Internet Marketing Hints And Tips » website visitors

Marketing With Social Bookmarking Sites

Gary Knox — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:35:59 +0000

Social bookmarking sites allow you to create a profile then bookmark your favorite sites. These bookmarks will be shared with other users. When you book mark a site you will give a brief description and then pick a category and add keyword tags to your bookmark. These keyword tags allow your book marked site to show up when a user searches for book marked sites for that key word. This of course is the basic explanation of social bookmarking.

For your use you are going to bookmark your website and your blogs to better enhance your marketing potential. You will need to pick the appropriate category, give a short but to the point description of the bookmarked site and then pick the appropriate keywords to tag your bookmark with.

Not all social bookmark sites will have a category that fits your website. Some social bookmarking sites are geared toward a specific theme or a limited amount of topics. Should your website not fall into their theme or any of their topics then do not try to bookmark your website or blog on those social bookmark sites. This is considered under some circumstances as spam. Even when it is not considered spam to do this, it is still unprofessional. So stick with social bookmarking sites that offer your theme or category for your website.

Keywords should cover what you are bookmarking. Use as many keywords as possible that are relevant to your website or blog. Your account can be terminated by some sites if you are loading your bookmarks with a lot of irrelevant keywords. So refrain from doing this. Do not be afraid to use both singular and plural forms of words or variations of words for your keywords. In addition to creating a profile some bookmarking sites require that you download an application that will run in your browser bar. The purpose of this is so that when you are on a website and you wish to bookmark it all you have to do is click on their icon in your browser bar and you will be able to bookmark that site. Not all bookmarking sites will require this.

Most bookmarking sites offer you a feature so that you can place their buttons on your website so that your website visitors can bookmark your site themselves. Now while you are going to bookmark your site yourself, it is still a benefit to have these buttons on your site. Your site visitors who wish to bookmark your site will click one of these buttons and discover that it has already been bookmarked, now they have the option of voting on it. Since they were going to bookmark it themselves the chances are they will go ahead and take the time to vote it up. This means that you are moving up in the ranks with no extra work on your part.

To increase your review on these social bookmarking sites you should also bookmark other quality websites or articles that you find on the internet. Now you are probably wondering why I am telling you to bookmark other people. The reason is that if you are seen as a contributor who contributes quality bookmarks then your other bookmarks that you are bookmarking to promote yourself will also get good reviews.

Therefore, bookmark things that are of quality that are informative, useful and you will gain a reputation and thus increase your own traffic. In fact some social bookmarking sites will terminate your account if they feel you are spamming their site with your own promotions. While it is ok to promote your own website and such, you do not want to give the impression of spamming. You need to understand that a lot of traffic can come about as a result of bookmarking your website on one of these social bookmarking sites. Digg is one of them that if your content is good, other users will digg, your bookmark and thus raising you up in the ranks. As you rise up you will be hit with more and more traffic to your website, there fore make sure you have a server that can handle this possible traffic overload. While this does not happen to everyone there is still that chance that users on the social bookmarking site will love your content and thus your traffic increases.

Whilst you can end up with more traffic than you know what to do with, remember that this can take time to happen. As mentioned above you will need to have your website placed in the right category, use lot of relevant keywords and offer a good description. When you apply all of this you will have a better chance of getting known and rising in the ranks on these social bookmarking sites. This is all needed to see the huge amount of traffic that these sites are capable of delivering to your website.

Building and managing an opt-in list for a website

Gary Knox — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:35:03 +0000

Building and managing an opt-in list for a website provides a seller direct access to a wide number of potential customers. Building and managing an opt-in list makes use of a system that makes it possible for website visitors to fill up an online form in order to sign up for the latest products and services offered by an online site.

Building and managing an opt-in list is commonly practiced by numerous sites on the Internet to maximize their visibility on the world wide web. Building and managing an opt-in list is also a proven marketing technique that many business websites use again and again to keep loyal visitors updated on the latest products available from their favorite e-store.

Building and managing an opt-in list is also useful for websites that provide news, technology and various forms of information on different subject matters. Visitors that sign up at their favorite website’s opt-in list can receive updates on products and services offered by the site. In addition the subscriber gains access to the site’s regular ezine or newsletter.

The opt-in mailing list provided by a website is not spam, it is a legitimate sign up program for individuals sincerely interested in a website’s products and services. No one is included in the opt-in mailing list without prior consent.

