Automating your online business is one of the most important steps you can take to insure your success on the internet.
If you have been on the internet for any time at all, you know that there are just too many tasks to do each day to be really efficient and productive with them all.
Learning to delegate some of those routine, daily activities is one way to insure your site’s success and to give you much more time in the day for the most important task which is that of promotion and marketing your site.
HERE ARE 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO AUTOMATE TODAY:
1) USE AUTO-RESPONDERS:
Probably one of the best-known and popular ways to handle routine messages to inquirers is the use of auto-responders.
It is simple and easy to set up your messages which usually involve several follow-up messages to remind your visitors what you are offering and how to find your site again.
Here are some free ones:
.freeautobot.com/ (ad free also.)
.getresponse.com/
.sendfree.com/’
.sendthisfree.com/
2) MAILING LIST MANAGEMENT:
If you are trying to run your own newsletter, handling the process by yourself can eat up a lot of valuable time. In the beginning this may be possible, but as your list grows and the tasks involved keep multiplying, your time demands will increase also.
There are lots of ways to manage a mailing list including installing your own scripts and purchasing your own software. Weigh the pros and cons, but be sure and check out the possibility of *farming out* the responsibility to a mailing list service.
Here are some to consider:
.ezinedirector.com/
.mail-list.com/
.zinester.com/ (free and paid versions)
Free ones include:
groups.yahoo.com/
.topica.com/
3) USE SOFTWARE:
There are many software options available depending upon your work online. Here are some possible software applications available. Just do a search online.
~Creating links to your site and others.
~HTML editors
~Ad swaps
~Promotion
~Subscription management
~Survey forms
4) PAYMENT SYSTEMS:
Well, this is just a no-brainer. It is just too simple not to do this one.
Having an automated payment system that allows you to accept credit card payments for your products or services and is something that everyone has to have to be successful online.
Here are a couple of third-party ones that I use and recommend:
ClickBank– .ClickBank.com/
PayPal– .PayPal.com/
5) AD TRACKING SYSTEM:
If you are going to advertise your products and/or services online, then it is critical that you track your results.
Knowing how many hits you got to your site is nice, but it won’t take care of your questions like, “Where did my traffic and sales come from?”
Here are some ad tracking systems. (Some offer free versions.)
.BusiToolz.com/
.hypertracker.com/
.adminder.com/
Implementing these five time-saving helpers is a very important benchmark in moving your business into a phase that will free up some time to insure your success online.
Best of luck with your promotional efforts.
Larry Johnson, author
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In one of my articles, I discussed how to market your web site link twice. It detailed out how to promote not only .yoursite.com but how you should also promote your site without the ., like this: yoursite.com.
This article is to talk about promoting ALL of your pages within your marketing campaign. See, most of us typically only promote the main page on our sites. Ex. .yoursite.com. The truth is, your site is much more than just the 1st page right? Well, let’s condition ourselves to promote everything available within your site…
Search Engine Marketing is crucial for all companies who want to succeed online. I’m sure at one point or another, you will hear how “Optimizing your site for search engines is crucial”. Of course, they aren’t fooling you, it is a crucial marketing tactic but, what is also crucial is learning how to use different tools to boost your search engine placements once you’ve optimized your site for the web.
So let’s talk about the marketing tactics available to you and implement strategies on how to promote all your pages within them.
LINK EXCHANGES:
Link popularity has become a norm for most small companies to implement in their daily promoting activities. Here’s the problem, most companies that perform link exchanges daily fail to utilize it to their advantage. For ex. Let’s say you perform approximately 10 link exchanges daily. For each one, you submitted your link “.yoursite.com”. What you’ll want to start implementing is submitting 10 different links within your site.
Ex Link Exchanges:
Link #1: yoursite.com
Link #2: yoursite.com/resources
Link #3: .yoursite.com/services
And so on…
A good strategy would be to open up “Note Pad” and create all the links you want to promote.
