Google Adwords is an incredibly powerful marketing tool with an instant global reach that can take your business from nowhere to an overnight success. Why wouldn’t a new marketer take advantage of such a powerful tool? I can answer that question with another question. Why wouldn’t you let someone with a new driver’s license behind the wheel of a race car? Because, unless they are extremely lucky, they are going to crash and burn. Google Adwords is the Formula One of online marketing and it is not for beginners.Google Adwords Slap Four Reasons Google Adwords is Not Meant for Beginners

As advertising goes, the reasons to avoid Google Adwords early on in your education is overwhelming.

  1. First, it can be very expensive and most new marketers will exhaust their ad budget before they can successfully bring in revenue. This is mainly because Google Adwords can be deceptively difficult to master. The basic formula is to identify keywords, write an ad that uses the keywords and have a landing page that completely delivers on what your ad promises.
  2. Next, Google rewards advertisers who solve the problem their searchers are trying to solve. If you fail to do this you can expect high cost per click and low traffic.
  3. Further, Google purposefully keeps the exact formula for success under wraps. If you are not getting the results you are seeking, the support you receive from Google will be general at best. Expect Google to suggest “improve your landing page” or “tips for writing ads.” On top of that, Google periodically change their rules requiring you to change your campaign or face the prospect of high cost per click or low traffic.
  4. Finally, the instant global reach of your Google Adwords campaign is accompanied by global competition with a wide variety of skill levels and budgets.

Keep your chin up though. There are many options that exist for the new marketer.

Initially most new marketers have more time than money and that can be a good thing (more on that later). There are many low-tech approaches that have worked for decades and still do. These alternatives allow you to learn how to market affordably which will allow for some trial and error without spending your whole ad budget.

Using some of the methods below will allow you to use several forms of marketing which is a more balanced and stable long-term approach. Here is the big bonus: your competitors are still online spending themselves out of business with Adwords!

Here are just a few options when thinking about an offline marketing campaign. They may not be sexy, but they are time-tested, and still very effective marketing tools.

  1. Newspaper Advertising – requires only a computer and 800 number. Information about newspapers from around the country is easily researched online and ads can cost as little as $10 per week.
  2. Flyers – this is a big one for those who have time but little money. Getting flyers or business cards made is cheap and easy using a site like vistaprint.com. Spend a couple of hours a day papering parking lots. The key with this plan is to put out a lot of flyers (hundreds daily).
  3. Bandit Signs – Simple three line signs that reside at intersections and other high traffic areas which direct prospects to an 800 number with a message. Signs cost between $2-$5 dollars each and work wherever your prospects pass by or congregate.
  4. Warm market – You have an immediate advantage approaching people you know because a level of trust exists between you. Many marketers can get off to a quick start by starting here.
  5. Article campaigns – this is absolutely free to do. Establish yourself online as a respected and knowledgeable marketer in your niche. You may still be learning the ropes about marketing but you definitely know more than most people about your business.
  6. Blogging – Similar to article marketing in that you share information about your area of expertise. Once people see you as a helpful resource they will begin to seek you out. The key here is to provide new content on a consistent basis. You can start today with a free site from WordPress or Blogger

If you have the budget, make Google Adwords a part of your overall marketing plan AFTER you have established other forms of marketing. Whenever you are new at something you need to be allowed to make mistakes, learn from them and apply what you have learned in the future. Hard won knowledge is the best way to learn. By starting with basic (and still viable) forms of advertising you can develop into a well-rounded, knowledgeable and, ultimately, more successful marketer in the long term, which is everyone’s goal.

Learn More About Google Adwords…

For anyone who gets involved in an internet home based business, one of the first things that they are taught to do in order to build a successful online business is to get a website, a blog and an auto-responder. In fact these three things are the most important tools when starting an internet business.

What we are going to discuss here is ways to get your list building and blogging activities to synchronize in such a way that your marketing efforts will support both these activities at the same time. In other words, your blog will support your list building and your list building will support your blog.

Let’s begin by looking at how you can use your blog as a way to build your list.