Gathering email addresses for building and managing an opt-in list

A number of free listing services are available on the Internet to gather email addresses for a website’s opt-in list. However many of these free list services cannot be personalized to suit a specific site. In addition, the free service list has the option of shutting down a website’s list at whatever time they choose to do so.

A better method for building and managing an opt in list begins with a good script for form processing. The script allows a subscriber to fill in a form and send it in to a specific address. The information is then processed and included in a database file. After that, the website can send a personalized reply to the subscriber to thank them for their subscription to the site.

The online form to be filled up by a customer can also be customized to fit the format of a specific site. There are a number of websites that offer form-processing scripts wherein the generally cost price of a good script is about $30.

A pop email account should be created on the website’s server in order to accommodate the influx of subscription requests. Email templates will also make the process of handling subscription request easier and faster. This will include an email template for subscription requests and possible requests from subscribers that want to unsubscribe from the Website opt-in list. The option to unsubscribe helps build trust between the site visitor and the website.

Building and managing an opt-in list database

Creating a database is essential in building and managing an opt-in list for a website. There are a number of database programs offered on the Internet that can help process the information sent in for subscriptions. Once the database is set up, a mailing list needs to be generated. This process is essential to building and managing an opt-list that will continually process subscription requests from site visitors.

A database program will automatically enable a website to attend to all the details involved in building and managing an opt-in list. At the same time, easy access to a subscriber’s personal information allows a website to send personalized messages to a specific subscriber at any time.

Building and managing an opt-in list subscriber base

Websites can employ a number of methods for building and managing an opt-in list subscriber base. Putting up incentives are a great come on for building and managing an opt-in list. Offering a free gift as well as providing free services with each subscription is a great technique for building and managing an opt-in list. Online contests are also a very popular way of getting people to join a website opt-in list. In addition, prizes that are related to the website’s content also help generate interest in the other products and services offered by the site.

Remember, building and managing an opt in list is the ideal and simplest option to increase website traffic.

Give Potential Customers A Preview With Autoresponders

Gary Knox — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:03:48 +0000

Building customer interest and excitement is the first step to successfully marketing many products. Autoresponders play a vital role in building this interest and excitement. For instance, if you were developing an ebook, you may want to start telling your website visitors and opt-in subscribers about it. Start building interest; tell them what this product will do for them, and how soon it will be available.

Do more than build interest by telling them about it. Use an autoresponder to let them preview your product! Even though you will be selling the product, you can allow your potential customers to preview the information. Have you ever seen previews for movies that will be playing intheaters soon? It is the same concept.

Load one chapter of the ebook into an autoresponder, and put a form on your website where your visitors can enter their name and email address to receive the preview chapter free of charge. This gets their name on your list of potential customer. Each week, send a reminder email, letting them know how close the release date is, and what they can expect from your product – keep building interest and excitement.

Finally, a couple of days before you are ready to launch your product offer those that received the
preview the option to buy a pre-release copy. You can opt to offer a discounted price, or leave the price as it will be on launch day – the choice is yours.

Take a look at the list of people who signed up to receive the preview. How many of them are still ‘subscribed’ to that list? They’ve had the option to stop receiving notices about your product, but they chose to keep receiving the information you were sending. These are highly targeted prospects for your product. They have already shown you that they have an interest in your product, and a large number of those people are simply waiting on the autoresponder broadcast message that will let them know that it is time to pick up their copy of your product!

Isn’t automation a wonderful thing? Using an autoresponder, you are able to see how much of a market there is for your product, and build a great deal of interest in it before it is ever released. This is the key to making sales on launch day. Use autoresponders to build the interest. Get your prospects excited about what is about to come – and on launch day, give them what they are waiting for and watch the sales pour in!

How to make your ebook “user friendly”

Gary Knox — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:00:21 +0000

Here is the third part of the series on how to write an e-book. Enjoy!

You must figure out how to keep your writing engaging. Often anecdotes, testimonials, little stories, photo, graphs, advice, and tips will keep the reader turning the pages. Sidebars are useful for quick, accessible information, and they break up the density of the page.

Write with a casual, conversational tone rather than a formal tone. Reader’s respond to the feeling that you are having a conversation with them. Break up the length and structure of your sentences so you do not hypnotize your readers to sleep. Sentences that are all the same length and structure tend to be a good aid for insomnia!

