What's an article anyway, and why would I want to submit one to an ezine? That was a two-fold question and will require two answers.
An ezine article is usually composed of approximately 500 words on a single subject that would be of interest to your target market. At the end of the article, you should include a "resource box." This box should provide such things as your name, the name of your company, your web site address, email address, and a small blurb about your product/service.
Writing an article is not hard work. All it requires is some research and note taking. Use any of multiple sources to find information about the topic that you choose to write about. Then write your article in your own words using the notes that you took during your research. It's not difficult and it's something that you learned to do early in school (grade school probably). Write in a conversational tone. Write like you are talking to your best friend.
Now, I'll answer the second question. The reasons to submit this article to an ezine are varied, but not difficult to understand. They all boost your bottom line.
1. The submission of the article will help identify your business (web site) in the Internet marketplace. This is normally called "branding."
2. Article submission provides publicity, virtually free.
3. Someone may like your writing style and hire you to write articles or ebooks for them.
4. The published article will drive traffic to your web site.
5. If the publisher of the ezine that you submit your article to maintains an archive, your article may be read many months later. Traffic may still be driven to your site this way.
6. People will come to know you as an expert on your subject.
7. You might get your article published in free ebooks that are distributed all over the web. This will drive more traffic to your web site.
8. This will help you become a trusted vendor of information.
9. If you allow anyone to publish your article or email it to a friend, you will gain further exposure for free.
10. Webmasters may read your article and display it on their web site. You get additional free exposure.
11. If you send out an ezine, you could offer to swap articles with other ezine publishers for free. This provides more publicity without expense.
So, there are quite a few benefits that you could receive from publishing small articles like this one. If that isn't enough reasons for publishing your own articles, I don't know what else you'd need. Don't forget to provide enough valuable information. The more knowledge you supply, the more valuable you become. Provide real value and you will always have people clamoring for more.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dynamic Web Sites Necessary to Stay Competitive
It was not that long ago that becoming a web page authoring wizard required little more than an understanding of a few dozen Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) tags, and perhaps modest experience with a scanner and a graphics program to generate a corporate logo image file.
The stakes are much higher now. The hobby phase is over. The Internet is a big business. Competition for visitor “hits” is enormous, as it becomes more and more difficult to get your site noticed, much less bookmarked. Sensing that the authoring world wanted more out of HTML then a poor imitation of the printed page, the web browser makers and Internet standards bodies have been expending the capabilities of web pages at a feverish pace. These changes are allowing us to make our pages more “dynamic” – pages that can “think and do” on their own, without much help from the server once they have been loaded in the browser.
In websites, the most important thing that a user, editor or author looks for is the robustness and the maintainability of the site. In static approach for web page authoring, you simply write a different page for all the content in your site and connect these pages with hyperlinks or most probably by using a navigation bar in the main page. It seems like a simple and manageable idea. However, when it comes to add new content or change the general layout of the site, it is almost impossible for you to go through each and every page and edit the code. In the dynamic approach, you use a database as the foundation of your web site. What you put in this database totally depends on what you need to have for your pages; usernames and associated passwords, articles that you are going to use as your content, pictures, files, basically anything that you can think of. This database can be thought as your storage for the elements to build this site. However, it is not you who is building the pages, it is the PHP, ASP, PERL code that you have written or purchased. The only thing that is left for you is to draw a “plan” for the data driven code so that it knows where to put the building elements that are stored in your database. This plan is called the template for the site which is generally created using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Dynamic HTML (DHTML). Once the site is loaded into the browser, dynamic pages in a way “interacts” with the user and generates the HTML pages rather than taking the user from page to page with the help of the hyperlinks.
As one can see very easily, Dynamic Websites seem like the future of the Internet. It saves a lot of time and effort for the authors and also the user from frustration of waiting for the pages to load while visiting a simple site with an interesting article with a lot of pages.
The stakes are much higher now. The hobby phase is over. The Internet is a big business. Competition for visitor “hits” is enormous, as it becomes more and more difficult to get your site noticed, much less bookmarked. Sensing that the authoring world wanted more out of HTML then a poor imitation of the printed page, the web browser makers and Internet standards bodies have been expending the capabilities of web pages at a feverish pace. These changes are allowing us to make our pages more “dynamic” – pages that can “think and do” on their own, without much help from the server once they have been loaded in the browser.
