Advanced Internet Marketing

Once you have mastered the basics of marketing on the internet and are seeing results, you need to move onto advanced internet marketing. Even if you aren’t ready to actually implement advanced marketing, knowing about it in advance can help you prepare for jumping into it when the time is right.

Why Worry About Advanced Internet Marketing?

Many people learn the basics of internet marketing and then stop. They figure they are doing well right where they are, so there is no reason to move forward. Why mess with a good thing?

There are plenty of reasons why you need to know as much about internet marketing as you can. You may be doing very well on your website right now, but you need to be constantly growing your marketing and adapting to the changing demands of your potential customers if you are going to stay ahead. This is where advanced internet marketing comes into the picture.

In regular marketing, the store across town is your competition. You may only have to worry about staying ahead of a few other businesses in your area. But online, stores all over the world are your competition. You potentially have to worry about hundreds of other businesses trying to steal away your customers. Since the world seems to be growing more impersonal, and customer loyalty is hard to come by anymore, this can represent a big problem to be overcome.

So What Do You Do?

The first thing you should do before focusing on advanced internet marketing is to give yourself a refresher course on any internet marketing strategies you already use. Use updated materials and sources to see if any new strategies have become available. This is a great start because you can put these to work for you without having to learn entire new methods.

Then turn to books, magazines on internet marketing, and well established websites that are recommended. See what is next in line for you to tackle in your marketing campaign.

There are plenty of options available, so you should be able to sift through them to find one that you are not only comfortable using, but is also relevant to your business. Certain advanced internet marketing methods work better for some businesses than others, so only you can decide which direction you wish to take your marketing efforts.

Don’t Rush, but Move Forward

You don’t have to go racing into new marketing right away if you are doing well at the moment. You can use the opportunity to just learn all you can about the methods you are going to implement next. But you do need to always be learning something and preparing for the next stage of your website and business. This keeps progress and growth from catching you off guard.

If your current internet marketing efforts are based around the same tried and true tactics that seem to be working well, consider adding video marketing or perhaps even social networking to your overall marketing.

It may not be obvious right now, but you are doing yourself a big favor by learning about advanced internet marketing. Even if you just research it in your spare time, you will begin to formulate ideas and plans for the future of your business. This sort of preparedness and forward thinking will keep you going strong in the market for many years to come.

5 Tips To Success With Internet Marketing Products

There are so many internet marketing products available today, from methods and systems to teach people how to make money to scripts and software that help speed up the process.

However, just like with any other information product, not everything is as good as the sales page may make it out to be. Or, in some cases, it just isn’t a good fit with the person buying it. If you have decided to invest in internet marketing products then try and keep the following tips in mind.

1. Who is the author? Before you buy, try and dig a little deeper to find out who the author of the book, system or method is. This is not as important with scripts and software, but with information products it’s good to know who you are buying from.

Unfortunately, the internet has allowed many to make money without actually having any knowledge of what they are writing about and this doesn’t bode well for anyone buying a new money making system.

2. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. If internet marketing products promise you that you can make $5,000 in the next 50 minutes, you would likely not believe it. Then why would you believe an internet marketing product that says you can make $10,000 in a month, even if the time span is longer?

Remember that internet marketing is essentially a business and a business can take quite a bit of time before it becomes profitable, so be patient.

3. Don’t give in to your emotions. Sometimes you want to believe in something so much that you overlook the cold, hard facts that are screaming at you that it is impossible for all these internet marketing products to deliver on their promises.

Yet, here you are putting your PayPal information in again to buy the latest shiny toy, even though you probably have a hard drive full of products you have never read.

4. Take action. This is one of the biggest problems in internet marketing today. People buy so many systems but never implement even one. They keep on looking for the Holy Grail without actually putting in the work to see whether or not they already have it in their grasp.

They jump from product to product, with no clear goal in sight hoping they will find that one product where they can push a button and their PayPal will receive money automatically. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that and you still need to put some work in. All the internet marketing products out there combined will not make you money if you do not put the work in.

5. Give it time. Just like with a diet, internet marketing products and the systems they offer need a little time. By their very nature, search engines take time before they rank a site and you are tempted to scrap a system within 24 hours of trying it because it doesn’t work.

