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An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us

Welcome to An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us, where you can learn how to market yourself effectively on the web, get into major search engines, learn advanced SEO techniques, and not pay for it! Please support our advertisers and enjoy your new place on the Web! Subscribe to this site by entering your email on the right! Also sign up for the free offers we list. Internet
Sunday, 16 April 2006
Happy Easter Message
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Trail Happiness
Blessings to all! I would like to share with you an easter message from Lee Roy:

Have a happy Easter, rejoicing in the resurrection of our Lord, which guarantees our own resurrection and eternal life. Eternal life really gives you PERSPECTIVE on the details of daily life. Lee Roy


May Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior and Son of the Most High God richly bless you this Easter day!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 3:56 PM ADT
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Saturday, 15 April 2006
Publisher Strategy - Part 4
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
Today's tips from CJ.com concern conversion, or how to turn shoppers/browsers into consumers/customers.

  • Soft Landing - Make custom landing pages for each keyword you are promoting. Don't just sendd everyone to the home page. Most people will not take the extra time to look for the page you want them to click to.


  • Solid Foundation - Good design and easy navigation are crucial to turning browsers into buyers. If you have a lot of items on your page, consider getting site search from Google or another similar free service. Then your browsers can go instantly to what they wish to purchase instead of having to page down, page down, .


  • SHOW OFF - In other words, highlight your specials and best selling items. I recently had a couple of large transactions for items that were displayed prominently. Affiliate networks frequently have a listing of coupons or deals.


  • Give 'em a Push - If you're offering free shipping or limited-time discounts, let the browsers know that up front without having to click thru. Plus, ev'ry little bit helps build your customer base.


  • Don't Overreach - It's nice to have customers, but awful to have irate customers when you don't deliver on your promises. Make sure your content matches your search terms. No one wants to be searching for baby clothes and get a site devoted to, say, mesothelioma. Stress quality over quantity when it comes to website traffic. Period.



Hope you've enjoyed this series. Next week we will start a new one devoted to your success in marketing on the WWW. Please drop me a comment, sign up for my newsletter, and give my sponsors and my renter a visit!

CIAO for now,
Randy




Posted by Randy at 8:51 PM ADT
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Correction of Earlier Post
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Trail Happiness
Just noticed when I logged in tofday that a few days ago, when I announced my new domain, I gave the wrong address! OOPS! That's probably never happened to any of you. Anyway, I corrected it, so www.unrapped.org, my Christian site, should be listed on the search engines later this week. I've spent much of this afternoon updating it with foreign-language bibles.

I've been largely absent for about the past week because of my involvement in an Easter production called "The Promise." I played Judas and we just finished four straight nights of shows. It was incroyable! Kinda ironic, I played Judas. But hey, someone had to! This morning there was an easter egg hunt at church, and I gave out flyers to visitors and helped clean up afterwards. Only thing is, the sun was very strong here in Florida today, and I came away bright red with sunburn...OUCH!

Anyway, I'll next post part four of my series on Publisher Strategy. Be sure to check out the podcast - I've been a little more regular with that, since with Garageband, you only need a free account and phone to create messages.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 8:14 PM ADT
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Thursday, 13 April 2006
DEEP Fried Fish!
Mood:  loud
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Greetings to our latest blog renter, Deep Fried Fish Blog! The author, Bobby Yacuzzo, is a self-described "professional chef by choice, a foodservice manager by default and proud daddy of future ML twins." ML twins? Sounds like a disease...but probably has something to do with baseball, which is what the rest of his site is about. Welcome to him and give him a visit!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 9:58 AM ADT
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Wednesday, 12 April 2006
New Domain up and Running!
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Our new domain, www.unrapped.org is up and running! Please come visit and enjoy our many website features!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: , , ,

Posted by Randy at 7:56 AM ADT
Updated: Saturday, 15 April 2006 8:01 PM ADT
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Monday, 10 April 2006
Publisher Strategy - Part 3
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
Today we'll look at the third part of Kerri Pollard's advice: keeping the traffic there, or in more technical terms, converting your visitors into customers.

  • Freshen Up - Keep the content fresh and alive. No one wants to read last month's newspaper. Change is very good. Stick mostly to changing the contents of your site, and not site design, because the search spiders tend to reindex your site if you have major site design changes, which could result in a lower ranking and fewer visitors.


  • Make it Special - Try some sort of promotion or contest to keep visitors on your site.


  • Learn from the best - Look at the top-ranked pages within your category, as well as unrelated categories, and try to determine what makes them worth visiting, much like we did last week with instapundit.com. Then, of course, apply those same principles to your site.


  • Don't Back Up - Another factor that contributes to lower search rankings is users hitting the back button after they click through to your site. Do what you can to keep people on your site after the first click-through.

  • Tooltime - Consider adding a unique free tool to your site. This will encourage visitors to stay on your site, as well as revisit. Also suggest they link directly to your free tool, as this will boost your search ranking also.


  • Brush up on Technology - Podcasts and RSS feeds are two new ways to keep customers interested. I started this blog with an RSS feed available, www.angelfire.com/hiphop4/perfect_wedding/biking/rss.xml.

    Also, check out the buttons on top for adding to My Yahoo and other RSS-type services. You need an account with those services, which is free, then copy and paste the code for the buttons.

    I've also been having some fun as late with the podcast feature - sounds best if you record your telephone-generated podcast in the bathroom! If visitors like your podcast, they'll bookmark you or subscribe to your site, even if the podcast is unrelated to your site content.

