Tag: Online

Make Money Online From Home With Google AdSense

Google AdSense is one of the coolest ways to make money online from home. The fact is, there are so many people who want to advertise their products and services online. They will most likely use paid advertising methods to promote these products. This is good news for you because you can take advantage of this by signing up with the AdSense program.

Google AdSense allows you to make money every time someone clicks on one of the ads located on your website. You can even earn several dollars per click. There are many tactics you can use to ensure maximum earnings with AdSense. Here are just a few:

Place the ads just below the title of your page. A great way to increase your CTR (click-through-rate) is to place your AdSense ads right below the title. This will ensure that people see the ads right when they arrive on your website. If they are looking for something related to the ads being displayed, they will click on the ads.

Use text ads only. I have found that the best performing ads blocks are text. Image ads are too distracting. Keeping it simple is the best way to make the most money with AdSense. A good CTR to shoot for would be around 25%. This means that 25 people out of 100 will click on the ads.

Color combination is also very important. I find that using blue links and gray text is the best combination. This means that the titles of your ads should be blue, and the description of the ads should be light grey. My CTR has been as high as 80% using this color combination. Feel free to play around a bit. There is no secret to earning with Google AdSense. Follow a simple strategy and use Google friendly methods to get traffic.

Here’s how I do it:

Build a website around a product or service. Amazon is a great place to research different products to build your website around. For example, I have a website loaded with great articles about the Nespresso Aeroccino Plus. This is a milk frother. I get about $0.67 per click. This website took me an afternoon to create. It makes me anywhere between $45 and $70 per month. And the traffic I get comes from Google. So it’s free! What’s my secret? Well, I created great content for websites. Then, I started building back-links to websites to get it ranked high in the search engines. Then, I placed my AdSense ads on websites.

Getting a Google AdWords Coupon For Your Online Business

Upon establishing your presence in the internet by creating your website, the next thing to do is promote to have higher ranking and better popularity. There are many ways to promote a website: you can have the organic way of acquiring traffic like using different SEO strategies or paid advertisements.

If you are want to get visible results in no time, then Google AdWords is the one for you. It is a pay per click (PPC) platform developed by the popular search engine to provide better ad placement services to advertisers.

Basically, Google AdWords is composed of text lines for an ad copy that usually appears on the right side of related search result pages. It easily boosts your website’s popularity as your ads are easily visible.

It might cost you a bit as you pay for every click made on your ad copy but other online marketers who are using this platform for quite some time now have a technique on how to save on the marketing cost. And this is by availing a Google AdWords coupon.

A Google AdWords coupon is a voucher that offers discounted or even free services that let you save big time on the PPC program. Usually, the banners that are regularly used will be replaced by keywords.

To avail a Google AdWords coupon, all you have to do is find websites through the use of search engines that give away such coupons for free.

However, these websites give the coupons for free but along with a purchase so you will still be spending some money. But if you find the product interesting, then you can do some calculations and when you have proven that you can still save with what the site offers, you can do the purchase and enjoy the Google AdWords coupon.

You can also join a business network that uses Google AdWords. Being a member of such network, you can also avail the incentives that Google provides to the whole network.

To utilize your Google AdWords coupon, you must ensure that your site is interesting and worthy of visit. If it is, then you can offer Google to use several parts of your site to be used as advertising space.

But make sure that your website has been established for quite some time now and has already earned a number of followers so you can assure them that the ads posted will get good number of clicks. Moreover, having an interesting website can lure more people visiting your site thus making the ads more visible – remember that people become interested once you are able to stir their curiosity.

Now, acquiring a Google AdWords coupon that can save you from expensive operational costs is easy.

Learn How You Can Start Your Own Online Business Without Building And Hosting Any Website

Since the inception of information and communication technology, almost everything is now computerized, even businesses are now operating online, and so on…

So many people – Nigerian and some other part of the world keep talking about online businesses, and so many other source of income online. Yes, no doubt there are a lot of online businesses, but getting to know and understand the basic scope and approach towards the different online businesses that can turn to money generating system is another problem so many people face. Some people even go to the length of stressing the fact that they are not oppurtuned to take part in such online businesses based on their financial capability of starting it. Yes, it is true that the online business involve some start-up capital, such as building and hosting your own website, buying of reseller right of some information e-book to sell on your site and so on…

All this emphasis on financial capabilities are an excuse, as there are so many means and method you can use in starting your own home based online business without building or hosting a website nor buying any reseller right e-book for sale, for a start.

You can start your own home based online business by taking it through blogging and just selling information with the help of affiliate marketing and Google AdSense. To start with you are require to register for a blog through BLOGGER.COM. The registration process is as simple as ABC, and it is free, meaning that it does not require any payment for you to sign-up for your blog. After the sign-up process, you can now proceed on deciding on the type of information you wish to sell depending on the area of interest you desire to target.

The area of information you desire to target decide your subject. Subject is another vital appealing scope which is required in every blog. It is an interesting step that determine the class or level of AdSense Google will place on your blog as soon as you sing-up for the Google AdSense.

The moment you have decide on the subject, you are require to learn how to write the content in your blog to the best of it effect by learning how to effect key words and phrase people frequently use when searching for information on internet, as it play a vital role on how it is been rank by most search engine.