Remember that you need to give anything a chance for at least 30 days to really judge how effective it is. If after thirty days you have not seen any progress, then by all means switch to a different system.

The Easiest Way To Outsell Other Affiliates

Below you will find a guest article from Jimmy D. Brown, developer of the Mutiple Streams Theme wordpress blog theme.

For more information on turning on ten “built-in” ways to make money from your blog, visit http://www.myimcoach.com/OutsellAffiliates

If you’re an affiliate marketer, then you’re always looking over your shoulder to see if the competition – your fellow affiliates – are catching up to you. Or, worse than that, you’re looking up ahead trying to catch up with them!

At times any market can be crowded, so selling the same thing to the same group of people means you’re lucky to get just a small share of the market. Imagine having thirty-five Wal-Mart stores in one small town, all competing with each other to get the local business. You get the idea.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The easiest way to outsell other affiliates is this…

Turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE offer!

You see, most affiliates try to sell the product as is. If your prospects are shopping around, they’re going to skip all the “buy from me” offers.

Instead, they’re going to focus on those offers that give them an incentive to buy. And that means you can outsell the other affiliates simply by offering a bonus product to anyone who buys through your affiliate link.

I’ve been teaching this concept since 2001 and, all things being equal, those affiliates who put this into practice will outsell those who don’t virtually 100% of the time.

It’s a very simple strategy. Let’s break it down into three steps…

Step 1: CHOOSE Your Incentive

Your goal is to make your offer stand out from the crowd by offering an incentive to buy from your link, thereby boosting your conversion rate. And that means you need to offer a bonus that enhances or otherwise complements the affiliate product.

Did you catch that? Your bonus should “enhance” or “complement” the product you are promoting as an affiliate. That’s what makes for the best incentive.

————- Case Study ———–

Let me give you a “real” case study (not made up … actually done by one of my customers).

A customer – who is also one of my affiliates – recently purchased my Multiple Streams Theme wordpress blog theme. He loaded it to his site. Then, he invested a little time writing a small report that teaches how to customize and tweak the theme. He offered this small report, filled with insider shortcuts and tips for enhancing the theme, as an incentive to anyone who ordered the Multiple Streams Theme through his affiliate link.

Brilliant.

I’m just guessing, but I bet the report didn’t take him half an hour to write. He just logged his own personal experiences. And yet it has high value to anyone who has plans to order the theme.

That’s how you outsell other affiliates. You turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE OFFER.

————- Case Study ———–

One way to do this is by reading the sales letter for the product and choosing one particularly enticing bullet point.

Example #1: If the sales letter tells prospects they can learn how to get traffic from social media sites, then you can create a report called “27 Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Any Website!”

Example #2: If the sales page for a diet book promises a month of low calorie recipes to customers, you can create a supplementary low calorie recipe book and give it away to those who buy from your link.

Example #3: If you’re promoting a dog training book and you see a bullet point about eliminating bad behaviors such as jumping, incessant barking, digging in the gardening, etc. You can create a report or even a video called, “The Secrets of Training the Perfect Dog: How to Keep Your Dog’s Paws Off Your Guests, Off Your Counters and Out of Your Garden!”

The point is, your freebie should be directly related to the affiliate offer. You want your prospects to buy through your link just because the incentive is so enticing.

What kind of incentive? You can do videos, software, coaching, advertising, installations, services, etc.

But, “pound for pound”, the best and easiest incentive to create is a small report.

Step 2: CREATE Your Incentive

Once you decide on the topic, your next step is to create the bonus product. If you’re creating a short report or video, you can probably finish it in one day. Otherwise, you can hire a trusted freelancer to do it, which frees your time to focus on marketing the offer!

Tip: You find ghostwriters on sites like WarriorForum.com, Elance.com, and GetAFreelancer.com. You can also ask for recommendations from your colleagues via your social networks or on business forums.

Step 3: CIRCULATE Your Incentive.

Finally, your last step is to promote your offer by letting prospects know that anyone who buys the affiliate product using your link will get the bonus product.