Good writing takes practice. It takes lots and lots of practice. Make a schedule to write at least a page a day. Read books and magazines about the process of writing, and jot down tips that jump out at you. The art of writing is a lifetime process; the more you write (and read), the better your writing will become. The better your writing becomes, the bigger your sales figures.

In an ebook that is read on the screen, be aware that you must give your reader’s eye a break. You can do this by utilizing white space. In art classes, white space is usually referred to as “negative space.” Reader’s eyes need to rest in the cool white oasises you create on your page. If your page is too dense, your reader will quit out of it as soon as their eyes begin to tear.

Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered. This makes your information easy to absorb, and gives the reader a mental break from dissecting your paragraphs one after the other.

Finally, decide on an easy-to-read design. Find a font that’s easy on the eyes, and stick to that font family. Using dozens of fonts will only tire your readers out before they’ve gotten past your introduction. Use at least one and a half line spacing, and text large enough to be read easily on the screen, but small enough so that the whole page can be seen on a computer screen. You will have to experiment with this to find the right combination.

Of course, don’t forget to run a spell and grammar check. You are judged by something as minor as correct punctuation, so don’t mess up a great book by tossing out semicolons randomly, or stringing sentences together with commas. (By the way, that’s called a “comma splice.”)

Last of all, create an index and a bibliography. That’s it! You’ve written a book! Now all you have to do is publish your ebook online, and wait for download request from your website visitors.

Writing the Resource Box so it Makes People click

Gary Knox — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:42:51 +0000

The internet is the information highway, this phrase has been used so many times it should be nominated for the Internet Cliché Award. People that use the internet can be subdivided into groups, but in general, they are out to search for information. Whether this information is for gaming, business, fun or anything else the internet has furnished us with information that has proved to be very beneficial.

Through the recent years a lot of people have discovered the secrets of Search Engine Optimization. Progressively sites have seen the effects that the use of articles have done for the traffic of their sites. Some have even produced sites dedicated exclusively to supplying articles that could be read by their website visitors and have links that could lead to numerous sites that are related to the topics and subjects of these articles.

For instance, the sites might feature numerous articles about a whole lot of topics. As a website visitor studies the articles they have looked for, they are likely to find at the end of the article a resource box that contains a link that can be clicked on to to take them to the web site that has submitted the article. Of course the article would be in related to the site. Lets say if the article is about fishing, the resource box will include a link to a site that sells fishing rods or other fishing equipment.

A resource box is what is usually found at the end of an article. They will contain the name of the author, a brief description of the author, a brief description of the sponsoring site and a link. If a reader likes what they read, they are likely to want to find out more so they will in all likelihood click the link .

Just like the article itself, the resource box must also be eye-catchingÂ in order to capture the attention and interest of the reader. Whilst the resource box encompasses only a small space, furnishing the right keywords and content for your resource box will provide more prodding for the reader to go to your site.

Now we recognise what resource boxes are, what are the benefits of having a good resource box? Primarily it is driving traffic to your site. Several sites would allow articles to be placed on their sites because they can make use of the articles to fill their pages. They also get affiliation with other sites that can be beneficial for them also. For the sponsoring site, when people click on your resource box, you generate traffic that can be counted upon as potential customers.

Resource box content should be a little creative. You only get a small space for your resource box so you need to make the most of it. You should try to catch the attention of your reader with resource box content that will force them to give it a second look. Unlike TV adverts, you do not have visual aids to drive your point home. But you do have the power of imagination of the reader. With the right content, you can make them think and be intrigued to find out more.

Another tip is to use keywords that are related to your site. Do not mislead your potential website visitors. Build your credibility so that more people are tempted to visit your site and subsequently browse what you have to offer. Ensure people click your resource box by supplying resource box content that creates a lasting impression. You only get one chance to wow them and hundreds of chances to rebuff them.

Never ever underestimate the power of the resource box. It may be small in size but they will provide a substantial aid in driving traffic to your web site. A boring resource box will never get the job done. Be fun and creative but at the same time show that you have a great deal to offer. Is this too much to ask for something that could not fit into a paragraph? Yes and no, there are several tips and guides that can help you in doing this, the first step is recognising how important a resource box may be in causing people to click your link and come to your site.