When setting up your blog make sure that you add an opt-in box to your auto-responder and place it in a prominent position where your visitors will see it on arrival at your blog. Near to the top and either on the left or right hand side is good. You could offer a free report or e-book as an inducement to sign up to your list.

Whenever you make a new post to your blog, sign off with your name and a link to your squeeze page. Encourage your visitors to sign up to your list so that they will be notified every time you make a new post on your blog.

Another way that you can promote your blog is by inviting people to comment on your blog posts. The advantage for them is that their comments can link back to their websites when they enter the URL field on the comment form.

If your business is internet marketing then make posts about this and teach your subscribers about the benefits and etiquette of commenting and linking back to their sites from the blog comments. Make sure that they understand that spamming is not an option.

Whenever you make a new post about something controversial or a review on a product or service, email your list and ask them to give you their opinions on whatever you have blogged about and include a link to your blog post.

You should see a significant increase in traffic to your site from your email list if your post is well targeted and also a big increase in the number of comments that you get to each article.

Offer your readers the opportunity of using your posts on their own blogs provided they include a link back to your site and acknowledge you as the author of that post. Also submit your articles or posts to other peoples’ blogs for possible inclusion on their sites. Invite your email list to submit articles for possible inclusion on your blog with a link back to their sites and inform them of how guest blogging will help to increase their own profiles on the internet. This will help to keep your blog loaded with fresh content at all times.

By adding these tactics to your list building and blogging efforts you will be creating a well synchronized and effective marketing strategy for your internet home based business.

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What Are Meta Tags and Why Do I Need Them?

There is no other way to put it; the World Wide Web is big business. As an example, you only have to look at the phenomenal success of the online bookstore, Amazon. In 2008, Amazon brought in over nineteen billion dollars in income, yet only required an operating budget of approximately eight hundred and fifty million dollars. It really is no surprise to anyone then that more businesses are investing in expanded web presence and capability. Yet, not every organization has the same successes. Barnes and Noble was selling books online before Amazon was even an idea, and yet it isn’t Barnes and Noble that people think of when considering online bookstores, it’s Amazon. The key? Amazon took greater advantage of the opportunity to effectively market their product.

Search Engines, Spiders and Websites, Oh My

The most important and often least understood tool for online marketers is the search engine. The primary type of search engine is the web crawler – these are largely automated programs that crawl through available web pages, indexing data according to a variety of parameters. In short, the crawler, or spider, examines each page of a website. Once it has examined the page, it submits it to an index. Then, when a person uses the search engine software, the index provides links to these pages, ranked according to relevance. It is worth mentioning two other points. First, not all engines index the same way. Some use keyword density; others focus on the content of the first paragraph. Second, any changes to a webpage are likely to affect search rankings, so webmasters must carefully consider each change and its possible effects.

I Never Meta Tag I Didn’t Like

One important part of preparing a page for good search engine rankings is effective use of HTML meta-tags. These tags do not directly relate to the position a site will have in a search result, but they do offer webmasters some control over the way their sites are presented when they come up in a search. In brief, meta-tags are additional bits of code added to the head of your HTML document, right after “TITLE.” Because of the tendency for unscrupulous coders to find and abuse loopholes in search technologies, search engines do not rely heavily on these tags for rankings. Their benefits to web users are important, however.

First, there is the Meta Description tag. This is a brief report about the content of the webpage in question. When a search engine presents users with a hyperlink, there is frequently a small description accompanying that result. In many cases, that is the Meta Description tag the Webmaster put in the HTML document so that when a spider visits the site, it indexes this information. This is not always the case, however; Google in particular will generate its own description for a site.

The Meta Description is often the first piece of information someone using a search engine will see. The URL may not mean anything to them, but this description will. If it is poorly written, the user will likely skim right past the site for one that presents itself more effectively. Thus, the key is effective, concise writing that conveys exactly what the site is about.