Let your list know. Tell your blog readers. Tweet about it. Purchase advertising. Distribute free marketing materials such as ezine articles. Mention it in sig files at forums. You know the drill.

Now, there are a few ways to deliver the product:

1. On the download page. If you’ve developed a relationship with the product vendor, he may agree to set up a special sales page that promotes the bonus plus a special download page so that customers can download it instantly after purchasing.

2. Manually. You can have customers forward their receipts and then you send them the link to the bonus.

3. Automatically. You can also set up a special email address with an autoresponder, so that anyone who sends you a receipt gets the download link automatically. (Naturally, some people will try to “cheat” this system.)

And there you have it – the simple three-step strategy you can use to outsell your competitors and put more money in your pocket.

It’s so easy you could be making more money by tomorrow… if you get started today!

Speaking of “making more money”. If you have a blog, how would you like to have ten “built-in” ways to increase your affiliate commissions from your blog? Visit http://www.myimcoach.com/OutsellAffiliates to learn more. NOTE: The offer mentioned at the website will no longer be available after Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10PM. Jimmy is “retiring” it then and discontinuing all sales.

Beta Test Review Of New Social Media Tool

Check out this KILLER tool…

http://myimcoach.com/SMM

I have been beta testing this tool for a couple weeks now and I gotta say, it is amazing! I use it every morning to boost my Twitter followers quickly and easily.

Takes about 4 minutes to setup an account then you run it automatically and watch your followers explode!

http://myimcoach.com/SMM

NOTE: This is not open to the public yet, so do not share this with anyone.

This *secret* money-making software is super effective and extremely easy to use!

You will get 100 times (or more) of a return on your investment from this.

To Blog or Not to Blog that is the Question

Here is an interesting observation, most people that blog also tweet… however most of the people on Twitter do not blog. Not blogging is costing them traffic… and ultimately money. Don’t get me wrong here, Twitter and Facebook are great places and they are key components of your overall marketing campaign. However blogging is where “it is at,” so to speak. Your blog is really your key to consistent traffic and long term benefits for your business.

To help illustrate this, I am going to give you ten reasons as to why you need to blog if you seriously want business.

Reason 1: True commitment to your industry is shown through blogging, and so is your passion for what it is you are doing. Passion is what grabs peoples’ attention and gets them involved. I know that sending a “tweet” is much easier than sitting and coming up with a 500 word post. But if you really care about what it is you are doing you will invest that time and get that blog post created.

Reason 2: Articles/blog posts are valuable no matter how old they are. Thanks to the internet, you can write something today that is pertinent and five years from now when someone is searching for something related to your post… they will still get to read your post. This means that they will still be able to get to your site and read everything else you have done in that area.

Reason 3: The links in your blog posts will get clicked and provide value to your reader. Value that will then make them invest in what you are doing also known as buying what it is you have to sell. The links on Twitter are really just noise. Yes they help… but not as much as the great link in a great blog post.

Reason 4: You want to be the end product that everyone is linking to and sending traffic to. Yes it is great to click the links and go to other websites and help out those people… isn’t it better for you though if people are taking your link and getting you traffic? That isn’t going to happen on Facebook or Twitter.

Reason 5: Blogging gives you complete control and ownership of everything that you put in your blog. Control is important when you are trying to build a business and establish a solid customer base.

Reason 6: You want to show your followers/readers that you are more than just a sample size serving of the real thing. Hosting a blog says a lot about who you are and how important your business is.

Reason 7: Blogging allows you to add value to your site, on an incremental and continual basis which is important for traffic, links and sales. You are in the business to make money, not just be a cute brief on a page.

Reason 8: A blog will provide you with full analytics. This is important, these analytics will tell you what people are clicking on within your blog, what posts are of interest and how they got to your site. These are vital pieces of information when it comes to marketing.

Reason 9: Blogging allows your followers multiple ways to keep up to date on what you are saying or offering, such as RSS feeds, emails, and onsite info.

Reason 10: Blogging doesn’t limit you to a number of characters you are allowed to use. While 140 can be plenty to deliver a point… many times it is not enough to be effective.

