When we make discussion of verbs that will increase the punch of your website, the first impression is always that we mean to punctuate the perimeter of the copy with “Pow! Zap! Zing!”  Okay, perhaps not quite as dramatic as all that, but you get the idea.  The premise behind using strong verbs to accentuate your website copy is not to give the impression of shouting one word phrases at your potential customers.  Nor is it intended to over sell your site by claiming to be “the world’s number one….” or “the only …. that you will ever need!”  While these types of phrases have their place in certain formats of marketing, the style of copy that will gain the confidence and psychological vibes of the visitors to your site are filled with action and emotional verbs.

Action verbs will literally keep your visitors at your site longer by drawing them through the site.  Action verbs have the psychological impact of keeping your customers moving and the motion is what links them from one aspect of your site to another.  Skillful use of action verbs are what will convince your client of the necessity of your product or service, the urgency associated with the need for the service, and the intelligence and trustworthiness of the company promoting the product  or service. 

Another method of verb usage which is very successful in print copy are emotional verbs.  Any verb which can describe the emotional state of the person while they are in action brings the reader closer to the source of the action and promotes a feeling of knowing the person that the verb is describing.  A person can walk across the room, or they can trudge across the room, or they can saunter across the room or they can slink across the room.  Each one of these descriptive words not only conveys movement across the room but also provides a mental image of the person doing the walking.

This use of action and emotional verbs also amplify other words in the copy.  Rather than being wet, your customer can be drenched to the bone, which prompts a more urgent response to purchase your moisture wicking long underwear.  You get the picture.

Use of action and emotional verbs doesn’t come easy to some, it takes some practice.  Really all it takes is a little forethought and a good thesaurus.  If you are writing your own site copy, be sure the consider the way that you convey your message.  Be sensitive to the temperament of your product and try to relay that emotion to your site visitors through words and phrases that will bring them into the action of what you are attempting to sell.  Of course, if you decide to hire someone else to write your ad copy, you’re partially out of the woods, but not completely.  This is still your copy to take ownership of, and you need to proof the copy with the same critical eye that you would use if you wrote it yourself.
 

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As a new entrepreneur in the internet marketing business, or a veteran searching for new ways to be more successful as an affiliate marketer, your goal is to provide the maximum number of qualified potential consumers to purchase from the merchants you promote.

With insightful direction, you can construct a website that will not only provide the highest number of consumer hits through top ten ranking on a Google general search, but will also provide your merchants with the highest number of quality hits, resulting in more sales for the merchant, and realizing higher profits for you through end sale commissions.

Our proven techniques for affiliate marketing through the internet will illustrate how to utilize our methods to your advantage, increasing end sales and your commissions!

Proper Website Construction to TopList Your Site

Unknown, or ignored, by most affiliate marketers are the methods by which search engines like Google determine which websites will appear at the top of their list in a general topic search.  Our program will illustrate how the keyword level complexities must be satisfied in website text so that the successful website host will obtain the most response from their listing.  The foundation of internet marketing is to have as many consumers view your site as possible.

Results Through Research!

Our methods are developed and proven successful through intense side by side testing of various internet marketing techniques.  Resulting research data proves that websites that use our recommended structure and word content format are the most profitable.  We base our claims on marketing research, not “results are not typical” claims. 

Learn Which Methods are Most Successful

Landing Page – This is the traditional method of providing specific product information to a potential consumer.  After a cursory reading of the product home page, the user has the option to click on a link to receive additional information about the product, including the option to order from the site.  Although the most widely used, this method is not necessarily the most profitable.   

Pre Sell Page – With this method, the affiliate marketer uses “real life accounts” that illustrate how the products benefits the user by using personal experience examples and testimonials of how the results of the product’s use benefited the user or resolved the problem situation.

Opt In Page – must provide name and email address to receive information on the promoted product – information is free of charge and is forwarded to the user as a video file, but they must provide name and email address to receive – this provides the marketing group with a means to follow up with additional marketing information on the product to solidify a potential sale.

Review Page – This method of webpage development refers to the use of “expert” testimony and analysis of several similar products and the resulting conclusion that the online merchant’s product is the best solution for resolving the problem issue.  There are several successful ways to develop a Review Page, depending on the product and the market demographic.  Our program will illustrate which method will most benefit you as the affiliate marketer.