In websites, the most important thing that a user, editor or author looks for is the robustness and the maintainability of the site. In static approach for web page authoring, you simply write a different page for all the content in your site and connect these pages with hyperlinks or most probably by using a navigation bar in the main page. It seems like a simple and manageable idea. However, when it comes to add new content or change the general layout of the site, it is almost impossible for you to go through each and every page and edit the code. In the dynamic approach, you use a database as the foundation of your web site. What you put in this database totally depends on what you need to have for your pages; usernames and associated passwords, articles that you are going to use as your content, pictures, files, basically anything that you can think of. This database can be thought as your storage for the elements to build this site. However, it is not you who is building the pages, it is the PHP, ASP, PERL code that you have written or purchased. The only thing that is left for you is to draw a “plan” for the data driven code so that it knows where to put the building elements that are stored in your database. This plan is called the template for the site which is generally created using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Dynamic HTML (DHTML). Once the site is loaded into the browser, dynamic pages in a way “interacts” with the user and generates the HTML pages rather than taking the user from page to page with the help of the hyperlinks.
As one can see very easily, Dynamic Websites seem like the future of the Internet. It saves a lot of time and effort for the authors and also the user from frustration of waiting for the pages to load while visiting a simple site with an interesting article with a lot of pages.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
How to get Targeted Traffic to Your Website!
Everyone who has a website knows that to have sales you must have traffic, but not just any traffic it has to be targeted traffic.
What is Targeted traffic? It is simply visitors to your website that are interested in what your website is about. For example, people interested in buying jewellery will find jewellery websites interesting.
How do I get targeted traffic I hear you ask? The following are tried and tested methods:
Forums: Subscribe to forums that discuss your topic. Answer questions and join in the debates there. Become an expert in the field. Then with each article reply you write have a discreet link to your website in the signature file. What can be placed in your signature is often determined by the forum moderators. Do not spam the forum or you will be stopped from posting. This is one of the most productive ways of getting free traffic as those who click your link have already read and liked your style.
Linking from/to other websites: Contact website owners that have similar but not competitive websites to yours, ask them for a reciprocal link from their website to yours. Be sure to select your link partner to match closely your customer profile. Software programs such as Arelis are very helpful in this process.
E-Zines: Contact e-zine owners that have your target readership and buy advertisements from them. Be sure to have a test run to see that the return on investment is sufficient to cover the costs involved. If you are buying an extended run of advertisements haggle with the e-zine owner over price. You may save a considerable amount.
Newsletters: When people visit your website offer them something of value for free if they sign up to your newsletter (like an e-Book). Your newsletter should be written tightly geared towards your topic. It should be published regularly at weekly intervals.
E-Books: Often used, these are usually free informational books for your clients and for others to give away free if they leave your links in the book itself. You can place links back to your website in the books you sell or give to your clients.
Joint Ventures: Contact online marketers looking for new products to sell. They often have large mailing lists with eager to buy customers. Normally they are willing to email their list for a cut of the sale price. This works particularly well with informational products. It has several advantages. It can give a very sizeable boost to both your sales and mailing list within a very short period.
Buy Traffic: This is probably the cheapest in terms of time and most expensive money wise. It gives a traffic boost normally within 30 days. What are you buying? You are buying traffic from expired domain names which the company selling the traffic has bought. They are domain names still registered on the search engines which get a considerable amount of traffic. The previous domain name owners have either lost interest in the name or simply forgot to renew the registration. This means that the traffic from the expired domain name is simply redirected to your website. This is usually high quality traffic as only websites with traffic such as you want is redirected to you. As always, a test run to see if this traffic is suitable should be undertaken.
When you combine these techniques and apply them consistently over time you will find a rich source of targeted traffic coming to your website. This, combined with quality products will ensure the success of your online business.
What is Targeted traffic? It is simply visitors to your website that are interested in what your website is about. For example, people interested in buying jewellery will find jewellery websites interesting.
How do I get targeted traffic I hear you ask? The following are tried and tested methods:
Forums: Subscribe to forums that discuss your topic. Answer questions and join in the debates there. Become an expert in the field. Then with each article reply you write have a discreet link to your website in the signature file. What can be placed in your signature is often determined by the forum moderators. Do not spam the forum or you will be stopped from posting. This is one of the most productive ways of getting free traffic as those who click your link have already read and liked your style.
Linking from/to other websites: Contact website owners that have similar but not competitive websites to yours, ask them for a reciprocal link from their website to yours. Be sure to select your link partner to match closely your customer profile. Software programs such as Arelis are very helpful in this process.
E-Zines: Contact e-zine owners that have your target readership and buy advertisements from them. Be sure to have a test run to see that the return on investment is sufficient to cover the costs involved. If you are buying an extended run of advertisements haggle with the e-zine owner over price. You may save a considerable amount.