You are to also note that the quality of the content you post on the blog, you also will need to make sure the appearance of your blog is appealing. Part of this is to make sure the pages are configured so they load with relative ease. No one likes to wait forever as the elements of a page load. This is particularly important if the readers you want to reach are more likely to live in areas where dial-up services is the only way to establish a connection to the Internet. Select colors, graphics, and images with care, and make sure the entire page looks great and loads within a reasonable amount of time. Doing this will insure that you will get more attraction from various visitors to your blog.

Work at Home With Google AdSense Online Business Opportunities

If you’re one of those people who want to easily earn money online through your blogs and/or website if you have, then signing up for Google AdSense is the best way to start with. It might be somewhat unfamiliar to most of us, but once you know how it works, it will definitely add an increase to your income without taking so much time.

Many people have already gained a lot from signing up to Google AdSense, but its advantage is not that known to everyone. So for beginners, let’s take the steps one by one going up to its critical points to know more on how it works.

First thing to do is to have a blog and/or website and you can sign up at Google AdSense for free. After you sign up for a free account, you can already put ads that are relevant to your content on your site. Available also in your site are the adverts relevant to your area, because of the information you are giving to Google. By this, buyers from different places who will visit your blogs and/or website can relate to your ads.

Making your ads appealing and with relevance to the buyers helps you make money from Google. With every click you will receive from your blog and/or website visitors is a credit in your AdSense.

So, you would ask, “how can I make my blog appealing”? It’s just simple. AdSense offers a lot of choices for you to make your blog attractive such as its color scheme, color and borders that will suit to its appearance. For a beginner like you, experimenting is never a bad idea for it helps you gain knowledge about Google AdSense.

On the other hand, though many earn a lot from integrating Google AdSense in their blogs and/or website, still there are some who are less fortunate to have fewer visitors in a day as compared to others. Because of this, some resolve to find other strategies in which they can earn more.

For that instance, going to the AdSense’ advanced level and starting other sites with different but common topics catches the attention of many. These AdSense are then located in the most advantageous position to get more clicks. You may even add up links to the site which will also add a bit to your income.

The advantage of having these types of sites is that, when you have already created and have an own domain name, all you have to do then is to endorse and update them each day which is also done by putting news stories that are related to your subject to have more visitors by having a higher rank in the search engine results.

The last yet the most important thing in here is to wisely choose a subject. Something that would really jive in the interest of the visitors such as topics relating to health, fashion trends, high-earning jobs and a lot more.

To sum it up, integrating your blogs and/or website in a Google AdSense is the best way to start earning money. It won’t just five you income but also knowledge and skills in improving sites and blogs. It may even take you to the edge of becoming an AdSense expert which again, will give you extra income without hassles in the job.

LEARN MORE

Mobile Monopoly – The Fresh Technique For Your Achievement in Online Marketing

Out of all the online marketing items that are widely spoken about regularly, I would say that the Mobile Monopoly program is almost certainly very interesting as well as the most groundbreaking.

If we evaluate online marketing as well as to observe how effective and profitable it has been within the last ten or even fifteen years, and continue to do so, we will see that it is very popular. You see, it’s believed that approximately one point eight billion individuals’ are connected to the internet. Now check out the cellular phone also known as the ‘Mobile Phone’ business; from this all of us can easily see the massive dimension of it. At present, approximately five billion people throughout the world own a cellular phone; therefore, you can easily see the opening for success that marketing and advertising with this industry can bring to you.

In fact, the five billion mobile phone or cell phone consumers are waiting for you to send your advertising to them. In reality these are the sort of customers that businesses all over the world would choose to advertise their products, particularly the fifty million individuals’ who currently have the smart phones. The number of people with smart phones is growing; and to prove my point, Apple not too long ago released apple iPhone4, and they sold over three million models within a calendar month.

Big organisations such as Google as well as the Apple company are continuously altering their marketing and advertising methods in order to dive into this enormous industry, and after Google purchased the promoting system AdMob, the Apple company reacted by releasing their very own marketing system iAd.

Marketing and advertising in this particular market is growing, however, amazingly it continues to be unheard of by many companies, and internet marketers remain unfamiliar with the way it operates, and the excellent opportunity that’s before them when using this system. They do not know how to implement it, and how they can earn an income from using it. Now Mr Adam Horwitz the person who developed ‘Mobile Monopoly’ will show you gradually how you can generate money using his program. He offers to lift the cover from the key techniques he utilizes to get more than $1,000 daily in real earnings from cellular phones. Adam also would display the techniques he applied to simply obtain traffic even when you do not possess an internet site or keyword phrases.

His online video system will show you what is needed to become a member of this fresh emerging trend.

Internet Marketing 101: Online Marketing for Small Business

Introduction

You own a small business. Do you need a website? An Internet presence can be a necessity or a resource-draining boondoggle, depending on your business and your target audience. You shouldn’t build or maintain a website simply because “everyone else has one.” However, even if you own a one-person services company and get all the business you can handle through word of mouth, you can still create an online presence with a minimum of time and expense.

If and when you do develop a business website, you’ll need to make some kind of investment in Internet-based marketing. Consumers increasingly and overwhelmingly use the Internet to research and buy goods and services. This means the competition is robust, and if your site doesn’t announce its presence it will simply sit and gather (virtual) dust in some computer’s memory.

If you’ve convinced yourself that you need to enter the web marketing arena, the following report provides a fundamental primer on the most widely used tactics for both paid and free Internet advertising. Just remember that each of the topics introduced here is complex enough that there are entire books written about them, so if something appeals to you do some additional research before jumping in.