As indicated in the above examples, there are many ways to structure an affiliate marketing website.  Some are more successful than others, and there are many factors which determine which methods will work best for you.  Our site will advance your knowledge of affiliate marketing so you will have the insight to apply the appropriate strategies to achieve a success rate which will make your services invaluable to your market sector.

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Use of an online article directory to promote your business can be a very lucrative way to invite new potential customer to visit your website, if timed and written properly.  Article directories are beneficial to the directory owner as well as the article writer in the the directory will place paid advertisements on the pages of the article to generate revenue.  The relevance of the article to the ad placement will be of vital importance to ensure that both the article writer and the website directory owner will benefit from crossover marketing.  As the website gains in search engine list ranking, the number of articles and advertisement revenue will also increase.

Additional aspects of marketing to consider in article writing are the techniques of niche keyword usage in search engine optimization and prolific hyperlinks and backlinks to increase traffic to the article site as well as the article authors primary website.

Use of public article directories such as EzineArticles.com provide the author with exposure to the marketplace and advances in personal credibility which translate into increase in business hits to the personal website as he becomes quietly known as an “expert” in his field.  To increase the impact of your article submissions, be sure to use a title that both includes your keyword, for increase in SEO ranking, and is appealing to real people viewing the site list, so it will actually get read.  This two fold method of advertising your product or business will help ensure that your marketing message is getting as much exposure as possible.

Another strategic way to ensure as many reads of your articles as possible is to keep them short and sweet.  Typically 400 to 600 words is the range for internet based articles that will get the important points of topic relayed to your target market audience and not have your audience lose interest before the end of the article.  If you are accumulating backlinks or direct links from hits to your article, there will be some benefit even if the attention span of the reader does not last the duration of the article, but the main intention of the writing is to convince your target market of the importance of your product. 

Simply put, most of the affiliate marketer program websites out there are simply tooooooooo looooooong.  We are all conditioned to scan these sites as the content is often repeated ad nauseum and we just want them to get to the point!  Don’t victimize your audience with the same error.  Concisely describe your position and rely on the intelligence of your audience to make the right decision.

A word must also be added about timing of article topics.  The proper timing, in combination with the right angle on the topic, can dramatically increase the viewing of your article.  You know what your core business is, and when your busiest time of the year is, and why.  Cater an article around these points and use it to increase your client list during your busiest season, or promote additional business on the off season.   

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The single most important aspect of most consumers’ decision to make a purchase of any product or service is in the level of confidence they have in the company they are purchasing from.  Especially in the case of purchasing a service, rather than product, the customer wants to know that they can rely on the company to be there for support, answer questions, provide follow up services, and resolve any problems, should they arise.  This all amounts to trust.  In the vast world of internet marketing, there always seems to be another producer of whatever it is you are interested in buying.  Therefore, liking and trusting the company and people you are dealing with becomes a large part of the decision to make a purchase.

Compound the simple issues of trust with the vast amount of internet based scams out there, and the online marketing professional really has an uphill battle on his hands.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to convince online consumers that all internet based companies are not out to take advantage of them.  Where the past promises of money back guarantees used to alleviate much of the tension of making purchases “sight unseen”, the advent of ghost companies and false P.O. Box addresses for returns has brought the anxiety of the back alley marketplace to the forefront of internet marketing.

Using photographs of real people on your site will make a connection between your clientele and your staff.  We can all tell when the “staff” photo on the landing page is really a set of paid models and when it is actually the staff of the company.  This builds trust.  It also builds a personal connection when your staff members are dealing with your clients, and you clients can put a face to the voice at the other end of the line.  Having a face to identify with even makes the email transactions more personable.

If you have a building where your business is located, a photo of your building on the website also promotes a sense of stability and permanence, which is another pitfall of the come and go nature of internet commerce that marketers must overcome.

If you have photos of your product, that will go a long way also.  If you specialize in kitchen remodeling, you would be making a grave mistake to not have before and after photos on your site.   Similarly, the person ordering the taillight for their mustang wants to know that it matches the other one, and photos are again imperative in securing the feeling of the right product in the customer’s mind.

Be sure to include a customer privacy statement on your website when asking for email or other personal information.  Similarly, reassure your customers by being sure to include all of your company’s contact information, including a mailing address and phone number.  If at all possible, including the name of a person to contact at your company at the website will also instantly instill a feeling of security with your new clients.