1) Add each link
2) Assign an appropriate title to each link
3) Create an appropriate description for each link
Now all you have to do is to copy and paste each link when performing your daily link exchanges.
WRITING ARTICLES:
Do you write articles to promote your site??? If you do, then you probably have created a “Resource Box” at the end of each article right??? Good, let’s change the resource box a little.
My site is host to 100’s of Marketing Articles and the 1 thing I notice time & time again is that each author (no disrespect to any of the wonderful authors) Typically only add the main page of their web site within their “resource box”.
Ok, let’s say you write articles about “Search Engine Marketing”. At the end of the article, add a link to a page on your site that talks about “Search Engine Marketing” or something similar.
Ex. .yoursite.com/search_engine_marketing.html
So with that in mind, try revising all your articles to point to specific pages on your web site.
DIRECTORY SUBMISSIONS:
Submitting your site to directories will give your site long lasting traffic. Not all directories will accept any link from your site besides the main page. This is ok though, there are literally 100’s of other directories that will allow you to submit any page you want.
Experiment with this and try to change up all your links when your submitting to directories.
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND : Using anything other than your main page for directories like: OPD Open Project Directory or Yahoo.
So now you have 3 proven marketing strategies on how to improve your search engine placements for all of your pages instead of only your main page. Be creative with this and look for more strategies you can implement this tactic with.
Many times I’ve seen a web site undergo a revision and everything is brand new, even brand new links! You’ve worked so hard to get those great page ranks for all your pages and then you get rid of them? NO NO NO.
Many times I’ve seen a web site undergo a revision and everything is brand new, even brand new links!
You’ve worked so hard to get those great page ranks for all your pages and then you get rid of them? NO NO NO. It’s the same reason why people buy “expired domains”. Simply because before search engines, directories & web sites have a chance to notice there is no web site anymore, someone simply changes the site to fit their needs and utilizes the traffic coming in!
Let’s say that you’ve made up your mind and you want to change the entire layout of your site. Before you do so, go through all your links and record the page rank that your pages have right now.
Ex.
Page 1 (PR 3/10)
Link: .yoursite.com/page1
Page 2 (4/10)
.yoursite.com/page2
Page 3 (2/10)
.yoursite.com/directory/page3
Now I would look at those pages and utilize the pages that have a rank of (4/10) for my most important information when I consider the new layout. Doing so will automatically get my page listed under the new information within Google.
Typically, I don’t usually re-use pages that have a rank of 2/10, 1/10, 0/10. Anything higher will be strongly considered.
This will help search engines to recognize, a) Yes the site has changed, b) we are familiar with the pages they are re-using.
People BOOKMARK pages all the time!
What if you deleted all your old pages and created some new ones what will happen to your visitors that have a bookmark for those old pages??? They are now left feeling like your site is down, deleted or doesn’t exist anymore.
If you’re going to discard some old links, try adding a “Page no longer exist” message to let your users know that you know about the problem and you are sorry for the inconvenience.
So when re-designing your entire site, don’t be afraid to re-use those high ranking links you already have for your site.
Searching For All Your Pages Online:
If you’re like me, and you have well over 500 pages listed in google, you’ll want to go through google to see if you’ve missed any pages while performing changes on your site.
type in “.yousite.com” in Google so that you get your main link. Don’t forget the brackets.
You should see underneath your listing a link that states: “[ More results from .smartads.info ]”
This will show you all the pages listed within Google. Take a moment to go through all the links found within Google and make sure that you’ve caught all your old, outdated pages and correct the problem accordingly.
Good luck with all your changes!
Many coaches put up web sites with the hope of getting clients from the Web. What usually happens is they get nothing.
Here’s the reason.
A web site isn’t an ad. No one “peruses” web sites in some “web site newspaper.” In fact, no one will go to your site unless you specifically invite them. A web site actually needs advertising.
You need to build traffic to your site.
There are a lot of great ways to do this and one terrific way is with backlinks.
What is a backlink?
A backlink is a link FROM another site TO your site.