Before You Start

There are two main questions you must ask yourself before starting any marketing efforts, whether on- or offline: “Who is my audience?” and “What are my objectives?”

Audience

The audience for most business marketing activities is obviously past, present, and future customers. However, as in traditional advertising and marketing, it helps to narrow down who you are trying to reach, segmenting your market by age, geography, gender, interests, occupation. Certain methods of Internet marketing, such as pay-per-click ads, allow you to target your customers based on this type of segmentation.

Objectives

We can assume that the overall objective of most marketing is to sell products and/or services, but you may have additional objectives for online marketing. These related objectives will hopefully end up driving increased sales, but they can be more subtle than simply asking customers to buy right now. For example, your online marketing plan might include goals such as these:

  • Support and increase visibility of your company’s brand.
  • Improve search engine rankings.
  • Offer reference information related to your business sector.
  • Increase number of registered users or newsletter subscribers.
  • Drive traffic to your company website.

After defining your audience and marketing goals, you can begin to formulate an Internet marketing strategy and tactics. When getting into online marketing, it is important that you maintain brand consistency. Build on the reputation that you have already established. Your on-line presence should mirror that of your “brick and mortar” presence. Use the same logo and tagline so that people will understand that you are the same company. Having an online presence is a way to build on what you have already accomplished.

In the remainder of this report we’ll look at the most common ways you can use the Internet to deliver your message and start increasing your sales.

Table of Contents

websites

E-Mail

Newsletters

Other Announcements

Search Engine Marketing and Display Advertising

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Pay-per-Click (PPC)

Display Advertising

Social Media and Networking

Decide: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?

YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Etc.

Twitter

Blogs

Forums & Discussion Groups

Article Placement / E-Zines

Other Internet Marketing Outlets

Wikipedia

Directories

websites

We won’t get into the vast topic of how to build and manage a website, but if you aim to use the techniques described below, it is nearly essential to have one. Most of your marketing efforts will have a “call to action” that involves your audience visiting your website to research products or services, find contact information, sign up for a newsletter, or place an online order. Whatever you are asking people to do in your online promotions, make sure the website allows them to easily complete that task. One other vital component of any business website is an analytics program (Google offers a fairly robust application free of charge), so you can track how well your marketing efforts are working and calculate the return on your advertising investment (ROI).

How can you develop an online presence at little or no cost? There are several companies that offer free site building tools and hosting services. If you go this route, select a company that has a proven track record, so your hard work isn’t wasted when the company goes out of business or suspends the service. A couple of reliable options are Google Sites and Yola. If you have any money in your budget at all, you should probably just spend the less than $100 per year it takes to buy a personalized domain name (for example, “mybusiness.com”) and a Web hosting service. Another potential option, depending on your business and marketing goals, is to create a free blog (see below for more details). The most popular free blogging services as of this writing are WordPress and Blogger.

E-Mail Newsletters

E-mail newsletters provide one of the most highly performing avenues for marketing. You can collect customer e-mail addresses by asking visitors that come to your website to subscribe, by requesting e-mail addresses from anyone who visits your physical location, or by purchasing an e-mail list. To generate a higher rate of readership, make sure the audience is narrowly targeted and has some vested interest in your product. By sending out your newsletter on a regular schedule (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) you can counteract the transient and temporary nature of Internet users by continually reminding them of your company’s existence. Affordable services like Constant Contact can be used to manage mailing lists, statistics, and opt-in/out functions.

Caveat: Sending commercial e-mail messages to people who have not agreed to receive your mailings can result in severe fines and penalties from the federal government per terms of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Newsletter content should appeal to your defined audiences, with industry- or product-related news and events, company-specific news and events, practical reference information, and interesting statistical and demographic information. The newsletter copy should publicize links to appropriate pages within your website.

You will need to maintain one or more separate lists for the purpose of sending targeted messages to particular audiences (see Other Announcements below). You might combine all your lists to send a monthly newsletter, and send other bulletins to past or potential customers as appropriate.

Other Announcements

Other announcements are e-mailings that can consist of press releases, coupons, special notices, or anything you want to communicate specifically to members of one or more e-mail lists.

Search Engine Marketing, Pay-per-Click and Display Advertising

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization means constructing a website that is easily crawled by search engine spiders, and it encompasses a variety of techniques designed to improve your site’s (or page’s) ranking in the search engine results page. The goal is for your site to be found by searchers who are looking for sites related to a certain keyword or phrase, for example “little red wagon” if you are in the business of selling toy wagons. SEO can be divided into on-page activities (e.g., amount of content, metadata, links, programming methods and structural issues) and off-page activities (most importantly, obtaining links from other websites to your site).

Pay-per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click advertising refers to text ads displayed on search engine results pages (versus “organic” results achieved by SEO) and other sites, usually in the margins. In the case of Google AdWords and Microsoft’s adCenter, you can open an account and specify the keyword(s) that, when searched for, will generate an ad that links to your website. You pay only when a searcher clicks an ad and is directed to your site. In the example below, the key phrase is “little red wagon,” and pay-per-click ads are located at top (in yellow) and in the right-hand column (subtitled “Sponsored Links”). The first organic listing is “Little Red Wagon Foundation.”

A few of the benefits of PPC advertising are that you know exactly how many people view your ads, how many of those viewers click through to your website, and (if you are using a site analytics tool) what they do once they reach your site. You can also start and stop running ads at a moment’s notice, experiment with any number of ads you like, and fund your campaign with as little as $10 to start.