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Niche marketing is the term given to the use of a very specific market demographic when promoting a product, as opposed to attempting to sell to a broad audience.  The proven premise of niche marketing is that there is a dramatic increase in customer sales to be realized in the narrowing of a target market to only include very specific parameters in desired product, while that market continues to go unserviced.

This is not to say that you must only provide one type of very specific product to be successful.  On the contrary, the most successful businesses capitalize on diversity in their ventures to offset the less profitable aspects with the heavy revenue generators.  The key to success is to market to a niche.  That is, find a small component of your larger customer base that is not being met in its demands and adjust your product and your marketing to cater to that particular niche of your market.  Develop specific marketing for that audience that will prove that you understand their particular desires in your product, and then continue to convince this market of the benefits of your product over the competition, if indeed there is any, and how you have met their needs.  

As a successful player in niche marketing, ideally you will have little competition for your customer base, as the proper research will determine which niches are going unnoticed, and these will be your customers and yours alone.   The balancing act in niche marketing comes with finding a specialized customer base that is large enough to realize profit over costs to produce the product while engaging a market that has been overlooked by the competition.

Keep in mind that niche markets do not last forever.  At one time, there was a specialized niche for fuel economical cars.  While there is absolutely still a market for fuel economy in an automobile, and it is still referred to as a “market niche”, the truth is that all automakers now have small cars available that are big on fuel economy.  So while the market niche is still there, it is no longer an unnoticed market that makes one automaker filthy rich in being the only savvy supplier to this specialized area of the customer base.  When searching for a market niche, it is sometimes helpful to look at the majority of your current customers’ desires and then go in the opposite direction to see how many people are looking for a product similar to yours that will fill their particular need.

As competition catches up to you and your niche market, you will have to adapt or improve your product to continue being in the forefront for supply to your niche.  As your skill in marketing advances, you will have to seek out new ways to convince your market that your product is still superior to the rest, and in many cases longevity of the product succeeds in this task.  Holding the title as being the oldest supplier of a particular product does well in maintenance of a loyal customer base as well as drawing new clientele on the premise that you have been supplying your product the longest, so you are the reigning expert on the product itself.

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By David LeonhardtSocial bookmarking is a phenomenon that has caught on like wildfire, yet there are still many website owners who have no idea what it is, let alone how you can use it to increase your website leads, sales, subscribers and even your repeat visitors.  Get ready to ride the next wave of Internet marketing.

Everyone knows that a bookmark is a piece of paper that marks a page so you can find it easily again.  Most people know that a computer bookmark is a link on your computer that marks a web page so you can find it easily again. 

A social bookmark is a link that marks a web page so you can find it easily again, but also so you can share it with others (that’s why it’s called “social”, usually by posting it to one of several dozen social-bookmarking websites.

Social bookmarking is all the rage these days, with websites like Del.icio.us and Digg and Dzone and Reddit and Furl and, well dozens if not hundreds of others commanding a presence among the top traffic generators on the Internet. People like to bookmark their “finds” and they like to show off their “finds” to others. Hence bookmarking, hence social bookmarking.

Webmasters hoping to capture the attention of today’s Internet user should heed the signs and recognize the phenomenal opportunity presented by social bookmarking. In a follow-up article, I will explain the “how-to”s, but here are five types of marketing advantages ofsocial bookmarking.

REPEAT VISITORS: Considering that many people do not buy/register/contact/take action on their first visit to your website, repeat visitors are a necessity (not to mention laser-targeted prospects!) You can get more repeat visitors to your website if they can find your website again. That means getting them to bookmark your website, either on their computer or on the social bookmarking site of their choice. The more bookmarking options you offer, the more visitors are likely to return. The easier you make it for them to bookmark your site, the more of them will. However, you really must have quality content, or nobody will want to bookmark your page.

VIRAL BOOKMARKING: When somebody bookmarks your website on their own computer, they share it with, well, themselves. It’s a private thing. But when they bookmark a web page on a social bookmarking, it’s more “social”. Other people will see it. Other people might share it. Other people might even bookmark it. Websites like Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia and SpicyPage are ideal for this. In fact, many of the biggest users of a social bookmark website are often users of several. However, you really must have quality content, or nobody will care that somebody else has bookmarked your page.