Neil Bartlett is the founder of MyIMCoach.com. My IM Coach provides aspiring Internet Marketers with Tips and Techniques for getting started and/or improving their marketing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “How To Make It Online”

Simple Ways to Use Authority Sites to Boost Your Rankings

Boosting your rankings is vital for promoting your company’s service or product.  It determines how many people will be seeing your web page, or, in other words, the number of people who will have been exposed to your product or service.  The higher your ranking, the higher the number of people who have seen your product or service, thus the higher your profit for said product or service.  Be this as it may, many companies are not exactly sure of how to boost their rankings.  One simple way to boost your rankings would be via authority sites.

So what exactly is an authority site, you may be wondering?  Well, an authority site is a link with a similar theme that you can incorporate into your web page.  By incorporating outside links onto your page, you will not only increase traffic to your web page, but will also target the “right kind” of people, or in other words, potential customers.  Links to other web pages that are similar to your web page will cause your site to pop up in more search engines, thus causing your rankings to increase. 

Boosting your rankings is positive for all involved.  The authority sites will benefit from being linked into your web page because this action will also attract more traffic to its site as well. You will benefit from incorporating authority sites onto your website because you will be directing more potential customers to your page, exposing them to your product or service.  The people viewing your web page will benefit because they may discover a product or service they would like to use, but would have otherwise missed out on because they had never heard of it.  By having higher rankings, you will be on your way to having a more successful business.

So how can you use authority sites to boost your rankings, you may be pondering?  Well, first you have to choose which authority sites to incorporate into your web page.  Which authority sites you choose to add to your page can have an immense effect on your business.  Therefore, it is of utmost importance that you think wisely when choosing your authority sites.  The authority sites you choose should obviously pertain to your product or service in some way or another and it also would not hurt to choose sites that your potential customers could also see as helpful.  For example, if you are promoting a weight loss product on your web page you could choose an authority site that concentrates on the “Top Ten Mistakes People Make When Trying to Lose Weight.” A site such as that not only pertains to the topic (weight loss), but also could be beneficial to the potential customers, for they could view that authority site as being helpful.

Think of an authority site as rather an accompaniment of your product or service, instead of merely a marketing tool.  Incorporating authority sites into your web page is a marketing tool, used in hopes of boosting your rankings to increase business; however, authority sites can also act as a co-worker to your website, assisting your customers in outside manners.  If done correctly, authority sites are amazing tools.  So what are you waiting for?  Begin incorporating authority sites into your web page today to boost not only your rankings, but also your success.

Neil Bartlett is the founder of MyIMCoach.com. My IM Coach provides aspiring Internet Marketers with Tips and Techniques for getting started and/or improving their marketing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report <a href=”http://www.myimcoach.com/specialoffer”>”How To Make It Online”</a>

What is Reverse Marketing?

If you are trying to sell a product or service on the web, then you understand how hard it is to get traffic to your site. Web business seems to be completely driven by the sheer volume of traffic you can get to your web site. It doesn’t seem to make sense because you know in your heart that thousands of mass e-mails and site hits do not always equate to sales. There has to be another dimension to your goods and services, and you are probably curious as to how to market these quality items without seeming like a complete pest.

The truth is that traditional internet marketing techniques can plain wear you out. It is not enough that you have a good product and a good web page, but now you have to try your hand at viral marketing, advertisements, e-mail lists and catchy web gimmicks. For most people this means flooding the market with news about your product or services. Sometimes this can make you feel cheap and like you are annoying to potential customers by continually spamming them all the time. Sometimes the traditional type of marketing can actually backfire on you, driving potential customer away.

Well if you are interested in marketing your goods and services in a less invasive way then reverse marketing might be something you want to look into. For some people this is a much better approach because they can back their quality products and services with supportive content that sheds an attractive light on your company. In this way you can gently sway buyers to purchase your products. You will earn a great reputation and will have a more loyal fan base.

Sounds great, but what exactly is reverse marketing? Reverse marketing is a simple concept but you still need to have a great plan of attack. Rather than running web banners or advertisements on TV and radio, in reverse marketing you might strategically place essays or e-books on various topics that people look up on the web. You could post helpful tips or a website dedicated to home repairs. Of course, you place a tag line for your website at the end of the helpful “how to” article. This way, you attract people after demonstrating that you know what you are talking about.