Display Advertising

Display advertising, also called banner advertising, means purchasing ad space on another website and placing a text and/or graphic ad with a link to your site. This technique is generally more complex and expensive than pay-per-click, but can be very powerful if the right message is shown to a tightly focused audience. To achieve optimal click-through rate (CTR), advertise on websites where you assume your target audience is visiting, rather than a general interest website. Most marketers don’t purchase ad space directly from another website, but use a banner ad network to automatically place ads on appropriate websites. A couple of the biggest names in display ad serving are DoubleClick and BurstMedia.

Social Media and Networking

Social networking is the latest buzz in the modern marketing arsenal. If you have any doubt about its impact, especially on the under-40 population, read this list. Small businesses with limited resources should weigh their time spent and the potential benefits carefully, however. It can also be difficult to measure the return on your investment for some of these tactics.

The general principle of “marketing” on social networking outlets is that people who have similar interests will virtually congregate around Web content that discusses that interest. They may be interested in product information in the form of reviews or personal opinion, but hard sale approaches are mostly discouraged and unproductive. Your goal is to become a trusted advisor-which usually means revealing your identity and at least some part of your personality. If that premise makes you uncomfortable, you might still find social networking sites valuable for market research purposes. Find out what people are buying and why, then use that information to help shape your other marketing activities.

The following section describes the more popular social media outlets and sites, but keep your eyes open for new virtual spaces where you might get more attention by getting in on the ground floor.

YouTube, Facebook, Etc.

YouTube allows you to post videos on your own “channel,” a distinct Web page that can be customized and allows for posting links back to your own website. A major positive aspect of this venue is that the number of views is posted and viewers can submit comments, so you know whether your videos are popular and why.

Facebook is considered the model for modern social networking sites. Facebook allows you (individual, corporate, non-profit, etc.) to create a page, attract “likes” and reviews, communicate with followers by posting status updates, photos and videos, and so on.

Although the previously named sites are the most popular in terms of visitors, there are a couple of business-oriented networking sites that may be more useful for making business connections. LinkedIn helps you develop a network of clients, service providers, and subject experts; find business opportunities and partners; post job openings; and more. More detailed advice on best practices for using LinkedIn can be found in many online articles and blogs.

Twitter

Think of Twitter as a mini-blog (see below) that allows you to broadcast messages of 140 characters or less. The messages appear to your “followers” on their phones or computers, as well as on Twitter.com. The biggest challenges are to gain a useful number of followers and to think of something engaging to write to them. If you are a speaker, writer, or performer Twitter can be used to let your fans know what you’re doing and when. If you have a retail store you might let your followers know that you’re offering a discounted item or running a special sale. You should post a Twitter sign-up link on your website, and within your signature line in outgoing e-mail messages. You can also gain followers by following people who work in or comment on your industry, as some Twitter users will follow those who follow them.

Blogs

The word blog originally came from the term “Web log.” There’s no real standard for what a blog is, but most commonly authors use them to comment on (and link to) other online news items, websites, or other Internet content. For the most part, direct selling on a blog is frowned upon and is probably a recipe for driving away potential readers. What do you write about, then? Well, if you run an Internet marketing firm you write about trends in Web marketing, what the search engines are up to, tips for do-it-yourselfers, or what you thought of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Seriously, read some blogs and you will find all sorts of personal opinion mixed in with professional advice and commentary. The goal of your blog, however, should most likely be to establish yourself as an expert and trusted advisor in your chosen field.

You might also pursue getting your products, services, or website mentioned in related blogs by other industry experts. When a high-visibility blogger mentions a website on his or her blog, the site is exposed to a potential audience of new viewers. Often, blog postings are simply press releases that are picked up by sites that discuss topics related to a particular product or industry. More opportunities (and traffic) in this arena can be realized by developing relationships with individual bloggers.

Additional Tips:

  • Post an article that was written by someone else, just be sure to provide a link to the original article and give credit to the person wrote it. You can then give your commentary on the topic of the article or find a way to relate the information to local trends or challenges.

  • Ask colleagues to be “guest bloggers” by writing articles for you to post, again giving them credit and adding their byline and a link to their website. Using links is a good way to drive additional traffic to their sites so it’s a good trade-off for both parties.

  • Nick Francesco of AskNick.com said, “A blog gets people’s attention and Twitter keeps it.” Consider using these two outlets together.

Forums & Discussion Groups

A forum (also known as discussion group, message board or bulletin board) is a component of a website where users can ask questions, offer advice, or share experiences with others about a certain topic or topics. Nearly every hobby on earth has a number of popular forums wherein members offer their thoughts and feelings on all aspects of their favorite pastime. Contributing a comment (with a link to your website) in discussion groups related to your products or services can create a small surge or spike in traffic, but usually has little long-lasting effect. To maximize effectiveness, target forums on high-traffic sites that have 1,000+ users, and reply to topics with larger numbers of views (relative to other posted topics).

You can easily build your own bulletin board/forum component on your site with free or low-cost software. User forums have the potential to greatly increase the “stickiness” of a site, given a critical mass of traffic required to generate new discussions and keep participants interested in returning. You can start by “seeding” topics on your own, but there won’t be any results until traffic is directed to the forums. The conundrum for small businesses may be the time required to moderate a forum once it becomes successful. One solution is to seek out a volunteer moderator who exhibits a keen interest in your field. A sample of a baseball trading card forum is shown in the screen shot below.

