How To Get Started The Right Way In Internet Marketing (pt 6)

This article will touch on ways to generate traffic. If you
recall, part 2 of this series was about finding long tail
keywords keywords related to your niche. Using the methods
outlined there, you would have a list of such keywords. Now is
the time to use them. Also, if you had done paid traffic
generation methods in the last part (part 5) of this series, you
would also know which keywords made you money. These are also
the keywords to use in today's traffic generation methods. 

 This article will focus on the free traffic generation methods. 
Everyone likes free stuff but as mentioned in the last article,
there are pros and cons to free traffic generation methods. The
most important and crucial part about using free traffic
generation methods is getting the right keywords. If you target
wrong keywords, you are dead in the water even before starting. 
It's that important. 

 So please review part 2 of this series to make sure you get your
keywords right. In essence, right (or good) keywords are those
which fulfill these criteria: 

 1. They are used by people (searchers in search engines) who
want to buy something in your niche. Obviously, a keyword phrase
with the word 'free' in it is not what you want to target. 
2. They are precise in meaning. That's why Internet Marketers
go for long tail keywords (those that have at least three words
in the phrase). Long tail keywords are very precise. You know
exactly what the searcher is looking for and therefore can
provide it to him. 
3. They must be words that are connected to a compelling need. 
Everyone has needs but not every need is compelling. Compelling
needs are those which have to do with relieving pain or enhancing
pleasure. For example, 'get rid of head lice' is a good keyword
phrase that is about a compelling need. 
4. They must have a high search count and low SERP count
(defined in part 2). How high and how low is a matter of choice.
Obviously, the higher the search count and the lower the SERP
count, the better the keyword. 
5. Page 1 of Google for the keyword phrase must not have too
many exact matches or be full of websites with a high page rank
(PR). There are 10 results on page 1. If a majority of these
are websites with exact matches in their descriptions or titles,
that is a bad sign. Likewise, if a majority of the page 1
websites have a PR of 4 or higher, that's a bad sign, too. 

 You can find out the page rank of any webpage by using Firefox's
page rank plugin. 

 Once you have a list of keywords that fulfill these 5 criteria,
then it is possible to generate some massive traffic (depending
on the niche). And the good thing is that all the traffic is
free. 

 The next article will focus on the actual free traffic generation
methods to use. 


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Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing pt 5

Now that you have your product ready and your website set up, it
gets more exciting because it is time to promote your website. 
In other words, it is time for traffic generation. There are
literally tons of ways to drive traffic to your website. But
broadly, they can be divided into two main kinds of traffic
generation. You can either pay for it or get it free. 

 There are pros and cons to both ways. Obviously, the paid
traffic generation methods cost money but on the positive side,
they get you fast and often targeted results. On the other hand,
the free traffic generation methods do not cost money but on the
negative side, they are generally slower and may not produce much
targeted traffic. 

 There is no silver bullet when it comes to traffic generation. 
Every method works to some extent, so you need to choose which
ones suit you the best. But generally, traffic generation is a
numbers game. This means the more you do it, the better results
you get in the long run. 

 If you can afford it, it's better to start promoting your website
with paid traffic methods. This includes Google Adwords, Yahoo
Search and MSN Adcenter. These three major search engines work
roughly the same way. You design your advertisement according to
the search engine's specifications and specify certain parameters
like the countries you want to advertise in and the dollar limit
on advertising you want to spend in one day. Generally, you are
billed for the number of clicks on your advertisement. Each
click brings the searcher to your website where they are
presented with your product. Some will buy and then you profit. 

 As you can tell, there is a danger of losing a lot of money in
these paid advertising methods when lots of people click but no
one buys. To reduce the possibility of this happening, there are
two things to do. Firstly, put your long tail keywords into your
advertisement. This ensures targeted visitors going to your
website. A targeted visitor is one who has been looking for a
solution to his problem that your product gives. Such a visitor
to your website is much more likely to buy your product than a
less targeted visitor. 

 Secondly, avoid advertising in certain countries known to have
lots of browsers but not many buyers. Two of such countries are
India and the Philippines. Chances are, you will get lots of
clicks from these countries but few sales. 

 Besides text ads, you can also make image ads on the paid
advertising networks of the search engines. Image advertisements
consist of banners of certain sizes specified by the search
engines. Image ads are not as popular as text ads so that makes
it generally cheaper. But they work fine and are certainly worth
a try. 

 The reason it is better to go for paid traffic generation methods
first is because with paid advertising, you can get quick
results. You also can determine which keywords produce good ROI.
Once you have carried out paid advertising for a few weeks, you
can switch to free advertising using the same keywords that have
produced good results for you. 

 Free traffic generation methods will be the topic for the next
article.


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Getting Started in Internet Marketing (part 4)

Now that you have got a product, the next logical step would be
to sell it. Here's where many newbie Internet marketers get it
wrong. 

 The biggest mistake you can make is to set up a website, write
about your ebook on the website and expect people to visit your
website in droves and buy your ebook. It does not work that way.
In other words, if you think you can 'create it and they will
come', you are mistaken. Even with targeted keywords, great
website design and a killer product, hardly anyone will find your
website if you do not promote it. 

 So there are a few more steps to take before you will see your
first sale. 

 Firstly, you need to design your website. In the past, you could
get by with a simple two page website - a sales letter and a
thank you or download page. As recently as 4 years ago, such
simple websites would still get ranked by Google. Actually 4
years is a long time in Internet marketing and a lot has happened
since then. The most significant development was the Google
Slap. 

