How to Monetize and Profit from Social Media

Probably the biggest question most entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and work-at-home people have about social media is how to make money from it. Everyone is aware of the popularity of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn to name some, but very few know how to convert that into more traffic, leads or sales. The thing is that people are spending thousands of hours in social media, but aren’t making thousands of dollars from it.

These days you can’t escape hearing about how wonderful and cheap social media is. That’s great – I use it regularly. As a businessperson, I’m always looking for the best possible return on my investment of time and money. Most people understand the key role of social media but don’t know how to monetize it. Unless you have a good handle on that, investing more in social media isn’t a wise long-term strategy.

I have something that might help. [Read more]

Link Building and Social Bookmarking – a Powerful 1-2 Punch for SEO

Link building plays a vital role in every organic SEO strategy. And as things stand today, off-page SEO tactics carry the bulk of the weight as compared to on-page optimization techniques of the past. Link building is the primary weapon used in outranking your competition in search engines.

However, not all backlinks or inbound links are created equal. Google and other major search engines no longer consider simple reciprocal links valuable. As a matter of fact, the relevance and quality can significantly affect your page rank. Hang around bad backlink neighborhoods and you could be penalized. Focusing on high-quality and relevant one-way links is the name of the game now.

Link building strategies

There are several methods for one-way link building, they are:

• Directory submissions
• Article marketing and syndication
• Forum posting
• Guest blogging
• Press releases
• Paid links (see my recommendation at the end)
• Social bookmarking

This post focuses on the powerful technique of social bookmarking for link building. [Read more]

Off-Site SEO Tips for Getting Your Site Indexed Quickly

There are two components to optimizing your site for search engines. On-site SEO tactics like the proper use of Title and Description MetaTags, using keywords with appropriate density, adding key phrases in H1, H2 tags and in bulleted text and a whole host of other techniques. The second being off-site SEO tactics. More on this later.

As most people know, on-site SEO takes time to take effect. If you rely solely on these tactics, you may be waiting months before Google and other search engines index your site or blog.

Is there a way faster way to get Google to index your site? You betcha! Using some proven off-site SEO tactics can get your site indexed in a matter of days or less than two weeks. There are documented success stories out there where Google indexed a new site in as little as a few hours after launch.

Let’s define off-site SEO first. It pretty much revolves around building in-coming links to your site. Gone are the days when you could just buy thousands of links from link farms. Search engines have become too smart for that. You need to get high-quality backlinks in order move up in the search engine ranks. That usually means getting links to your site from other sites that have a high PageRank, or sites that are updated often and are crawled frequently by search engine spiders.

The good news is that there are plenty of ways to get these types of quality links to your site without paying a penny. Here are seven off-site SEO tips you can implement today at no cost: [Read more]

3 Strategies to Grow Your Business Blog

Most coaches, consultants and work-at-home entrepreneurs take the first step of creating their online presence by starting a business blog. Unfortunately, for many, the initial enthusiasm is short-lived because they suffer from what I call  “launch and hope syndrome.”

That’s when you wait with baited breath for the world to discover your blog and beat a path to your home page. However, weeks later, you are still waiting for the traffic to roll in. What happened? Nothing, zip, nada, all you’ve got are stray visitors who have spent very little time on your blog.

How do you overcome this problem? Chalk out a strategic plan to grow your business blog and stick to it. Fine-tune your strategies if necessary but don’t abandon your game plan because of a few set backs.

Here are three strategies for profitable business blogging:

1. Post content regularly and often – your readers and search engines love fresh content. At the early stages of your business blog, I recommend you post at least 2 times a week, three to four would be even better.

Set up a posting schedule that you can follow given everything else you need to get done in your busy day.

