Friday, January 30

Using Keywords as Part of Your Internet Marketing Strategy

Whether your internet marketing strategy utilizes websites, blogs, article marketing or press releases correctly using keywords is an absolute must.

Anyone involved in an online business will tell you their marketing efforts are dramatically reduced if they haven't optimized their published content correctly with the right keywords.

Keyword optimization is a very integral component of an effective online marketing strategy.

The proper keyword optimization of content helps anyone searching for information like yours to easily find it. Done correctly and you'll be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results. The manner in which you use keywords within your content will make or break you in the search engine rankings. A low search engine ranking will make you virtually invisible to anyone searching for content like yours.

Search engines rely heavily on keywords to accurately identify and rank sites found on the internet for people searching for the content that these sites contain. Under or over utilizing keywords will only hurt the ranking of the site giving it a very weak showing in any search results.

There are 3 areas of focus you'll need to be concerned with to correctly utilize keywords within your content. By doing so you'll gain the favor of the search engines and also quite a bit more traffic to your site.

Let's discuss these 3 important areas of keyword optimization below:

ACCURACY

Any keywords you select to use should be relevant to the content itself. Search engines are very strict about this and will bury you in the search results if they feel your keyword selection doesn't reflect the content. When people search keywords on the internet they're expecting to find information directly related to the words they are searching on. Search engines for their part want to insure that people using their search engine find what it is they're looking for.

POSITIONING

Another factor to be considered when using keywords is the placement of these words within the content itself. For instance it is recommended to use keywords in the title of your content when you can. Even within the title it is better to place the selected word or phrase at the title beginning if at all possible. Again you must remember that these keywords must accurately describe, reflect, or relate to the content within.

Another consideration is to place your primary keyword at the beginning and the end of the body of content you're performing the keyword optimization on. Additional theme keywords should be used conservatively thru out the content when their use makes grammatical sense.

FREQUENCY

Here's an area where some people may have a tendency to get carried away. In an attempt to gain the attention of search engines some may overuse their selected keywords throughout the content. Keyword 'stuffing' as this is known is frowned upon by search engines as a deliberate attempt to gain higher search rankings. Search engines discourage this by penalizing you with a lower search engine ranking.

Opinions vary on what is the right percentage of keywords to use within the content that will maximize your optimization efforts while avoiding penalties. Generally any keyword usage between 2 and 5 percent of the total body of content is considered safe. A free keyword density tool you can use online to check your content can be found at live-keyword-analysis.

Always remember to use your selected words in a natural way within the body of your content since you're writing for the reader and not the search engine. So before you hit the 'submit' bottom proof-read your work to ensure it reads like a human wrote it and not some cyborg.

Proper keyword placement and utilization is almost always at the core of any successful internet marketing strategy. Thru the correct implementation of this online marketing technique you will increase your search rankings thereby boosting the awareness of your online presence. Whatever your reasons for being online may be, if you're looking to boost your traffic this is one of the most effective and fundamental ways to achieve that!

About the Author
TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For additional online success tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://blogbrawn.com.

Saturday, January 3

How To Use Copywriting To Boost Your Online Business

Copywriting, which is the most fundamental skill in any online business, is an important part of Internet advertising. It is the art of writing sales and marketing materials, which can promote your business on the Web. Being able to learn and master this art can help your business stand out from all the other online businesses of the same type.

The Effect Of Copywriting On Your Online Business

Copywriting can either boost your business into success, or it can run it into the ground, and it can depend greatly on how good your sales copies are. Learning how to use words to properly promote your product or service can generate a great amount of sales for your online business and bring you thousands of members to your mailing list. It can even boost your web site traffic through word of mouth if you write a copy that is intriguing or buzz-worthy.

Effective Copywriting For Your Web Site

Copywriting is effective in online marketing because the words or phrases that you use to entice your targeted audience can be placed on any web site and can be viewed by potential online customers, anywhere, anytime and all the time, as long as they are placed on proper portals that will attract possible customers for a specific product or service.

Keep in mind that internet users are constantly looking for information and solutions for their problems, so you should learn how to communicate directly to your target audience and give them the information that they are looking for.

Know how to captivate them by knowing your visitors' needs and desires. Talk to your customers, and address their concerns. Remember that you are irrelevant when it comes to enticing people availing of your product or service, so make sure that you focus on them and not on you.

You could have the best product or service in the world, but if you cannot make your audience feel that their life would be better if they owned what you are selling, then, it is of no use. Pull the visitor into the copy, so you can present your product and make your offer.

Make sure that you write from the perspective of your target audience, and not on yours. You can only do this if you understand your target customer, so learn what their motivation is, and apply that to your copy. You can also create a sense of urgency in them, to make them feel the need to click on your link as soon as possible. Create an impression of scarcity through your words, and explain why they need to act now.