The second tag is the Meta Keywords tag. This tag is a list of keywords the Webmaster considers most pertinent to each page. Proper use of the keywords tag is also vital. While search engines use a variety of keyword systems, and have in recent years de-emphasized the Meta Keywords tag, it still contributes to website rankings and should not be neglected. The best method is to examine each page carefully, and pick approximately ten keywords that best represent the data therein. Too many nonspecific keywords will lead to inconsistent search results, and too few means missing an opportunity to get a message in front of users. In addition, many sites are actively on the lookout for keyword abuse. Google in particular is known to ban certain pages from its index entirely if they consider the article to be an abusive, loophole-seeking piece.

There are other, less relevant tags that can provide some benefits, though they aren’t as important as the previous two. An example is the Robots tag, which is only useful in making sure certain sites do not index a particular page. This can help a Webmaster keep their content from being associated with undesirable elements, but it does not contribute directly to higher search placement.

No Meta Tag is an Island

Once again, it must be stressed that meta-tags are not a magical solution to the very complex problem of online marketing. They must be regarded as one tool in an inventory of other tools, and should be used responsibly. Properly implemented, they will help complete an effective marketing strategy.

Is Email Marketing Dead?

Is Email Marketing Dead? I have been told that since 2004 and I not only don’t believe it, I have proof that it is one of the most effective marketing tools you can use. Email is here to stay and I use it on a daily basis for:

  • Keeping in touch with clients and customers
  • Sending out information updates
  • Providing a monthly ezine
  • Mini courses
  • Eclasses
  • Tips
  • Sales promotions
  • Recommendations
  • Autoresponders
  • And more

Does it still work? Well, I am in regular contact once a month with over 20,000 people just by email and that enabled me to sell out in just 48 hours a webinar I set up. Want more? Well in just 30 minutes I wrote an email that brought in 42 sales in the first 36 hours for a Chinese cooking ebook. Yes, it works! That certainly proves to me that email is still a powerful sales tool, but in a more competitive market you need to have an edge.

Here are 6 tips you can use to increase the power of your email marketing.

  1. Ask your subscribers to filter your email. I always ask people to filter my email into a special folder for email they want to keep; or ask them to apply a color filter so when my email arrives it changes color and stands out. Make sure you tell them how to filter it in both your thank you and first email and give details for the most popular email programmes.
  2. Send out a ‘Gentle Nudge’ Email People get lots of emails, and there is a chance yours will get lost in their spam filter. You can avoid this by putting your message or ezine on your website so people can view it there. It’s goo idea to also ‘remind’ your list of a new posting on your website as they may not have got, or deleted, your original email.
  3. Respond to confirmation requests If you have signed up to any newsletter or ezine you always get asked to confirm you want to receive it and are a genuinely ‘live’ person. This avoids junk mail reaching you, and you can turn this to your business advantage. I always reply to confirmation requests because these people have taken the trouble to set up the filtering process and it will be on their primary email account; which means they will look at it on a regular basis. This way I get to build a relationship with them, which then results in more sales.
  4. Use double opt in to build highly targeted and responsive lists I’ve used this method to build a highly responsive list of buyers in one niche I operate in. I emailed them first about a product I was launching and to find out more they had to email me back. Once they took that action I then asked them to confirm their request. Yes, this meant I reduced the overall number of people on my list BUT the people who were on it were eager for the information. The result? 31% of that list bought the product. .
  5. Use S-P-A-M- filters to check your email before you send it out There are some words that will trigger a reaction in many email filters so avoid that and use an email checker before you send out your messages. This increases the chance of your email being received and you can find filters by just searching on Google.
  6. Use additional methods to deliver your information Emails are an important part of your marketing mix, and you can also hook into alternative methods to actually put your message across. You could try, as I have, sending an email to your offering an mp3 recording or PDF report to download. Offering a PDF report means you can offer a lot more information, including graphics.

The great thing about PDF’s is that people tend to keep them longer than emails so you have a longer presence with them. Using an MP3 gives you a VERY easy way to send information out. All you need is a microphone plugged into your PC then record your information and upload it to your website. Then just email your list telling them it is ready to download.

And finally…… Emails are very far from dead, or even sick, but they still remain a very effective way to grow your business online.