If writing is not one of your strong suits, outsource this task and/or join a PLR (Private Label Rights) membership site in your niche. Make sure you do some basic editing to your PLR materials in order to stand out from the rest.
[Read more]

3 Reasons Why Article Marketing Can Be Better Than Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

One keyword rich article can bring you hundreds of visitors for years to come. I admit it is not easy if you are new to Internet marketing, but once you write your first article and get it published, it starts to gain a life of its own. You will see a steady stream of traffic to you site.

Here are three reasons why article marketing can be better than SEO.

1. Articles don’t have mysterious and changing algorithms like search engines

While Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the best method for getting free traffic, you have to be a SEO expert to gain and remain at the top of search rankings. The search engines are constantly changing and updating their algorithm, making it more difficult to maintain top positions.

With article marketing, you don’t have to worry about any algorithms or learning closely guarded secret techniques to gain attention. All you have to focus on is keyword rich content and quality information that readers will be happy to get their hands on.
[Read more]

3 Things You Can Do Right Now to Get More Traffic

Getting traffic is the key to survival for every online business. There are many ways of attracting traffic to your site.

In this post, I will show you three simple things that you can do yourself to improve your search engine ranking to get more organic traffic. These are not difficult, they do require basic HTML skills but nothing that will need you to buy expensive software or spend weeks to learn.

1. Title Tags

The <title> tag is the single most important element on any webpage. Here’s an example of my title tag as it shows up in Google:

The reason a title tag is so important is because it tells the search engines what your page is all about. Make sure the content on the page is relevant to the title you have used.

[Read more]

Two Keys to Successful Business Blogging

A business blog is very different from a personal journal or blog. Your family and friends are more willing to listen to your opinions and rants in a personal blog. Readers of a business blog have very different expectations.

The two keys to successful business blogging, at least in my opinion are 1) Consistency and 2) Focus.

Let’s take a closer look at both these keys.

CONSISTENCY – is very important for the success of your business blog. Don’t equate consistency with boring. There are many components to consistency.

Content – stick with topics that are of interest to your readers. If you go off topic too often, you may lose some followers who rely on you for their information fix. Nothing wrong in taking a controversial stand or a contrarian view, it can actually stimulate the conversation on your blog.

Branding – from the very first impression of your business blog, people are going to form their opinion about you and your business. Being consistent with the look and feel of your blog will stamp that brand in their minds. Don’t go changing the color scheme, fonts and layout as and when it takes your fancy. It can be distracting to your visitors if they have to get used to a new look every time they come to your business blog.

[Read more]

Using a Business Blog to Reach Your Target Audience

As a business owner, whether online or off, you want to reach your ideal prospects and customers, i.e. your target audience. A business blog is the perfect tool to accomplish that online.

Assuming you already know the benefits of a business blog (P.S. see end of this post if you need help), here are the basic steps to using it to zero in on your target audience.

1. Define your target audience – Are you trying to reach work-at-home moms and dads (WHAMs/WADs)? Or is it solo coaches and consultants? Narrow it further by choosing popular interests or topics. This will make your blog a lot more focused and help it to stand out from the crowd.

2. Next, develop content that will appeal to your defined target audience. Some experts suggest that you pick topics that are popular search terms/phrases used by your audience. Others recommend writing about things that you are passionate about. I say you need a good balance. Without passion, you will have a hard time sustaining your business blog over the long haul. On the other hand you are not likely to develop a following if all you write about are topics that are of little interest to your audience.
[Read more]

Lack of Traffic Causes Launch and Hope Syndrome

You’ve worked long and hard developing your brand new site. You are excited after a successful launch. You wait with baited breath for the world to discover your website and beat a path to your home page.

Weeks later, you are still waiting for the traffic to roll in. What happened? Nothing, zip, nada, all you’ve got are stray visitors who have spent very little time on your site.

You are now suffering from a classic case of Launch and Hope syndrome.

You’ve read up on all the killer tips and followed the strategies from every Internet marketing guru out there but you still don’t have traffic. You seek advice and receive hundreds of different opinions. But there is one opinion we can all agree on and it is this: traffic is the lifeblood for any website to be successful.