For example, if you are a member of Coachville, and someone is looking for a coach, then it is possible that this person sees your listing in the “Find a Coach” section and clicks a link to your web site.
This is a backlink from Coachville to your site.
Backlinks are also referred to as “in-bound links” and sometimes can be called “reciprocal links.”
Many of the links that coaches have on their web site are designed to take visitors from the coach’s web site to other web sites. These are usually located in a link section or a resources section. These are also called “forward links” or “outbound links.”
The important thing to note is that a backlinks bring visitors TO your site. Once visitors come to your web site, you can turn them into clients, product sales, newsletter subscribers, commissions and more.
So why are backlinks totally awesome?
Firstly, the obvious, is direct traffic to your site. This traffic can be cashed in for clients or sales.
Secondly, when done right, “backlinking” can sky-rocket your search engine rankings and thus result in even more traffic.
How?
From the eyes of search engines, your “site’s worth” increases when the number of backlinks increases. Each backlink raises the popularity of your web site.
It’s like being the popular kid in school. The more kids who know you, the more popular you are.
What does this lead to?
When people put the phrase “life coach” into a search engine, for the most part, the sites with higher popularity will come up first.
Thirdly, backlinks can create consistent traffic.
Sending out newsletters and giving talks often bring you immediate “bursts” of traffic.
Bursts of traffic are great, but require you to make those additional efforts in order to continue to get that traffic.
Backlinking builds a steady, consistent, and predictable stream of traffic that keeps coming without additional work. You can confidently expect the same number of visitors each month.
Fourthly is the snowball-effect.
Creative backlinking strategies can create a situation where your web site is attracting backlinks without you doing any work at all. It’s like a snowball going down-hill that continues to grow.
Establishing a profitable E-commerce site is a tough job nowadays. Thousands of companies are struggling against each other to get more and more profit out of the internet. You should use each and every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales.
Most of us are into doing online business to make money and not to lose it. Would never waste our time and effort just beating about the bush. Most of us do not have the patience to wait forever to see profits. While there are a few who takes things lightly, there are always hundreds of others who would accept nothing less than profit everyday.
It is a known fact that any business depends on customers. In the internet, the potential customers come in form of traffic. Traffic represents all the people who visits your website and sees what you have to offer. The more the people seeing your products, the more is the chance of selling them.
None would put up an E-commerce site that runs in loss. We have to regain our initial investment. With a consistent flow of traffic, we at least have a chance of doing that. Monetizing your traffic increases your chance of making your business a success greatly.
The best method to earn profit out of traffic on the internet is to use advertising. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there on the internet looking for something or the other. Many of them might be looking for something which your company has to offer. You can use the power of advertising to tap that potential and earn great profit.
The yore days of internet when it was deemed useless for finding information that you want is gone. Now, internet has proved itself to be a very reliable source of information as well as products. It has shrunken the whole world into a global village. It has broken all geographic barriers and has united the world. No matter where you live, you can always have the internet and do business with the other side of the globe.
Generating traffic is not an easy task. You have to work on a large number of ideas and take the help of a large number of services to generate a good amount of traffic. But if you are willing to sacrifice the time and energy needed to do this, you could end up opening a large number of possibilities.
So, getting to the root of it, the more traffic you have flowing into your site, the more is your chances of getting good profit. Generally speaking, traffic is directly proportional to profit. And to generate traffic, you should take advertising to your benefit. With some research and use of advertising schemes, you could end up in huge profits.
Having traffic means having potential customers. They can buy products from you and result in your profit. Else, they could also be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you in exchange of traffic that you send to them. This system is often called the “pay-per-click” scheme. With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. Thus, the more traffic that you have, the more is the chance that they would click on an advertised link, thus increasing your profit.
Affiliate Programs
Another very good and proven method of monetizing your traffic is by using affiliate programs. In these programs, you can link up with big sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a fraction of sales generated by traffic sent from your site.
