Changes at Article Directories will Have a Major Impact on Article Marketing

Article directories and article marketing have been staples of Internet marketing for a long time. Changes made at any article directory tend to have a ripple effect throughout the industry.

Ezine Articles (EZA, www.ezinearticles.com) is perhaps the “Google” of article marketing and most widely used by Internet Marketers. Once upon a time, they would accept articles on any topic but those days are gone.

EZA has been evolving over the years and has made some significant changes in the recent past that will affect how you use article marketing. Some of these changes may seem like an inconvenience but in the end, all online marketers will stand to benefit in my opinion.

For example, they stopped accepting articles on the topic of PLR (See PLR = Article Vomit). Obviously, this had a big impact on PLR authors and those who submit PLR articles without changing anything before submitting to article directories. However, from the readers’ point of view it is a good change because it will cut down on reading the regurgitated content from an article directory. [Read more]

Is “Moving The Free Line” Helping or Hurting Your Online Business?

Anyone who is involved with Internet marketing or is in the “make money niche” is well aware of the fact that you need to give away lots of free stuff to attract traffic, build your list and establish yourself if you are a virtual unknown. I agree with that business philosophy to a certain degree.

However, I am beginning to get an uncomfortable feeling when I read or hear expressions like “moving the free line” and “giving your best stuff away.” Where do you draw the line? Eventually you reach a point of “diminishing returns” (economists like to call it diminishing marginal returns).

I understand that the web is built on a foundation of free – free information, free videos, free “how-to” tutorials and so on and so forth. It’s not that I don’t believe in giving away free reports and multi-part eCourses. I do want to help people who are just starting out or are struggling. I have plenty of free resources on this site that I use to draw interested visitors and acquire new subscribers who I hope will become paying customers someday. But I believe there has to be a limit to freebies and there comes a time when you need to make a business decision. After all, it is basic human nature not to pay money for something that one can get for free. [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]

7 Ways for Making Your Business Blog Be All It Can Be

Remember the U.S. army’s “Be All You Can Be” campaign? It was an incredibly popular recruiting slogan that was used for over 20 years until it was retired in 2006. How about your business blog, is it all it can be for your online venture?

I’m assuming you want your business blog to be more than just a personal journal. One way or another, you want to make money with your business blog. Be it directly with AdSense ads, affiliate ads or promoting your own information products. You want your blog to become the hub that attracts traffic, establishes your credibility and ultimately, converts into more sales.

How do you turn your business blog into a powerful sales tool? I’ve listed 7 business blogging tips here just to get you started. [Read more]

Business Blogs Can Humanize Your Online Venture

The Internet is a very impersonal medium of communication. Anyone can put up a website and make outrageous claims. In order to build credibility for your online business or yourself, you have to assure your readers, prospects and customers that a real person is behind that site. A business blog does exactly that.

Well-known corporations like Cisco, Dow and Chevron spend millions of dollars in advertising to humanize themselves. Here’s one of Cisco’s popular TV commercials, “Welcome to the Human Network.”

[Read more]

How to Sell eBooks and Build Your Online Empire

If everybody and his brother is selling eBooks online, is it possible to still make money?

The answer is “YES.” However, there’s a “BUT” and it is – only if you learn to do it right from the get go. Otherwise you may be wasting a lot of time and money trying to figure out what eBooks to create and sell to earn a living.

Why should you build your own eBook empire?

Let’s first look at some of the advantages of setting up your online shop selling eBooks. [Read more]

Trend Spotting for Hot Niche Markets in 2010

When it comes to marketing and selling information products (Info Products), there are some evergreen topics and then there are those that are hot for a period. Timing is everything! If you a niche marketer, trend spotting is important. It is a skill you need to master quickly.

A word of caution – do take the time to learn the difference between hot niches and profitable niche markets.

Trends may not be important if you are selling an eBook on Overcoming Grief or if you are selling an eBook for creating a video series on Dog Obedience because those are evergreen topics. The basic information is not likely to change from year to year.

However, if you want to market an information product in niches like fashion, Internet marketing, technology, finance or real estate, then you need to brush up on what is hot right now. Do your research on the issues that are of concern to your target audience. In other words, what are their wants, needs, problems and hot buttons? Those will develop into selling opportunities for you. [Read more]

Stop Commission Thefts by Cloaking Affiliate Links

If you visit any Internet marketing forum, you will find plenty of advice telling you to cloak your affiliate links. Most serious affiliate marketers acknowledge that link cloaking is a very important part of their online success. Are you protected?

What is link cloaking?

It is way to mask or hide the URL code of the link in order to protect your affiliate commissions from being stolen by unscrupulous people. Because there are many different ways to steal, there is no 100% foolproof method of link cloaking. However, commission theft is a big enough problem to have spawned a slew of scripts and software programs for cloaking links. [Read more]

Which Internet Marketing Strategy is Right for You?

The beginning of a new year is a good time to take stock of your online business and decide what marketing strategy you want to follow in 2010. I’m assuming you are just as fed up as I am with over-hyped get rich quick schemes and are only interested in sustainable business strategies.

As online marketers, we can learn a lot from our counterparts in the traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. An offline entrepreneur also wears many different hats but s/he quickly learns to focus on her/his main strength and delegates the rest to capable assistants.

In the same way, you have to make some tough decisions as to what parts of your online business you want to handle yourself and outsource the rest.

To determine which Internet marketing strategy is right for your online business, ask yourself these questions (be honest with yourself): [Read more]

How to Use Videos in Your Online Marketing

Quick, what’s the fastest way to generate traffic for your online business?

The answer: YouTube. Videos are the fastest way to do that, especially if they go viral.

Now before you roll your eyes and run for the hills, let me tell you exactly how easy video marketing can be.

You don’t need an expensive, top-of-the-line camcorder or be a master of the latest video editing software. All you need are 3 key ingredients to make a video that gets views.

1. Keep it real. Don’t pretend to be someone you are not. Your honesty and enthusiasm are what will help sell you and your information product – not your cinema and videography skills.
2. Create a buzz: You can bet that’s what the “teenagers” are doing to get people to view their homemade YouTube videos. They tell their friends, announcing the video using YouTube’s “Share” feature, talking about it on Facebook, leaving comments on other similar or related videos in their YouTube group.
3. Be entertaining: Your video doesn’t have to be a slick studio production but it does need to entertain your target audience. If it’s interesting, your viewers decide and not you, your videos will get views. And if it’s interesting enough, it will go viral!

[Read more]

Turning Your Content Caterpillars Into Sales Butterflies

Content is King – you’ve read and heard that many times before but what does it really mean for your online sales? You may have been disappointed by poor results despite following the recommended practice of posting fresh content on your blog and submitting to article directories.

Fresh and relevant content will drive traffic is an undisputed fact. In order to convert that traffic into paying customers, your content caterpillar must now turn into a beautiful sales butterfly.

What am I talking about? Leveraging your content.

Content doesn’t mean lifeless words that exist only on your blog or in an article. It should inform, entertain, connect and persuade visitors to delve deeper into your copy and take a desired action (sign up, click or buy).

Let’s look at this process of transforming your content. Assuming, you have some knowledge (or a lot) and are passionate about the topic of your content, why limit your knowledge to just one article? Leverage that content into several different information products.
[Read more]

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