What is traffic and why should you care? Traffic, very simply, is people somehow arriving at your web site (or blog) and viewing your pages. Without this "traffic", there will be no one to sell or promote products to. In other words, traffic is the lifeblood of your Internet Marketing business.
Ok, so how do you get traffic? Lets assume you have set up a blog (either Wordpress or Blogger, etc.) and are using it to promote a Clickbank product. One obvious method of generating traffic will be making posts (referred to as content) on your blog which uses keywords associated with the product you are promoting. These keywords, contained within your post, will then get picked up by the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) and indexed. The effect of this is when someone enters a search with the keywords associated with your product, your blog posts will be associated with that search. This can help to drive traffic to your site.
You can also write and post articles on places such as Squidoo or Hubpages. You can write articles and submit them to places like Ezinearticles. You can make videos, or post on forums, or do social marketing to places like Twitter or Facebook.
All of the above creates "backlinks" to your website or post which will direct traffic to your site. The more backlinks you can obtain, the more traffic that will be directed to your site.
Once you have traffic visiting your site, you can begin to make money from promotions.
More to come. Thanks for visiting and have a very happy and safe New Year!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Some Additional Steps to Internet Marketing Success
It is generally agreed that to begin promoting (selling) products, you need a few tools. Although not absolutely necessary, you should have a web site. This can take the form of a blog. Popular choices are this site (Blogger), which is part of Google.com. Using Blogger or other similar forms do not require hosting or obtaining a domain name. In other words, there is basically no expense involved to get a web presence.
The other route would be obtaining a domain (more on this later) from places such as GoDaddy, Namecheap and others. Costs per year will range from about $8.00 to $12.00. Following this step is web hosting. There are many hosting companies with a mind-boggling array of prices and features. I would shop for one that offers a either Fantasico or a variation as this makes installing software very simple (1 click). Some popular hosts are: HostMonster, HostGator, BlueHost and JustHosts, all priced at around $4.00 per month, with similar features.
If you go with obtaining a domain and hosting, your best bet will be to use Wordpress for blogging software. There are many themes available for WP (Wordpress) some are free others are premium. Even some premium themes have free versions. Search for themes that are SEO (search engine optimized) enabled. All themes have a variety of plugins (software) providing additional features.
A few words about keywords. Keywords are probably the most important thing to understand as they are critical your success. Keywords are words that the search engines (such as Google, Yahoo and Bing) use to index pages. When you do an internet search, you type a few words into your browser's search field which you believe will retrieve the information you are searching for. The more definite the words or phrase, the more closely the search will match your request. So, if you expect people to visit your web site (or blog) and make a purchase, you will need to include some keywords in your domain or blog name. (If you are trying to promote a diet product, but your domain name or blog does not include some diet keywords, your potential customers will never find you.
There are many keyword tools you can purchase, but Google offers one for free (Google keyword tool). I have used several keyword tools but find Google's to be nearly as effective as the non-free versions. At the very least, use it while you are getting started to keep your costs at a minimum.
That's it for today. In a future post, I will begin to outline strategies for driving traffic to your site.
The other route would be obtaining a domain (more on this later) from places such as GoDaddy, Namecheap and others. Costs per year will range from about $8.00 to $12.00. Following this step is web hosting. There are many hosting companies with a mind-boggling array of prices and features. I would shop for one that offers a either Fantasico or a variation as this makes installing software very simple (1 click). Some popular hosts are: HostMonster, HostGator, BlueHost and JustHosts, all priced at around $4.00 per month, with similar features.
If you go with obtaining a domain and hosting, your best bet will be to use Wordpress for blogging software. There are many themes available for WP (Wordpress) some are free others are premium. Even some premium themes have free versions. Search for themes that are SEO (search engine optimized) enabled. All themes have a variety of plugins (software) providing additional features.
A few words about keywords. Keywords are probably the most important thing to understand as they are critical your success. Keywords are words that the search engines (such as Google, Yahoo and Bing) use to index pages. When you do an internet search, you type a few words into your browser's search field which you believe will retrieve the information you are searching for. The more definite the words or phrase, the more closely the search will match your request. So, if you expect people to visit your web site (or blog) and make a purchase, you will need to include some keywords in your domain or blog name. (If you are trying to promote a diet product, but your domain name or blog does not include some diet keywords, your potential customers will never find you.
There are many keyword tools you can purchase, but Google offers one for free (Google keyword tool). I have used several keyword tools but find Google's to be nearly as effective as the non-free versions. At the very least, use it while you are getting started to keep your costs at a minimum.
That's it for today. In a future post, I will begin to outline strategies for driving traffic to your site.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Getting Started in Internet Marketing
One of the very first things confronting a new internet marketer is what to sell. You have two basic choices: you can promote someone else's product or you can develop and sell your own.
From a start-up cost and a time-to-market standpoint, promoting someone else's product is the preferred method. Lets face it, you will not have to handle payments, refunds, dealing with customers or any number of other details the owner of a product may encounter. You simple promote, as an affiliate, any product or group of products of your choosing. In fact, your start-up costs may be zero if you choose to use one of the free blogs available such as Blogger.
So, assuming you will follow the affiliate method, your first step will be to locate a product to promote. For many, that will mean going to Clickbank.com, signing up as an affiliate and then browsing to the "marketplace" to find your first product. Although Clickbank is not the only source for products to promote, they are probably the easiest for a beginner. They have thousands of products and services you can select from and Clickbank will take care of getting you paid. This will happen as soon as someone makes a purchase using your affiliate link. Clickbank will transfer your commission (less a fee) directly to your affiliate account. So, as you can see, your only requirement is to promote products.
Typical commission rates are 50 to 70 percent of the sale price (again less Clickbank's fee) so if you promote high end products you can make a very good living. Many products offer recurring charges and you will get paid on them as well.
Some things to consider when choosing a product to promote:
More to come
From a start-up cost and a time-to-market standpoint, promoting someone else's product is the preferred method. Lets face it, you will not have to handle payments, refunds, dealing with customers or any number of other details the owner of a product may encounter. You simple promote, as an affiliate, any product or group of products of your choosing. In fact, your start-up costs may be zero if you choose to use one of the free blogs available such as Blogger.
So, assuming you will follow the affiliate method, your first step will be to locate a product to promote. For many, that will mean going to Clickbank.com, signing up as an affiliate and then browsing to the "marketplace" to find your first product. Although Clickbank is not the only source for products to promote, they are probably the easiest for a beginner. They have thousands of products and services you can select from and Clickbank will take care of getting you paid. This will happen as soon as someone makes a purchase using your affiliate link. Clickbank will transfer your commission (less a fee) directly to your affiliate account. So, as you can see, your only requirement is to promote products.
Typical commission rates are 50 to 70 percent of the sale price (again less Clickbank's fee) so if you promote high end products you can make a very good living. Many products offer recurring charges and you will get paid on them as well.
Some things to consider when choosing a product to promote:
- Pick products that pay at least $20.00 (it does not take any more effort to pick a product that pays $100.00 or more). Anything less that $20.00 is not really worth you time, unless you have a love for the product.
- Gravity is a measure of the amount of sales occurring on a product by multiple affiliates over a period of time. Many believe choosing a product with a gravity over 50 is beneficial as there is a proven market for the product.
- Consider choosing a product that has recurring billing as this will greatly enhance your earnings.
- Many vendors have detailed promotion tools set up which will help to get you going quicker.
More to come
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