One of the other benefits is that traffic from your site may go to another site that could offer a product that you do not carry. Most programs keep track of and make records of transactions that were made possible because of site linkage and on the basis, pay you. Thus, affiliate programs give you the benefit of monetizing your traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.
These are some of the many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The best that can happen is that you would augment your profit and the worst that could happen is that you might lose a little time and perhaps a little money. But, it happens rarely that someone can’t make any profit out of proper work and planning. Thus, monetizing your traffic is something worth trying.
In the first part, we discussed how backlinks bring you direct traffic in addition to increased search engine rankings. That’s totally awesome!
In the second part, we went into keys on creating a good backlink. This included choosing good places for backlinks, as well as making the link attractive to both search engines and people.
In this third part, we will get you started on where to start looking for backlinks so you can begin to build traffic, get more clients, and sell more products.
Getting started
As a coach, you are probably the last person who needs to hear this, but just like any endeavor, it’s good to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timed) goals.
For example, if you aren’t getting any action at your web site because you have very little traffic, then a good goal would be five inquiries a month, six months from now.
The next step is to set aside time to get backlinks. A great start is to commit a measly one hour a week.
Backlinking takes time.
It takes time for you to find places to get backlinks. It takes time for other web sites to set up your backlink. It takes time for search engines to find those links.
Therefore, the next thing to do is set up a spreadsheet to help you keep track of backlink request that have not yet been fulfilled.
The spreadsheet should include:
• The web site you are seeking a link from
• The date you requested the link
• The title and description of the link
• A box to mark of when your link has been set up
• A place to put miscellaneous notes
Your first target &ndash The Open Directory Project
The ODP (The Open Directory Project) is a general web directory that catalogs web sites on the Internet.
The ODP is a great place to start your backlinking program for two reasons.
The main reason is that many search engines hold The ODP in high regard &ndash that is, if your web site is listed in The ODP, it must be a legitimate site. This helps your rankings.
Secondly, The ODP has simple, clear submissions guidelines which familiarize you with the process of requesting backlinks from other web sites.
The Open Directory Project is here:
.dmoz.org
There are a lot of other directories and the number grows. To find more popular directories, simply do a search on “top web directories 2006.”
Take a second to celebrate!
Once you have gotten listed in The Open Directory Project, stop and celebrate!
Up to this point you have:
• Devised a linking plan.
• You have learned about submission policies.
• You broke past a common resistance point: getting started!
• You now have one of the most valuable links you can get.
You have created the core system of building your traffic. All you need to do is “rinse and repeat.”
Next - Coaching-Specific Directories
You may not be aware of them, but there are web directories that are specific to coaches.
For example, .lifecoachguide.com has listings of life coaches.
By getting listed in coaching-specific directories, your web site will gain higher rankings when people do searches related to coaching.
For example, if you get listed in a life coach directory, then your web site will rank higher for the term “life coach.”
These types of directories are easy to find. Just do a search on “life coach directory.”
Next - Coaching Organizations
Coachville is a great place for a backlink. Their link section is very easy for search engines to find, and the Coachville’s web site is very popular.
They are, however, making some modifications to their site which may eliminate the search engine value of getting a backlink from Coachville.
A backlink at ICF’s web site is good for possible referrals when someone is using their “Find a Coach” service.
Unfortunately, the ICF’s directory pages don’t give you a backlink that search engines can easily find (at the time of this writing). So your search engine rankings aren’t improved by being listed here.
Next - Other Existing Relationships
Many coaches belong to local networking groups like BNI or Chamber of Commerce.
Getting links to your site from these places are valuable because they are often easy to get, they give you more local appeal, and you often have a high degree of control over what goes into your link.
Happy Hunting
The above plan can keep you busy for months.
Over time, your tracking senses will sharpen and you will discover more and more places to seek for backlinks. Jot them down as you go.
You will see an increase in web site traffic and activity in as little as one to two months.
After about six months you’ll be cooking!
Good luck and happy backlinking!