Reverse marketing seems like a great way to attract customers because you are showing your expertise in an area or many areas. People who have been helped by your article or tip will tend to purchase a product from you before they go somewhere else. It is all about putting seemingly unbiased information out there but woven into a thinly veiled advertisement for your goods and services. You can plug your product out in the open, but not too overtly.

Reverse marketing can seem like a godsend for those who are sick of running the rat race of traditional internet marketing techniques. Instead of just spamming the world to see if you can convince someone to buy your product, you simply be ready to capture those quality buyers who are all ready to make a purchase. This kind of marketing—allowing customers to seek you out—can feel much better for you

Neil Bartlett is the founder of MyIMCoach.com. My IM Coach provides aspiring Internet Marketers with Tips and Techniques for getting started and/or improving their marketing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “How To Make It Online”

Should You Guest Blog?

Plan and simple, yes you want to guest blog, but you want to be picky about the sites you are guest blogging on. I say this because you want to make sure your blogging on a site that is actually going to help you get target traffic to your site. You don’t want to waste time and energy creating a blog post on say SEO (which is your specialty) on a blog that is dedicated to preserving Barbie. The point of guest blogging is that it is a win win for the webmaster and the guest blogger.

I am sure that you are not really interested in what guest blogging does for the webmaster at this point. You want to know what it is in it for you. That is the focus on this post. So here we go, the first benefit of guest blogging is that you get instant exposure to your blog. Let’s say that you just launched a new site that you are really excited about and you know offers great benefit to visitors. You want traffic now, not in a few weeks or months. Find an authority site or other site that is reputable in your niche, contact the webmaster and offer to guest blog for them. You blog post will offer informative content and a plug about you and your website.

The second benefit is that exposure you gain. If you don’t have a business that you are trying to promote, but skills you want to offer to hire… guest blogging can help you there as well. When you guest blog on a site, as I said above, you get to do a little blurb about you and what you do, and from there you can direct people to a place where they can learn more about you.

The third benefit and reason as to why you should try to guest blog is that you get a link back to your blog. We have talked in the past about how important back linking is. This is a great way to increase your rankings with links from reputable sites.

Notice that I have mentioned reputable sites. You want to look for sites that have a good ranking, because you know that they are getting traffic. You also know that they are getting crawled by the spiders on a routine basis and that what they say on that website is trusted by people in the niche you are addressing. You don’t want to waste your time blogging on a site that isn’t getting more traffic then you currently are, or worse yet, they are not getting traffic at all.

There are a few rules that you need to keep in mind in regards to your posts. You want to make sure that your post fits into the category of blog you are posting on. Remember, Barbie isn’t going to care much on how to SEO optimize. The blog post that you create must be original and unique. You can’t post an article that you wrote and posted elsewhere.

Also, we are talking about your reputation so you really want to post only articles that you have written. If you are going to farm out the blog posts writing then make sure that you have proofed what is said in the article. The last thing in the world you want to do is make yourself look bad or the website you are guest blogging on.

Finally, when you guest blog if you are going to use a link in your post, it must be a link that is related to the website you are writing for. You should NOT use your own affiliate links. This is just poor taste and not only will the webmaster kick you to the curb, it will get around in the industry that “type” of person you are and you will have a hard time getting another guest blogging spot.

Neil Bartlett is the founder of MyIMCoach.com. My IM Coach provides aspiring Internet Marketers with Tips and Techniques for getting started and/or improving their marketing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “How To Make It Online”

Understanding Backlinking

Sometimes it is funny how times change. Just a few years ago the best way to get ranked on Google and Yahoo was to use the hot keywords of the moment. If you placed the keywords in the content on your website often enough then when people searched those keywords your site would pop up. Thankfully for both the customer and the entrepreneur search engines have wised up. Keywords are still important, but if you want to get ranked, and rank high you need backlinks.

It should be pretty clear that you can have the most amazing website in the world, with the most up to date, ground breaking information on it that would change the life of your readers forever… but if you don’t have readers or more to the point, traffic then you what good is the website. You should also know that you don’t necessarily have to have the best looking website in the world to get traffic. One of the highestest ranked websites on the internet right now is a very plain looking website. White background and blue lines, I am sure that you have heard of it, it’s called Facebook.