    CIAO for now,
    Randy

    Posted by Randy at 9:22 PM ADT
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Sunday, 9 April 2006
Tutorial Changes
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Based on some of my readers feedback, most particularly the Bloggy Awards (check the link up top), I have implemented a few site changes. These are things you may want to consider as well. You've probably already gotten used to the subscription option I added a month ago or so. Thanks to my current subscribers! Please sign up as there's always room for more!

I have stopped clogging up my posts with links to my affiliate partners. Not only is it distracting, but I never got as many sales from them as I did from my other site, Unrapped Ministries, which offers several free Christian items (devotions, et. al.) as well as a book store.

Also, I just added a site search option, on the top left of the page. You can search for a particular item within this site or on the web, or get a site map.

Plus, I decided that I will kvetch on my podcast, which I have not used in about 6 months. I use Garage Band's Podcast Studio. Simply sign up for a free account with Garage Band. Sign up for the Podcasting portion (where it says (SIGN UP FIRST!)), then call 1-888-65-ICAST, enter the phone number you signed up with (area code and the number) and your PIN# and you're ready to record your podcast over the phone!

Leave me any comments about this podcast or any future podcasts on any comment link.

I'm considering adding a glossary as well, because the Bloggy Awards said I get a little technical at times. Look for that in the neasr future!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 1:48 PM ADT
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Publisher Strategy - Part 2
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
Today's post I am quoting verbatim from the email I received from Kerri Pollard, VP of Client Services for Commission Junction. It's great stuff!


  • Price Comparison Sites - Many online shopping sites, such as PriceRunner, will list product information and pricing for free. Set up product catalogs and feeds with sites like PriceRunner to ensure you are in front of consumers at critical decision-making times.


  • Be Specific - Are your key words too broad? Make sure you have investigated all ways for someone to find your products - right down to SKU numbers and product detail. This will help attract customers as they are ready to make a purchase.


  • Think Locally - 70% of online households use the internet to search for local services and businesses. Take advantage of the geographical targeting capabilities of the major search engines to create localized campaigns. Increasing the relevancy of your campaign will increase conversions.


  • Think Globally - Consider promoting some of the many international programs that are available for US-based publishers. When launching an international campaign, make sure that you take into account spelling variations and different regional search habits. Consider hosting your pages in the country in which you are trying to increase their ranking. Also be sure to have as many local sites from that country linking to your site, which will increase your rank.


  • Put into Context - Have you considered contextual search? By having an ad or text link next to and matched with a relevant article or other non search engine-generated content, you can increase the likelihood of receiving higher quality traffic.


  • Best Behavior - Behavioral advertising is like a close cousin of contextual search; behavioral advertising is based on a user's historical behavior on the Web, which helps you focus your ad delivery on your target audience.


  • Also, come back tomorrow for part 3, which answers the question, now that you've got the traffic, how are you going to keep them?

    CIAO for now,
    Randy

    Posted by Randy at 9:01 AM ADT
    Updated: Sunday, 9 April 2006 9:04 AM ADT
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Saturday, 8 April 2006
Publisher Strategy = Part 1
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
Commission Junction recently sent me an email written by Kerri Pollard, VP of Client Performance.

Commission Junction, in case you haven't heard of it, is an awesome affiliate network, with several well-known merchants and products, such as the following:

Internet Marketing for Dummies

This marks the beginning of a four-part series on monetizing your blog. I will, of course, be adding my own comments along with the suggestions given by Commission Junction.

Part One: Drive Traffic

1) Hide and Seek - You can find new customers on chat rooms, blogs, complementary sites, associations, and groups of people that would be interested in your site. Great places to find blogs are Blog Explosion and Technorati. If your blog is geared to a particular niche, try promoting it at social events geared to that niche.

2) Channel Surf - "Can you take advantage of e-mail campaigns or traditional online banner ads? Do some research to see if you need a multi-channel approach to driving traffic." I also use some autosurfs like Honey Hits and Smiley Traffic.

3) Cover the Basics - Make sure you are listedon the basic search and Web directories, without getting tunnel vision. That is, look beyond Google and Yahoo to niche search engines, that Google and Yahoo spider anyways.

4) Search High and Low - Keep your content current. Even is you have a storefront, keep it up-to-date with the latest products and deals. Get incoming links to your site with "press releases, blogs or a unique set of features that allow people to link to from their sites."

5) Click Up Your Heels - Look into Pay-Per-Click programs to see if they are viable options. I have incestigated the so-called "free pay-per-click" models out there, with little to no traffic. Today I investigated Yahoo's Sponsored Search. I used the Self-serve approach, which is "free." Then I selected the keywords "internet marketing tutorial," came up with a monthly click volume of zero, so I added the other theme of this blog, "make money," and came up with a daily cost of $181 (monthly $5400), due up front before I know for sure I can recoup it! So, no PPC for me, baby!

I did pay a little for a domain name for my other site, Unrapped Ministries, which should be effective within the next week. This will be more effective than the domain I purchased for this site from GoDaddy, which only serves as a placemarker with a link to this page. Then they began offering a free blog with any purchase. ARRGGHHH!

Anyway, tomorrow I will publish the next installment, "Driving Quality Traffic to your site."

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 8:37 PM ADT
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Wednesday, 5 April 2006
the fire within
Mood:  bright
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Welcome to our newest blog renter, the fire within! The writer, dieselfire, is a self-described "sloth account manager" from Malaysia and "a happy entrepreneur who has her own fashion jewelry stall at a weekend flea market."

She offers "thoughts and mundane excuses for and on living on Planet Earth as viewed by a raging fire kept alive by hatred and love equally." Intense, huh?

She has a really interesting POV, as well. Check her out, get your copy of "The Adsense Code" (priceless resource), and visit some of our fine sponsors!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 7:42 PM ADT
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