When it comes to Link popularity and its relevance into getting better traffic, we all know that it is a necessary thing. Link popularity is one of the ways that search engines like google and yahoo give your site better rankings. You can search through different sites advertising about link popularity that say they can increase it overnight with thousands of links directing to your site.
Let me tell you something, this is a bad decision to make if you are thinking about any of these services. I have experience in this field and thousands of links are not going to help your site out any!
One of the best ways to approach link popularity is to think about the relevance of your site to one you would like to link to. It is better for you to have a small amount of links to your site than having a large amount if the relevance is high! The higher the relevance, the less links you need to have to increase your popularity. Google and Yahoo do not only look at the amount of links, but the quality of links. The better quality, the better positioning and page rank. So do yourself a favor and work on getting your links on quality relevant websites and you will reap the rewards of doing this right!
Many times your site will get backlinks without you asking for them. This article doesn’t go into those kinds of links. Instead, we focus on the links you can control and specifically request.
Additionally, this article doesn’t go into backlinks from paid advertising like Google ads. Those kinds of links often don’t carry much value in the eyes of search engines.
A solid backlink has three components.
By “solid,” I’m referring to a backlink that not only brings you traffic from someone clicking it but also brings the added value of enhancing your search engine rankings.
The three components are:
1. Choose good places to put links
2. Make it scrumptious for search engines
3. Make it irresistible to prospects
1. Choose a good place
There are a limitless number of web sites you can get linked from. They can range from general web site directories to coaching organization web sites to individual blogs.
Here are the main things to consider:
First, put your link in front of your target audience. Request backlinks from web sites that have the same target audience as you.
Next, choose web sites that are credible.
When credible web sites link to you, search engines will recognize it. They will give your site more “worth” and higher rankings.
For example, a link from a “quick and easy to set up” web page at myspace.com won’t be as valuable as a link from the home page of the “well established” msn.com.
Thirdly, place your link on web sites that get a lot of traffic as opposed to web sites that get very little traffic.
BUT … keep in mind that web sites with low traffic can be valuable if their audience is the same is yours.
Finally, choose web sites that display your link prominently.
Take a look at where your link will be positioned on the page. A link at the top of an easy-to-view web page is better than a link at the bottom of a long-and-busy page.
It’s better because it will get more clicks and search engines give more “kudos” to links towards the top of a page than at the bottom, generally speaking.
2. Make it scrumptious for search engines
How?
First, use simple text links when you can.
Simple text links are the most commonly used links on the Web, and are characterized by underlined text in a different color (usually blue) than surrounding text.
Text links are good because:
• They are very easy for search engines to find and follow. This makes it easy for search engines to put into their database.
• It’s easy for search engines to identify the keywords to associate with this link. This helps your rankings for those keywords.
Other links like image links, Java-Script links, Flash links, or dynamic links are less ideal because they are tough to follow and are often associated with S-PAM-mers.
Next, put your main keywords in your text link. Putting your web site’s keywords in your text link will boost your web site’s ranking for those keywords.
Lastly, you will often be allowed a description with your link to further explain your web site. This description text is also a good place to put your keywords.
3. Make it irresistible to prospects
So far we have discussed how to please the search engine. But if we can’t make the link attractive to the people who see it, we are missing out on good traffic.
Here’ are some tips to maximize clicks on your backlink:
• Get the main benefit or main problem you solve into the text around the link in readable sentences.
• Offer something fr*ee to motivate people to click your link. This can be an article, report, assessment, newsletter, ebook, etc.
• Keep it simple, direct and easy to read. Don’t jam keywords around the link.
• If your backlink will be on a page with other competing coaches, then be sure to emphasis how your services are different to make you stand out.
An example.
Here’s a listing of executive coaches from DMOZ:
dmoz.org/Business/Management/Consulting/Executive_Coaching/
On this page you will see links and descriptions.
This directory is good because it has text links and you can also provide a keyword rich description to help your rankings.