To get people to your website you need to spend the time to do a solid marketing campaign. This means that you need to take time to get backlinks. Getting backlinks to your site is the quickest way that you can climb in the SERPS. One has to ask then, what is a backlink.

A backlink is a link that is placed on another website that will lead the people that are reading the content back to another website. Trust me when I say that you have seen backlinks. You have been scanning the page that you are reading and in the middle of the article you will see highlighted words, which if you click on them it will send you to another website, if you roll over it you will see the web address. If you are reading an article on a site such as eZines then the backlink is going to be in the resource box at the bottom of the page. This is also true for any article directory site.

Now here is why it is so important. When you have a backlink to your website that is placed on another site is both popular and relevant it is tagged by Google. A date is given to it and Google will record the actual phrase that is used in the link. What Google then does is it takes the information it has gathered and saves it so that Google can then establish a rank for your site.

This does not mean that you need to have hundreds of backlinks. What it means is that you need to have quality backlinks. Search engines work under an assumption that not all links hold an equal amount of weight. So a backlink from a popular or well known website holds more value than a link to your friend’s website that your family visits.

We have established that you need backlinks to improve ranking and that those links need to be on popluar or high ranked sites. But with everyone realizing how important the process is, how do you go about getting the backlink to your site and not some other guy?

Article marketing is a great way to get backlinks. When you take the time to create original and informative content that can be reprinted websites will pay attention to you. Many websites, many popular websites actually, take advantage of article marketing articles because it offers the webmaster a way to keep fresh quality content on their site. Another excellent way to get backlinks is through blog commenting or guest blogging. Make sure that you find blogs that are in your niche, relevant and popular.

Neil Bartlett is the founder of MyIMCoach.com. My IM Coach provides aspiring Internet Marketers with Tips and Techniques for getting started and/or improving their marketing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “How To Make It Online”

Create a Need – Make Them Want What You Have

If you are a regular person trying to start a web business for the first time, then you know how hard it is. You may have a great product, may have put together a nice web site but you still are not generating the attention that you want. You may have tried various internet marketing techniques but to no avail.

It is very competitive out there in the world today. With everyone trying to start their own internet business, you have to go up against a lot of products similar to yours. You may even be up against someone who knows internet marketing better than you, and this person seems to be all over the web. You cannot help but feel small and insignificant. So just what do you need to do to create such a need for your product that people cannot help but purchase from you? How do you create that overwhelming need?

A lot of what you have to say about your product can either make or break a sale for you. If you have content on your website or articles written about your product with the intent of directing buyers to your website, you may want to review it to see if it matches some specific criteria playing on consumers’ emotions so that they will purchase your product.

Customers’ emotions? That’s right; it means that in your content or ad for your good or service, you will make an attempt to evoke an emotion in your consumer. Advertisers do it all the time and it is a very effective marketing tool. As you write content for your pages, you can keep some of these emotional triggers in the back of your mind. These will help you develop a content style that will help you evoke consumers into buying your product.

So what are some of the emotions you will play upon in your content? There is flattery, greed, guilt and anger, to name just a few. For instance, if you are trying to play on someone’s anger, your content will be geared to showing how you can relate to the customer’s frustration. You can show how your product can help them alleviate their frustration and achieve “victory” in the end where other products have failed for them in the past. For greed you can show them how they can use your product to get ahead of everyone else they know at a much cheaper cost to them.

There is certainly an art form to advertising based on the emotional aspects of every day consumers. It might seem challenging at first, but with a little work you can create a need for your product based on some very powerful human emotions. And if the customer is satisfied with your product, they will convey their pleasure to friends and family, and you will gain return sales from your efforts.

Regardless of how you decide to approach the prospect of creating a need for your product, remember that your content should always be tweaked. Be sensitive to the results of your sales and tweak your content to suit. The bottom line is that you are never done!

Neil Bartlett is the founder of MyIMCoach.com. My IM Coach provides aspiring Internet Marketers with Tips and Techniques for getting started and/or improving their marketing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “How To Make It Online”