VIRAL LINKING: When somebody sees your link at a social bookmarking website, they might bookmark it…or they might add it to their own blog or portal or fan site. Suddenly one person’s bookmark becomes several links to your website, presumably from reasonably well-targeted sources of traffic. However, you really must have quality content, or nobody will want to blog somebody else’s bookmark.

SEO-FRIENDLY LINKS: Many of the social bookmarking websites offer no direct SEO value. The links might feature the NoFollow attribute. Or the mea robots tag might be set to NoFollow. Or your bookmarks might not show on unique URLs. Os the links might use a redirect script that search engine spiders don’t follow. But there are some social bookmarking websites that offer SEO-friendly links.

SEO-FRIENDLY LINKS ELSEWHERE: Even if a link from a social bookmarking website is not SEO-friendly, don’t underestimate its SEO potential. There is a whole industry growing just to game Digg and Del.icio.us, knowing that if a website’s bookmark can stick on the home page for an hour or two, it will mean dozens or even hundreds of inbound links from reasonably relevant blogs and portals and fan sites. And this is natural linking, the kind that search engines love! However, you really must have quality content, or whose going to post a link to your website just because they found it bookmarked?

ABOUT THE WRITER:

David Leonhardt is an effective SEO writer and SEM consultant. Read the David Leonhardt SEO marketing blog, specifically the social bookmarking blog post that inspired this article.

Keywords: Social Bookmarking | Profit From Social Bookmarking

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You Need Flash 8 for this Content

Another great video by Matt Cutts!

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Pay per Click advertising is a very popular and productive way to promote your website, if the program is run well. Too often, people set their site up with a provider, choose a couple of keywords, and forget about the campaign. Later, they wonder why they don’t have success with their online ads. It is important to plan, implement, and maintain your pay per click advertising as you would any other marketing campaign. All campaigns have 4 major parts; Research and planning, Implementation , Measurement, and Analysis and adjustment.

Research

What are you marketing? Not all PPC services are the same and some will be better than others depending on the subject of the marketing campaign. Just as the cost per click through depends on the demand for that keyword, success will vary from site to site. For example, BizRate , NexTag , and PriceGrabber are used for price comparison and are geared for retail. Google is by far the most popular search engine with approximately 50% of all search activity.

Set-up Several Campaigns

It is easiest if you start with a single provider with several different keywords, you should quickly be able to tell which keywords are most productive. Once you have honed your keywords, launch with several other providers and compare the effectiveness of each. If you start your campaign with many different keywords and providers, it will be harder to differentiate the success of the site and the success of the keyword.

Metrics

All campaigns are a work in progress…always! To be effective it is important to track of your campaigns progress. Overall, you want information that will help you track your Return on Investment (ROI). At a minimum, you should measure and track the following:

• Times each specific keyword ad was clicked
• Number of people exposed to your ad
• Daily Unique Visitors
• Hourly Unique Visitors
• First time visitors
• Avg. page views per hour
• Page views per visit
• Page views today
• Visits today

Adjust

Now that you have collected and analyzed your information, adjust your plan. Don’t hesitate to change providers or keywords. The internet changes daily so it is important to continue analyzing and change as needed. The following is a list of the most popular providers of pay per click advertising.

• Google AdWords
• Ask.com
• Yahoo! Search Marketing 
• MIVA 
• ABC Search
• Enhance Interactive
• SearchFeed
• 7Search
• Findology 
• Microsoft adCenter

All pay per click campaigns has the potential to be successful. It is an ongoing process but very rewarding when your ROI grows. If you are not able to properly manage your campaign, you may want to look into hiring a management service. This is particularly helpful if you are not staffed to spend the time on research and statistical analysis or if you are investing large sums of money into your campaign. There are also many software programs that can assist with analysis and management.

Keywords: Pay Per Click

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How eye movement research can improve your SEO

When you enter keywords into a search engine the page that comes up is called the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This term sometimes refers to the single page or the complete collected results depending on context. It is important to understand how people respond to these pages to formulate a complete marketing plan for your website.