Also notice how this page is long with a lot of listings. It can look like a big blur.
About the only motivation to click is a fr*ee consultation. How about a fr*ee article specifically discussing something interesting that one could download right away?
Let’s wrap up …
Keep in mind these three keys …. choose a good place, make it scrumptious to search engines, and make it irresistible to visitors. Doing so will make your backlinks solid anchors that drive potential clients to your site.
Now you know why backlinks are good and how to write one.
So you’ve got a website ready to go and you want to get the word out to either make money on it or promote it so it’s the most popular page of it’s kind. Now what?
Well, the first thing you should do is double check to make sure the site is as search engine friendly as possible. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Done? Perfect. So, now it’s easy for the search engines to find and categorize it once they do find it. Time to get that website where it can be seen.
One of the most common ways to get a site’s pressence known in through Pay-Per-Click campaigns. They will assure you that the most qualified and targetted visitors come to your website. Keep your keyword and phrases as relevant as possible. If you keep your bids low it can be a profitable campaign when it targets the right audience. Keep track of the keywords people are clicking on to go to your site as well. This can tell you if you’re targeting the right people or if you need to change your ad approach. Yahoo and Google are two very popular websites to do PPC campaigns on. There’s numerous articles on the benefits and banes of PPC, and though it’s not the focus on this one, it’s usefulness to site promotion can’t be simply disregarded.
Posting on forums is another way to promote your site. Do it specifically on forums with a topic relevant to your website. Check the TOS and make sure you can do it there first though. Simply placing our web address in your signature can create clicks through the forum, as well as create backlinks for your site. If the forum has a high Page Rank in Google it will work out even better for you. The main benefit of this is the backlinks your posts create which some search engine “spiders” deem gradually more important as they find your site linked more and more in different places on the internet.
On the idea of linking, reciprocal linking is another way to promote your website. This just means trading links with someone by putting a link on your website to them and they put a link on their website to you. Websites like Link Market and SEO Link Exchange are designed for just this purpose. As long as you keep the sites linking to you and from you relevant to your own site it should be just a matter of time before the search engine spiders find your site. The old fashioned way of emailing the webmaster of the site’s can do it for you as well, but web services like the aformentioned ones, get rid of smaller steps that might make it harder to get linked using simple “Accept”/”Reject” buttons.
I hope this helps get your site to the top of the search engines.
Blogging: the act of writing in one’s weblog. To blog something is to write about something in one’s weblog. This usually involves linking to something the author finds interesting on the internet.
A weblog is a public web site where users post informal journals of their thoughts, comments, and philosophies. So basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog could be set up to no cost at all, and can be used for just for the fun of it or for business reasons.
Blogging itself isn’t new at all, it’s populary is. Thousants of teenagers all around the world see blogging as an outlet for their emotions, their opinions and interests. Smart marketers however, have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that won’t cost you a cent.
Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to boost the visibility of your products and services.
Find some tips to boost your internet advertising with the help of a blog below:
* Keep your customers informed about changes to your website. Important updates, like your new products and affiliate sites, could also be announced through your blog
* Use your blog as an archive: keep track of your business objectives and plans through open writing. What could be better than searchable information that could be easily accessed by anyone browsing the web, right?
* Write reviews, give your opinion or advice on on specific services or products that are related to your business.
* Be sure to include links that will fetch back links and subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. Affiliate links in the form of advertisement banners could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.
* Add fresh and quality content to your weblog on a regular basis: search engines like fresh content.
*Post quality content articles to your blog. Allow your visitors to reprint those articles on condition that the author by-lines remain unchanged, and the link url’s are left intact. This way, links to your website will spread around the net.
* Encourage your visitors to leave comments and feedback. It’s the best way to learn and improve your products/services.
* Exchange links with other bloggers.
In fact, when it comes to blogging, the sky is the limit. Once you’re comfortable using a weblog, it’s up to you to get creative. Add sound, video, eBooks, pictures, advertisements, … and give your website the boost it deserves!