However you may choose to approach your target audience, remember that what you need to do is get their attention, so you can make your offer, and you can do this with a good and direct headline. You usually have pre-headlines that set-up your main headlines to attract the attention of the category of prospects that you want to rein in. Let them know what you have so they will know exactly, if you carry what they need. Tell them what your product is by giving them details. And if you think they don't need it, make them feel so with powerful copy.

Use paragraphs that are friendly by using short sentences and simple words. It is highly suggestible to itemize the benefits of the product, so you can give your visitors a better view of what they are getting. Have plenty of possibilities to make sure that you have at least one unbeatable and unique benefit that can convince a prospect to buy your product or service.

You can also include something extra as a bonus. Make sure that it has value, so people would be more enticed to buy your product or service just to get it.

Aside from the extras, you can also focus on your product or service for enticing your visitors by building-up your product, telling them that the price of the product or service is a good value. Tell them what makes your product unique, and what sets you apart from your competition. You can prove your claims by adding testimonials or sales statistics to your copy.

Making your words sell through your sales letters is guaranteed to increase your conversion rate.

Powerful Copywriting And Search Engines

Since there are over billions of individual pages on the Internet, getting your potential customer to find you in cyberspace is not easy; but with the help of search engines, they are provided a means of doing just that. Learn how to manage search engines to boost your web site's traffic, and increase the rate of conversion of your online business.

Effective and concise search engine copywriting can dramatically increase your web site's targeted traffic, and you can do this by optimizing its use. When using search engines, you need to make sure that you are using keyword phrases that will bring specific traffic to your web site.

Analyze your competition and check what type of keyword phrases are being used most often, to give yourself a better chance of increasing your web site hits. Make sure that your targeted keywords are found in your filenames, title, headline, and description tags, as well as your web site content.

Copywriting is a fundamental skill in online businesses. Because the Internet is primarily a visual medium, you need to come up with copy that makes your page stand out over the millions of similar pages online. Keep your copy short, concise, and meaningul. Most of all, make it hypnotic.

Remember that having the best product in the market is not enough since you also need to learn how to motivate your audience to buy it. Fifty percent of successful sales depends on powerful copywriting. Make yours count.

About the Author
Jeremy Gislason - Want to launch, reinvent & grow your online biz dramatically? Discover a breakthrough membership site considered as the #1 source of supply for most hot-selling digital information products on the web. Go to http://www.surefirewealth.com and skyrocket your profits now!

Thursday, January 1

Do you need a brand identity?

Do you really need a brand?
Do you need to develop a brand identity?

If you want sustainable growth in your business and if you want to earn more than what you do today, you must develop a brand identity for you or your business. There is no alternative to this proposition.

At this point, many business owners will step back saying that branding means advertising and thus it would require huge investment. This is a very common situation as a beginner: The business owner do not have much idea about the actual rate of advertising in different media.

What is the basic relationship between advertisement and branding?

For effective branding of your product or company, you must hit the target market with your brand identity, repeatedly. You must make sure that they remember your face (business face) at least when they need you the most. Thus, to achieve this, marketers use advertisement in different formats, such as audio, audio visual or only visual.

Does it mean that you need to invest a huge amount of money in advertising?

It is not necessarily so. To put it simply, advertising cost depends on the size of your target market and the best medium to reach them. You do not necessarily need to invest in expensive billboards or in a full-page newspaper advertisement to reach the target market.

You can easily find some alternatives to reach it. For example, think about branded office stationary gifts, email advertising, mobile advertising or even social media networking. If you think, you can also use your existing subscribers or clients to promote your business and your brand. For example, think about shopping bags and packaging. These advertising media will cost much less than traditional advertisement and may prove more effective if you can use them properly.

Branding is all about giving a relevant face to your business. More importantly, if you do not add a face to your business, the target market will soon develop one for you and you will have almost nothing to do about that. Once an impression is created, it is very tough to replace it with a new one. Thus, you need to consider developing a brand image from the very first day of launching your product.

How to do that?

The first thing you need to do is to create a diagram or flow chart of how you want your product to be perceived by the target market. At the same time, you need to find out other elements like your target market, where they live, how they want your product to be, how your product is different from your competitors'.

You will also need to find out the best way to reach the target market - evaluate different options such as radio or TV advertisement, POS advertisement, newspaper or magazine advertisement, email advertisement etc.

Once you have developed a flow chart of what you want or how you want to develop your brand, draft a branding strategy accordingly. For example, develop an appropriate logo, color scheme (maintain the same color scheme across the product), a tag line to attract your target market etc.

Do not forget to evaluate how people perceive your brand.

About the Author
Steve McMains is a media professional and writes for different online publications on media and advertising industry. For more information on corporate branding or integrated marketing, he recommends you to visit http://www.brandweek.com.