers want to … [Read more...]
Profits By Design
Link all you want, but unless your site helps visitors find what they want while enjoying the process, they won't stick around long enough to buy anything. The big secret is creating a well-designed Web site. That's easily said, but difficult to accomplish. Quality sites have fresh, interesting content; easy-to-understand organization; visual appeal; and affiliate links that … [Read more...]
Bringing E-commerce Back Home
Jeannie Otero wanted to change her life. A single mom with two young daughters, she hated the three-hour round-trip commute to her job in Miami, time she would rather spend with her girls. She dreamed about starting her own business, thought about investing in real estate. But she had the age-old problem: You have to have money to make money.Then, she heard that a good way to … [Read more...]