For years, psychologists have study eye movements in relation to attention, comprehension, reading speed, and general interest. Cornell University performed a recent study on SERPs. They measured both the click percentage rate and visitation time on sites via SERPs using a number of undergraduates in a controlled study setting. The results provide some valuable information for SEO and SERPs in particular. Some key points from the study and application for your site are outlined here:

• The first two listings of a search page receive almost equal attention initially when a page is displayed. However it drops off significantly from there and dissipates. This reiterates the importance of high listings on pages. Interestingly, rankings 6-10 receive almost equal initial attention from the viewer.
• People tend to focus more on entries before the page break, no matter what rank the page break falls. For instance, if the break is at 6 you will see a drastic drop off at 7.
• The time spent exploring the abstract of search result 1 are almost 3 x that of the next closest, item 2. The time spent actually exploring the sites however decreases at a slower rate. This may indicate that they assume pertinent info to the subject to be obtained in the first abstract and then are clicking looking for format and other features that appeal to them.
• On all search engines tested, from the 5-6 result all measurements fall off dramatically, leading one to believe that 5 or above is really the magic SEO rating.

This study re-emphasis the importance of high ranking but it may also imply that most of us are going to be forced to lure customers through other means including pay per click advertising that also has a prominent feature on the page and further studies can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of this and other techniques.

Another study was performed by The Estlow Center regarding eye movement and page layouts. Though this was performed on homepage layouts, it gives us great insight to how people scan all pages. The following were reported in 2004:

• People scan from the top left part of the page and spent more time fixated on this portion than any other portion. This would indicate the most favorable spot for ad placement and is consistent with the Cornell study.
• People generally move from the top left in a diagonal line to the middle right, bottom, then top right looking at the right margin from bottom to top. Though most people assume that people read from left to right in sequential order, this is not true for scanning information. The top right portion of a page is scanned later and for a shorter amount of time than the middle sections all the way across the page. This indicates the least appealing ad space or listing space on a page.
• The best overall placement on any page is indicated to be in the top left to left middle of the page.

Research has always been important to marketing. These are just two studies in a flourishing area of research. Use these tips to pick search and ad placement. We will continue to explore similar studies in future blogs so stay tuned.

Keywords: Serps

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Another Case of White Hat versus Black Hat SEO

The prevalence of persons using trademarked names illegally has currently come to light in many venues but in particular, Google® Adwords. Some competitors have apparently begun to use other trademarked names to advertise on Google® Adwords. The advantages to such a ‘black hat’ tactic include:

The use of established reputations by vendors to promote a similar product or product off of the valued name

The advantage of ‘stealing/hijacking’ search results meant for the originally trademarked brand

Increased search traffic due to the originally trademarked brand

So with people participating in this and other ‘black hat ‘methods of SEO…how can you compete? Short answer…easily. Consider the following:

Expand the number of search phrases that you use for advertisement
Many people stop brainstorming after they have completed the first round of keywords. KEEP BRAINSTORMING. Relevant search phrases not only bring potential customers but may also attract a higher search engine rating.

Build your ad content around each phrase and promote all phrases with unique content
Black hat promotions are built around tricks…not solid offers of valuable content. If you are not a writer…make sure you plan enough of your budget to provide valuable content through outsourcing.

Relevance is important…customers will never return if redirected to irrelevant content. Black hatters make their money from a number of initial hits not returning customers/viewers. A solid marketing plan should be built around repeat readership so make sure you are encouraging this.
Analyze your results: Not even Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump come out of the gate with all the answers. Analysis is extremely important. To do effective analysis, you must start with very good records. At the very least track where your clients come from, interests, visitation rate, and input.
Black hat SEO has immediate but not long-lasting results. They are shady webmasters who try to make a quick profit then disappear. The same can be said of a certain segment in all businesses and industries.

As with all start-up business; assume the first year is a wash and don’t expect any profit until the second year. While the internet has many examples of exceptions…just as the restaurant industry; most online businesses will fold within the first year. The exceptions typically occur because their owners planned for the worst case scenario and when they made a first year profit…they were able to reinvest.

In general, Black Hat SEO employs any method to send their website to the top of a search lists no matter what the ethical implications are. White Hat SEO employs similar methods but within ethical boundaries. For example, White Hat systems do not represent non existing pages, content, or keywords.

Trademark infringement is just one of the many techniques employed by Black Hat SEO artists and firms. If you treat the internet as you would any other business venture, you can prevail. However, if you are looking to get rich quickly, beware. The internet is just another business avenue and as everyday passes it must be treated as being more and more within the traditional business mold.

Keys: SEO and Trademark

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