Article Placement / E-Zines

Another avenue for generating incoming links and traffic to your site is the free article market. Article submission (or e-zine) websites allow you to publish articles on a variety of topics. Examples include EzineArticles and ArticleCity.com.

Depending on terms of use, these articles may be used as content on other websites, or collected on the site where submitted. The main objective of most article contributors is to increase their search engine rankings with the placement of backlinks on other reputable sites. Providing reliable and accurate reference information is secondary, and the traffic potential from article readers is questionable.

Obtaining links from article submission sites isn’t likely to improve your site’s search engine rankings much. However, existing content from a print newsletter or other written material can be re-purposed with a relatively small time investment. Be aware that creating articles from your website’s content verbatim may cause search engines to penalize your site, as the search engines take a dim view of text that is republished multiple times (“duplicate content” in search engine optimization terms). Submitting articles to sites with the most traffic will give your site the best chance to be discovered by new readers.

Caveat: Once an article is submitted, you have little or no control over who uses your content and for what purpose, depending on the copyright policies of the site on which the article is posted.

Other Internet Marketing Outlets

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is, essentially, an online encyclopedia. The unique aspect of Wikipedia is that users generate the content, though content must be approved by volunteer editors. Traffic will grow if and when others link to the entry. If you add content, your time commitment will be relatively minor, and the benefits might include improved search engine ranking and a slight increase in traffic to your site. As with other forms of Internet communication, a Wikipedia entry that is essentially a commercial for a product, service, or company will not be viewed positively and is unlikely to be approved by editors.

Directories

Online directories allow Internet users to browse through categories of topics to find websites related to a certain subject. There are directories for businesses, blogs, websites in general, and more. Many directories are free, and some only list you if you pay. The mother of free directories is the Open Directory Project, and by all accounts the best paid directory for business is the Yahoo! Directory ($299 annually). Be aware that you might wait a long time for some of the free directories to list your site, as they may rely on volunteer screeners. Directories not only allow consumers to find you in their listings, they also help get your site indexed in the major search engines. If you submit your site to a directory, make sure to read the submission guidelines and follow them exactly.

What Is An Online Business?

When we mention the phrase “Online Business” – we are actually referring to the term utilized for any sort of business deal that comprises the sharing of information or data across the World Wide Web. This is also referred to as e-business.

In this current age, research has proven that more and more businesses are being introduced online on daily basis. This is because it offers loads of benefits and leverage for new businesses and existing ones.

The benefits of utilizing online marketing over that of offline (brick-and-mortar) marketing is primarily that of extensive reach, robust customer communication, target audience engagement, among others. Below are basic advantages of online business and marketing and why it is important for you to consider having your business launched on the internet.

Online Business & Marketing Offers Widespread Audience Potential

If you are just starting out a new business or have been in business for long; once you decide to expand and launch out online, you will have more opportunities to reach out to more customers. Launching your business online will offer you access to millions of prospective consumers online, locally and globally. Online marketing helps you reach these customers much easier and even at lesser fee than you would through offline business marketing. As an online marketer, you will be able to target more people by simply placing ads in diverse search engines, including those of Yahoo, Bing, Google, etc. With SEO applied, and using specific vital related business keywords, the business can gain first-page search engine ranking which is great for attracting loads of organic traffic and, as a result, more exposure to potential customers all around the world.

It Provides Available Information

With online business and marketing product details are more widely and readily available to large audience of people who might be interested in such products/services. It allows you to post service or product images, descriptions and prices on the internet via your website. Having an online business lets you reveal key advantages of your services or products over other competitors.

It Offers Better Tracking

With dedicated software – online businesses can easily and better track business activities online. With this, businesses can apportion more advertising dollars to the right search engines to produce greater volume of website traffic.

Online Business Provides Better Customer Engagement and Contact

Online business and marketing offers better customer engagement and contact. This is because the internet offers businesses the platform and capacity to deliver clear communication to their target audience and customers. With the potentials to generate email leads from website visitors, effective communication becomes easier and more direct, with much better benefit to enjoy higher returns on investment. This is also quite cheaper to attain than it is with offline business and marketing.

Online Reputation Control – Branding, Insurance, Or Blind-Luck?

In today’s world it is far too easy to be ignorant of your online reputation. It is even easier for it to instantly vaporize and let someone tear it into a barely recognizable brand that you will fess up to being involved with. Every blog, community site, customer review, or competitor has hundreds of different options to voice viewpoints and concerns against a company. If you haven’t done it already, start understanding how to use tools to monitor social media and take proactive steps to keep your business in working order.

Your second option is to ask the simple question:

Can this happen to me?

Yep it sure can.

As a case example, I pulled a local article from Washington CEO Magazine on the Top 100 Companies to work for in 2007. I pulled some of the names off the list and did a quick query in Google. Here are some of the headlines I found on the proper names of the “Top 100 companies:

Result 7 – Zillow – Google Headline “How Good are Zillow’s Estimates?”

“Zillow came within 5% of the price in a third of the transactions studied by The Journal. It was more than 25% off target on 11% of them. In 34 of the 1,000 transactions, Zillow was off by more than 50%.”

Our view: If you are a user or an investor of Zillow, you’ve more than likely been exposed to this article and several like it. How does it make someone feel that the Wall Street Journal (considered to be one of the most respectable news sources) is saying Zillow zestimates are 50% off?