Newsletters: When people visit your website offer them something of value for free if they sign up to your newsletter (like an e-Book). Your newsletter should be written tightly geared towards your topic. It should be published regularly at weekly intervals.
E-Books: Often used, these are usually free informational books for your clients and for others to give away free if they leave your links in the book itself. You can place links back to your website in the books you sell or give to your clients.
Joint Ventures: Contact online marketers looking for new products to sell. They often have large mailing lists with eager to buy customers. Normally they are willing to email their list for a cut of the sale price. This works particularly well with informational products. It has several advantages. It can give a very sizeable boost to both your sales and mailing list within a very short period.
Buy Traffic: This is probably the cheapest in terms of time and most expensive money wise. It gives a traffic boost normally within 30 days. What are you buying? You are buying traffic from expired domain names which the company selling the traffic has bought. They are domain names still registered on the search engines which get a considerable amount of traffic. The previous domain name owners have either lost interest in the name or simply forgot to renew the registration. This means that the traffic from the expired domain name is simply redirected to your website. This is usually high quality traffic as only websites with traffic such as you want is redirected to you. As always, a test run to see if this traffic is suitable should be undertaken.
When you combine these techniques and apply them consistently over time you will find a rich source of targeted traffic coming to your website. This, combined with quality products will ensure the success of your online business.
An Introduction to Traffic Exchanges
As a website owner, what is the first thing that you will need? Traffic! Traffic exchanges are one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get targeted traffic to your website.
Traffic exchanges work as follows: you surf for credits, usually having to spend 20 seconds at each site, and the exchange company will post your ad for others to see. Your credits will normally come on a 3:1 or 4:1 basis, meaning that you need to surf four sites for every one that they will show. Many exchanges will also offer bonuses for referring friends, often several layers deep and those bonuses can add up quickly.
Most traffic exchanges have categories available where you can post your ad. This is a very nice feature as you will get targeted prospects that might be interested in your product or service.
While many of the traffic exchanges can produce great results, often times many people do not use them correctly and fail miserably. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your traffic exchange experience.
The first thing you need to do is offer something for free. It doesn't matter if it's an ebook, a video or a sound clip. People are on the exchange because they have to be there, not because they want to be there. They are seeing pitch after pitch every 20 seconds and quickly put their credit card away. So, be different and be nice and send them a free gift for visiting your website.
The next thing you must do if you want to be successful is to collect your prospect's email address. However, leave the selling for a later time. Your point of being on the exchange should be one thing and one thing only: getting subscribers.
Many people are using traffic exchanges to promote multi level marketing and affiliate programs. This can be a great way to recruit, but keep in mind that many programs will saturate quickly on the exchange. Always ditch the corporate opt in form and make your own. There are many products that will make creating your own opt in form a breeze.
Try to find a traffic exchange that allows you to run multiple ads so you can split test. Take advantage of this. Your responses will improve significantly.
In conclusion, if you want to make money online, then traffic exchanges are welcome additions to your online arsenal.
Traffic exchanges work as follows: you surf for credits, usually having to spend 20 seconds at each site, and the exchange company will post your ad for others to see. Your credits will normally come on a 3:1 or 4:1 basis, meaning that you need to surf four sites for every one that they will show. Many exchanges will also offer bonuses for referring friends, often several layers deep and those bonuses can add up quickly.
Most traffic exchanges have categories available where you can post your ad. This is a very nice feature as you will get targeted prospects that might be interested in your product or service.
While many of the traffic exchanges can produce great results, often times many people do not use them correctly and fail miserably. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your traffic exchange experience.
The first thing you need to do is offer something for free. It doesn't matter if it's an ebook, a video or a sound clip. People are on the exchange because they have to be there, not because they want to be there. They are seeing pitch after pitch every 20 seconds and quickly put their credit card away. So, be different and be nice and send them a free gift for visiting your website.
The next thing you must do if you want to be successful is to collect your prospect's email address. However, leave the selling for a later time. Your point of being on the exchange should be one thing and one thing only: getting subscribers.
Many people are using traffic exchanges to promote multi level marketing and affiliate programs. This can be a great way to recruit, but keep in mind that many programs will saturate quickly on the exchange. Always ditch the corporate opt in form and make your own. There are many products that will make creating your own opt in form a breeze.
Try to find a traffic exchange that allows you to run multiple ads so you can split test. Take advantage of this. Your responses will improve significantly.
In conclusion, if you want to make money online, then traffic exchanges are welcome additions to your online arsenal.
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