Without a steady stream of targeted traffic, your website will starve and your Internet venture will die a slow death. There is just no way around it. You simply must have a flood of targeted traffic coming to your site in order to thrive.

Now that we’ve diagnosed your problem, let’s find a cure for it.
[Read more]

Writing Press Releases for Web 2.0

Is the good old press release (PR) dead? I don’t think so. PR as we know it has certainly evolved in today’s Web 2.0 world with the phenomenal growth of social media.

The modern PR has to change to remain effective. David Meerman Scott in his best-selling book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR wrote, “The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media. Blogs, online news releases, and other forms of web content let organizations communicate directly with buyers.”

There is no doubt that the rules of the game have changed but are PRs dead? Not so fast says Michael Cherenson, chairman of The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). “I don’t think we should be negating the importance of the press release,” he says.

Brian Solis, principal of FutureWorks had this to say on his blog, “The practice of blindly broadcasting messages through poorly written press releases at audiences is dead. PR is NOT necessarily dead, but without the application of a social tourniquet, it is bleeding to death.” How do you modernize a PR so it is still relevant today?

The fundamental principles of a good PR have not changed, you still need to answer the important questions – Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. However, your PR must now engage the reader in a variety of ways instead of just informing journalists.

Let’s look at the different parts of a Web 2.0 PR. I’ll use a screenshot of an actual release from prweb.com to illustrate.

Here are some tips for making your releases more effective:

• Write an attention-grabbing, strong headline of about 60 ~ 80 characters including spaces (Tweeting skills can be handy)
• Use keywords or phrases within the headline
• Try to use action oriented words and tie it to your body copy
• The optimal length for a press release should be between 500 and 700 words
• Add new angles and twists to your story to make it newsworthy
• Limit the number of hyperlinks per the published guidelines (varies)
• Include full contact information and be available for follow up calls or interviews by journalists
• Use online newswires to distribute your release
• Build a contact list of journalists in your industry and email them directly
• Contact influential bloggers in your niche and ask them to spread the word
• Comment on high-traffic forums and sites relevant to your product or service
• Post your video to YouTube and other video distribution services
• Post to your own site and/or blog

When you submit press releases to various online newswires, they can spread like wildfire. They are picked up by other websites – and very frequently Google News & About.com leading to a steady stream of Website traffic. Make press releases an ongoing part of your marketing not just when news happens. Use them to engage your customers throughout the buying cycle and reach them directly via social media.

Want to learn more about writing and marketing with press releases? Take a look at my new small report “The Solopreneur’s Guide to Marketing with Press Releases.”

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Show Some Love with CommentLuv

As a blog owner, you probably already know the value of getting backlinks for driving traffic to your site or blog. However, link building takes time, patience and some planning to really payoff.

I use CommentLuv – a free WordPress plugin that will retrieve the last post from the comment author’s site and display it at the bottom of the comment. It is a great way to show appreciation to your visitors and encourage more of them to leave comments.

You might consider adding CommentLuv to your blog also. Encouraging comments from other blog owners is a good way to start a two-way conversation your site. Site visitors will be able to leave their thoughts and opinions while helping you build a niche community.

If they feel appreciated while on your blog, they’re far more likely to return to your site and/or subscribe to your ezine or RSS feed. Over time, you’ll build a network of loyal followers.

When you comment on other blogs, try to choose Dofollow blogs with CommentLuv enabled. These blogs encourage high quality comment, and are more likely to welcome your content instead of treating it as spam. Leave a thoughtful comment that’s relevant to the post. It will generate a backlink to your own blog.

Commenting on blogs is a two way street – leaving high quality comments on other people’s blogs will encourage them to leave comments on yours. Most bloggers know the value of a solid backlink, and are more willing to allow backlinks if you show them some love too. Your blog is a great opportunity to show just how valuable backlinking can be for them.

Want to learn more about link building? Get my small report, “Using Dofollow Comments For Link Building.”

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