Result 6 – Comcast – Google Headline “A Comcast Technician Sleeping on My Couch” A Comcast cable technician came to replace a cable modem and fell asleep while waiting for the customer service group. As of this article it was viewed: 1,219,303 times! (At 58 seconds long, that is A LOT of bad reviews for Comcast.) It had 714 comments.

Our View: Holy smokes Batman. 1,219,303 views! I don’t know any company that wouldn’t suffer a marginal impact to marketing, sales, and customer service numbers when a million different people have watched how lackluster Comcast support is.

Result 3 – Spokane Federal Credit Union Review – Citysearch Review – “I had an account with Spokane Federal for many years and I was never really that impressed, they pretty much just took care of what I needed and nothing more, overall I would say that they met, not exceeded my expectations”

Our View: Even though Spokane Federal Credit Union has plenty of coverage, it would be easy to bump off a lack-luster review saying they are nothing but mediocre.

Result 3 – Zango – PC Hell: Zango Removal Instructions – “Zango is a entertainment site with free access to videos, music, games, and other downloads. The site is free to all users, but is paid for by advertisements. Visitors are presented with an end user license agreement that they accept before downloading any content.”

Our View: Here is a Desktop Software company that has hordes of people using Zango gaming software, and every time someone Google’s their name you get “PC Hell – Zango Removal Instructions” thrown at you. If I bought a desktop system that had them pre-installed on it, you can bet that I would remove it in a heartbeat. I don’t need some casual gaming platform slowing down my PC while I need to number crunch my data or send an important e-mail.

It doesn’t make a difference of who you are (how big, or how little), this can happen to you.

It happens to Comcast and Zillow.

It also happens to the little guys.

If you look at this problem from a strictly numbers point of view, Comcast buys it’s own keyword of “comcast” from Google so that it can keep company branding and results at the top of Google. If I were to buy that keyword, it would cost roughly $1.25 per click, and there are 5500 estimated clicks per day on it (that is a daily budget of $6000 to $8000 per day on that keyword).

If Comcast is paying only $.25 per visitor for that keyword- imagine that those 1,219,303 video views cost Comcast a minimum of $250k in lost “clicks”, not counting how many customer service problems and public relations issues it causes.

The Power of Online Business Directories and How to Get Started Fast

More and more small businesses today are using online business directories to their benefit. If you run a small business, you likely spend a great deal of your time thinking about your marketing plan. online business directories can be a great addition to your current small business marketing strategy. Those sites can help your small business expand its website traffic, increase the likelihood that your website will be found by interested visitors and increase your bottom line. If you haven’t taken a look at those directories and considered how your small business could use them to increase its market presence, then now is the time to start!

What Are Online Business Directories?

There are many different types of online business directories available on the Internet. Each of these sites serves a specific purpose and can be used by your small business in specific ways.

An online business directory is a website submission service that allows your small business’ website to be added to a specific category where it can be searched for by interested visitors. Listing your small business on an online business directory increases your website’s visibility on the web and helps to create inbound links to your business’ website. This places make it easy for people to find what they are looking for. These directories can be accessed from just about anywhere that has an internet connection. This means that people could find your business’ website from their home, office or even while traveling.

Every website that is submitted to an online business directory is placed in a specific category. These categories can range in how they are organized. Some are organized by business-related categories, some are organized according to personal preferences and others are organized by subject. Each category consists of several websites relating to a specific topic. Each website listing features the name of the website, a direct link to the website and a short description of the website. Interested Internet visitors will be able to browse through the various categories in the directory and locate websites like yours that they may be interested in visiting. Essentially, those places make it easier for any visitor to find your business’ website.

How Do Online Business Directories Work?

The concept of online business directories is actually a pretty simple one. These webistes are very similar to the Yellow Pages in the real world, only these listings are only online. (Actually Yellow Pages.com is now one of the largest online directories as well.) A directory is just a listing place for a number of websites. Any type of website could be listed in an online business directory. Some directories are huge and cover every topic that someone could create a website for, while others are very small and specific to a specific niche.

Let’s use an example. Say you are a model airplane enthusiast and you want to find some websites that cater to your specific interest. You could look through a huge online business directory such as Google My Business and find several dozen websites that are related to model airplanes. Or you could look for an online business directory that is niche-specific, which means that the entire online business directory would be based on hobbies such as model airplanes. With a niche-specific directory you may find even more websites that are based on your specific interest than what you could find on the larger directories.

Since online business directories are organized by categories, finding websites that relate to a specific interest such as model airplanes is very easy. You could find information and websites about model airplanes in your local region too, if you use a regional-specific online business directory. So if you live in Phoenix you could find websites that relate to both model airplanes and the Phoenix area. These places will direct you to websites that you want to find. All you have to do is perform a search in the online business directory for a specific topic or browse through the various categories until you find the type of websites you are looking for. When you perform a search you will be given a list of all of the websites that relate to your search term. You will be presented with a number of links to these websites and each link will have a short description of what you are likely to find on the website. You can read the descriptions and choose to click on the website that best suits you.

There are many different types of websites that you could find under a specific topic as well. For example, if you search several of those sites for information relating to model airplanes you may find websites that are about building model airplanes, flying model airplanes, creating historically accurate model planes, tips and instructions about how to fly model planes, websites that sell model airplanes and charters and associations that you could join regarding model airplanes. These are just a few of the examples you could find using an online business directory. There are simply too many topics to list them all here.