 The Google Slap is the term used to mean that Google now wants
your website to contain quality content and not just a sales
pitch. These days, if you just put up a 2 page website without
good content, Google will not rank it well. In other words, you
will find your website in page 1,245 in Google's search results
or something like that. 

 So when you design your website, you have to make sure that it
has more than just a sales page. There are many ways to design a
website and each person has his or her own preference. A good
practice would be to make your website have at least 8 pages - a
home page, a sales page, a blog, a thank you or download page, a
privacy policy, a disclaimer (especially if your product is
connected with making money), a contact page and an about us
page. 

 Briefly, a home page would contain a welcome message and an
introduction to your website. It should also contain an opt-in
box where you collect the names and emails of visitors so that
you can build your list. To incentivize visitors to give you
their names and emails, you need to provide a freebie like a
short report, video, audio or a newsletter. Make your freebie
connected to your niche topic. 

 A blog would contain the latest news in your niche, interesting
articles or your personal teaching on your niche. Many Internet
marketers and webmasters put their blog in a separate directory
on their website. That means the blog URL would be
http://www.mydomain.com/blog. Alternatively, you could purchase
another domain with the same domain name but different extension
as your blog. Then you could link your blog to your main
website. This gives your main website added 'link juice' in
Google's eyes. 

 'Link juice' is the term referring to how many links are pointing
to your website. The more links you have, the better it is for
your website. You need both external and internal links for your
website. External links are other websites linking to yours and
internal links are internal pages of your website that link to
each other. 

 All the other pages of your website are self-explanatory. Once
you have your website up, the next thing you want to do is
promote it. That will be covered in the next article.

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Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing (part 3)

Now that you have identified your target market and gathered your
10 or so long tail keywords, it's time to create your product. 
Product creation may take you anywhere from one day to two weeks
so during this period, it is wise to put some other steps into
action also. Here are 2 things you should do simultaneously with
product creation. 

 First, you should register a domain name. Go to namecheap.com or
godaddy.com. Choose one with your long tail keyword inside. If
the exact long tail keyword has already been taken, try adding
another word that makes it attractive, such as 'best', 'tips',
'online', 'center' etc. For example 'organic farming' can become
'organicfarmingtips'. 

 As for the extension to choose, go for a .com if possible. If
that has been taken for the domain name you want, take either a
.net or .org. The next best option other than these three would
be a .biz or .info. These are the common ones considered to be
search engine friendly. 

 The reason why you should register a domain name now is that it
takes 24-48 hours to propagate, and you will only be able to
upload content into that domain after it has propagated. So by
registering a domain name while you work on product creation, you
save time. 

 The second thing you should do while creating your product is
join relevant forums in your niche. Every niche has forums where
people interested in their niche hang out. To find these forums,
type the name of your niche followed by the word 'forum' (without
quotes) at the end into Google's search engine. So, for organic
farming, it would be 'organic farming forums'. Join at least 4
forums. 

 Joining a forum is easy. Just go to the sign up page and fill up
the required fields. Every forum allows you to insert a
signature. Here's where you should put your website URL with
some catchy statement. If your website has not been set up yet,
you can add your signature later. 

 One feature to utilize in your signature is BB Codes. BB Codes
is like html. For your signature you only need to know 2 BB
Codes - the one for hyperlinking and the one for making your
words bold. To hyperlink your words to your website URL, the
opening BB Code is [url=http://www.yourdomain.com] and the
closing BB Code is [/url]. For example, if you want to hyperlink
the sentence, 'Secret Tips to Organic Farming for Good Health',
type [url=http://www.yourdomain.com]Secret Tips to Organic
Farming for Good Health[/url] in your signature column. Now
anyone who clicks on that sentence will be directed to your
website. 

 And if you want to bold your words, just add the bold BB Codes
which are [b] and [/b] at the beginning and the end of the string
of code above. So it would appear like this -
[b][url=http://www.yourdomain.com]Secret Tips to Organic Farming
for Good Health[/url][/b]. Most forums have BB Code on by
default. But check just in case. 

 For more BB Codes, just Google it. 

 It's important to join forums as soon as possible because it
takes time to build relationships. So post anything you want
into these forums everyday (take 30 minutes a day). If you
aren't very knowledgeable in that niche, just post intelligent
questions. The more posts you make, the better your standing in
the forum. The relationships you make in these forums will be
very valuable to you when your product is ready. 

 Another important thing to do while at forums is to look for the
most frequently asked questions and most common problems faced by
the members in the forums. Take note of these because you want
to include these into your product. 

 Now for product creation. The easiest way to create your product
is to go to Amazon and type in the main keyword for your niche. 
Amazon will probably produce a list of books on that topic. Find
one you like and look into the contents page. Copy the contents
page and re-write the chapter titles the best you can. Also
include the questions and problems that you found in the forums
into the chapters. 

 The fastest way to produce your product is to outsource it. Go
to elance.com or guru.com and post a job for a researcher to
research the list of chapters you have compiled. This person
only has to cut and paste information from various sources
according to the chapters you give him. It should not take more
than 2 or 3 days. 

 Once you get the research back, look for a writer to re-write the
research materials into an ebook of 80 to 100 pages in length. 
This should take no longer than a week. You can find good
writers from the Philippines who work at cheap rates. Be
prepared to pay about $100 for the researcher and $200 for the
writer. 

 So in about 10 days you should have your product ready. Now you
need a designer to design your ebook cover and website. What to
do from here onwards will be covered in the next article.

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