You can see how anyone can use an online business directory to find websites relating to things that interest them. As a small business owner you can see how potential customers of yours are using those web sites too. Now that you understand how online business directories work it is time to see how they can work for your business.

How Do Online Business Directories Benefit Small Businesses?

There are many benefits associated with listing your small business in an online business directory. The more directories you can use to list your business the more benefits you will reap. Here are some of the benefits of using online business directories:

  • Exposure

Exposure is important for all business marketing strategies. After all, the more people who are exposed to your business the more people are likely to utilize your business’ services. If online visitors aren’t able to see your website or even know that it exists, then they probably aren’t going to purchase your products or services. Listing your business’ website in those sites helps your website to gain exposure. Thousands of people use these websites every day to find things they are interested in. These are people who are actively searching for websites that are directly related to your products or services. They are already looking- all you have to do is make it easy for them to find you. These sites will expose your business to more online visitors, which could increase traffic to your website.

  • Increased Traffic

There are several ways that these directories can help you increase the amount of traffic your website receives. For starters, the more exposure your website has the more people are likely to visit it. But these websites offer more than just exposure from potential viewers. They also offer exposure to the various major search engine crawlers like Google and even YouTube. This increases the chances that your website will appear on major search engine results pages, or SERPs, which will allow more people to see the website when they perform a regular search. Both search engine optimization exposure and exposure to more people who are searching for your website could result in increased traffic to your small business’ website.

  • Cheap Advertising

As a small business owner you already understand the importance of advertising. You know that it helps customers to find your business and recognize your name and brand. You probably have little room in your budget for more advertising right this moment. That is one of the major benefits of listing your business’ website in an online business directory. Online business directories are inexpensive to join and they offer a lot of exposure for the price. Some of these sites will allow you to list your business for free, while others will charge a minimal fee. Either way, you are getting a lot of exposure for far less money than you would spend on a TV or radio advertisement spot.

  • Professional Appearance

You want everything about your business to look professional in the eyes of your customers. A professional appearance enhances your status and makes customers more likely to patronize your business. Online directories help you to look like a professional business. When an online consumer sees your business listing in an online business directory, they will consider your business to be an authority on the subject and a professional place to do business. Unlike a search that is performed on a major search engine like Google, where there is little difference between the legitimate websites relating to a topic and the less than useful websites, those places are mostly legitimate websites. Online consumers are more likely to trust what they see on such sites.

  • SEO Benefits

Online business directories offer several search engine optimization benefits as well. Firstly, these directories offer you more inbound links. When an online visitor sees your website link in an online business directory, they will be able to click on it and be instantly re-directed to your website. This is a great way to increase traffic. It is a great way to improve your status in the eyes of search engine crawlers too. The more backlinks that a search engine crawler can find, the more relevant they will rank your website. This is especially true of authoritative sites. Being linked to a major online business directory, such as Google My Business, will give your website more relevancy in the eyes of Google’s search engine crawlers. This will result in a higher page ranking on the SERP. As you know, a higher search engine result page rank you get, the more people are going to click on your website link.

  • Increased Revenue

When more people are able to find your website it increases the chances that they will visit your website. When people visit your website they are more likely to purchase your goods or services. This means that these sites can help you increase your revenue stream. Online business directories are good for your bottom line.

  • Increased Brand Recognition and Customer Interaction

When an online viewer locates your website though an online business directory, they are more likely to remember your business’s name and directly interact with it. Online business directories can help your business stand out to customers as well. Overall, listing your small business in an online business directory will help you to create a more comprehensive and effective online presence.

Listing your small business’ website with several online business directories will help more people find your website, whether they are specifically searching for it or if they are just browsing. In addition to gaining exposure, appearing on those sites will provide major SEO benefits, which will help search engines find your site. Increased exposure and higher search engine rankings will result in more traffic to your website, which will result in higher revenue.

There are many different types of online business directories, from large global directories to small, niche and location-specific ones. Some examples of other types of online directories can include reciprocal link directories, free directories, paid directories, Business 2 Business directories, theme-related directories, small business directories and many, many more.

Why You Should Consider Listing Your Small Business in an Online Directory

Apart from the concept that online business directories will increase the amount of exposure your website gets and help with your SEO strategies, they are also a very effective way to directly target potential customers. Places like those make it easy for online users to find something they want. According to a study performed by Burke, 8 out of 10 people will use a print or online business directory to find companies or products they are looking for. The same study also suggested that 8 out of 10 people who use these directories to locate a business do so with the intent to purchase a product or service from them. This is a very effective form of targeted advertising. The customer already needs or wants your product or service and you can directly target them by listing your website in an online business directory.

Another reason why you should consider listing your small business has to do with your return on investment, or ROI. Since the potential benefits of getting increased website traffic are great compared to how much you will have to spend to list your website in an online business directory, you can see a great return on your investment in the form of increased revenue. You also want to keep your brand and your company name in the minds of consumers at all times, which is something else that an online business directory can help with.

What Online Business Directories Should You Use for Your Small Business?

Even though listing your website in many online business directories will improve your website’s exposure and SEO ranking, it is not effective to just SPAM your website into every single online business directory you can find. You will want to take some time to consider which specific site will give you the best ROI. The best option is to find a great combination of directories to join. If you run a small business, the best place to start may be with a local directory. This is because most people will search for businesses in their area they can patronize. Local market and niche-specific online directories can offer extremely targeted advertisements to potential local customers.

After your business is listed in these directories you can take a look at the larger and potentially more expensive general-interest directories. You will probably want to consider listing with the top 10-15 online business directories, as these will be used by a lot of people and will offer higher relevancy and authority in the eyes of search engines. Google My Business and LinkedIn are large general-interest directories that you will want to list your small business in. If your website sells tangible goods you may also want to consider listing it in comparison shopping websites and product listings directories. Studies show that 42% of consumers will look at a comparison shopping website before they decide to purchase a specific product.

The best way to figure out which specific directories your small business should be listed in is to start with your competitors. Take a look at your local and niche-specific options and figure out if your competition is already listed. If they are you need to be listed too. If they are not listed you may want to list your website as a way to beat them to the punch. In some situations it may not make sense for you to have a listing in a specific online business directory, even if your competitors are listed in it. Your goal should be to be listed in every relevant and niche-specific directory you can find as well as many of the major directories, but no so many directories that you appear SPAMMY.

In addition to listing your business in online business directories, you also need to maintain these listings. It is important for your online business directory listings to be up to date and accurate, or else you could just be wasting your time. If your directory information seems out of date your customers will probably look elsewhere.

It will probably take some time to see the results of listing your small business’ website in so many online sites, but eventually you will see results. The best way to find the perfect combination of online business directory listings for your business is to use some sort of tracking or analytics system. You will want to be able to see how many people clicked on your website links from within the directory and if your website has shown increased traffic since then. You will want to stop wasting your time with online directories that are not producing results and increase the time and effort you spend on sites that are productive.

Best Practices for Listing Your Small Business in Online Business Directories

Now that you understand why your small business should be listed in online business directories and have started locating the directories that you want to be listed in, you are ready to begin creating your business listings for submissions. Here are some tips and best practices for listing your small business in those directories.

  • Start by choosing local directories and directories that are niche-specific. So if you own a model airplane hobby shop in Phoenix, make sure you find a local Phoenix business directory and a directory that is related to model airplanes. If you can find a model airplane hobby directory for the Phoenix area, you are all set.

  • Once you’re in local directories, start searching for larger and more generalized directories. Pick directories that get a lot of traffic and that are listed highly on major search engines like Google. A higher search engine ranking means that the directory will be considered as both authoritative and relevant in the eyes of search engines, making any links you get through these directories more valuable to your SEO strategy.

  • Include all of the relevant information regarding your small business in your website’s directory description. This should include your business’ name, location, telephone number, contact information and possibly reviews, business hours and anything else that is relevant. Add in photos, maps or other interactive features if the directory lets you.

  • Try to keep your information consistent across all of your online business directory listings. This will help your website to retain its credibility in the eyes of search engines and will assist with your SERP rankings.

  • Try to make your business stand out by offering an explanation of your business or any specific message the customer should know in your description.

  • Keep all of your information up to date. This may mean frequently updating all of your listings several times per month.

  • Allow customers to leave positive reviews and use them in your listing if the directory allows it.

  • Always be professional and consistent with your business’ listings and message. This includes any information regarding your brand.

  • If you sell products or services to a local market, make sure your business is listed in a local business directory. Include geo-specific keywords and information. An example would be: “Dave’s Model Plane Shop” + “Phoenix”.

  • Optimize your website for SEO purposes and include the relevant keywords in your meta titles and listing descriptions. Keyword research is important.

Get Listed in the Top 10-15 Online Business Directories

Now is a great time to get your small business listed in the Top 10-15 sites. There are few other Internet marketing techniques that will offer so many benefits for such a small investment on your part. Listing your business in an online business directory will increase your website’s online presence and help more people find you, which can help you increase your business’s revenue.

Selling Online – Make it Easy For Your Customers to Reach You With Google Voice

Too many online sellers want to remain anonymous and do business without having to have any contact with the buyer. That’s just not going to work and if you don’t build relationships with your customers they may buy from you once, then never again. Building an online business means being accessible when the potential buyers have questions. Ignoring them and leaving their questions unanswered will only make them find another company to do business with.

I had a telephone call today from a gentleman in another country wanting to purchase some of my items in bulk. He called me on my business phone and we worked out a deal. This man told me he hates doing business via email because he can’t type well and would rather have a conversation face to face or on the phone. I agree. Although I do most of my correspondence via email, I would rather talk to my customers and find out who they are and what they really need. I can make recommendations that help my customers get exactly the products that will work for them and maybe upsell them a related product they didn’t know we carry.

Now, with that said, you don’t want to give out your home telephone number and have people calling at all hours of the night and day. You need a separate business telephone number and I recommend you get a Google Voice account. It is a free service from Google that you can sign up for. Google Voice issues you a telephone number in an area code that you choose and you get free voice mail with your account. You can set the call forwarding so that it rings at your home, your work or cell phone. There are a lot of features offered with this product but I like the voice mail feature the best.

When callers leave voice messages for you, Google Voice translates them and you can view them on your computer screen or cell phone like a text message. I have found that the translation service is pretty accurate considering a computer is doing the translating instead of a human being. I have even called my own Google Voice account to record myself when I had an idea I didn’t want to forget. When I get back to the office my voice recording is all typed out for me. You can even email the message to another person if you need to.

There is no reason not to have a business telephone number if you are selling online. The call you miss may be money gone forever.

Exit mobile version