Member since: Oct 15, 2008
Last activity: Oct 06, 2009
Hi everybody,
You probably know me through the Internet Marketing articles that I publish here on BizNik. I want to invite you to an Internet Marketing Workshop.
For more information visit this link: http://www.biznik.com/events/internet-marketing-workshop-in-denver
You probably heard it a million times: “On the Internet, content is king”. What is that supposed to mean? Well, it means that search engines love great content, but most importantly, so do users!
If you are a handyman you can probably write an article on choosing the perfect handyman. If you are a business consultant you can write about business issues. But guess what? It doesn’t matter how good your articles are if nobody reads them!
So, how do you get people to read your articles? Well, you can do it the hard way –post them on your website and try to get as much traffic as you can, or the easy way –leverage the power of other websites that have thousands of visitors every single day and amazing authority as far as the search engines concern.
Although I have my own blog, I also use several Web 2.0 social networking websites to reach thousands of people every day with useful information.
These are some of the social networks that I use:
WordPress – www.wordpress.com WordPress is an excellent blogging platform.
Squidoo – www.squidoo.com Create your lens, publish your articles, and network with other users.
Hubpages – www.hubpages.com Create your own page and spread your content.
Wetpaint – www.wetpaint.com One of the best Wiki platforms out there.
Clearblogs – www.clearblogs.com Another awesome blogging service.
Blogspot – www.blogger.com A free blogging service owned by Google.
MySpace – www.myspace.com One of the most popular social networks on earth, owned by Microsoft. Use the blog feature to publish your content.
AOL Journals – http://peopleconnection.aol.com/blogs Another blog service. This one is owned by AOL.
Quizilla – www.quizilla.com Create your page and show it to the world!
Bumpzee – www.bumpzee.com List all your blogs here and give them maximum exposure.
Multiply – www.multiply.com Create your page and list your blogs.
Experience – www.experienceproject.com Another social networking site that allows you to share your content.
Scribd – www.scribd.com An amazing service to publish your documents.
NewsVine – www.newsvine.com A collaboration-based news site.
Facebook – www.facebook.com I’m sure you’ve heard about this one. Facebook is the biggest social network in the world. Create your own page, join groups and interact in the community, create events, network with others, and create your own group to get the most out of this fantastic tool.
Zimbio – www.zimbio.com Publish your articles and submit your blogs here.
Wikispaces – www.wikispaces.com Another amazing Wiki platform.
Tumblr – www.tumblr.com Post your article with a few clicks only.
Flickr – www.flickr.com Share your photos and include your articles too!
Twitter – www.twitter.com Twitter allows you to let the world know what you are up to.
Mahalo – www.mahalo.com Publish your articles for free.
Associated Content – www.associatedcontent.com One of the most prestigious article distribution services out there.
Helium – www.helium.com Post your articles here. It’s very easy to use.
E How – www.ehow.com Become an expert and publish valuable advice.
Wiki How – www.wikihow.com Give advice and become a respected member of the community.
Ezine Articles – www.ezinearticles.com The best article distribution service ever.
Go Articles – www.goarticles.com In my opinion, the second best article distribution service.
Articles Base – www.articlesbase.com Another site where you can publish your articles.
Article Alley – www.articlealley.com Free article publishing service.
Google Knol - http://knol.google.com An article distribution service owned by Google.
43 Things – www.43things.com Share that thing that you always wanted to do or your experiences about things that you have done already.
Well, that’s it. The list could be a lot longer but this is a really good starting point. Remember that it’s a lot smarter to leverage the authority and search engine rankings of recognized social sites than trying to accomplish the same with your own website only.
For more great articles, visit our blog at www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com/blog
The Importance of Testing
Two days ago a very nice lady wrote me an email. She was desperate because her online store had been open for 6 months and she had only made one single sale. I asked her how much money she had invested in the company so far. She confessed that the amount was well over $25,000.
I see this happening all the time. Having done online marketing for over six years and owning a web design and Internet marketing agency, people tend to come to me when things are not working out for them in the online world.
Do you want to know what one of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make is? Not testing enough. We often put six months of our lives and a big chunk of our savings into a business. We call it “our baby”. We then throw a big launch party and the next day we sit by the phone waiting for orders. But nobody calls.
Thinking that your business will work just because you think it will is, at the very least, arrogant. Do you have a crystal ball? Can you predict the market?
It doesn’t matter that all your friends told you that it is a great idea. They are not going to buy your products, are they?
But I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the wrong approach. I want to talk about the right one. Most successful businesses started by accident. Some girl started to make cookies, her family loved them, her friends did too, and then someone suggested that she should get a stand to sell more cookies. So she did. And everybody in her neighborhood liked the cookies, so the girl talked to her best friend and she got another stand too. Before they knew it, they had five stores in the state.
This girl wasn’t trying to start a company and maybe she was extremely lucky. But there was something she did right. She started small, realized there was demand for her products, and then expanded. She grew her business using her profits, not a loan or startup money.
I wish that someone had taught me the importance of testing five years ago. In 2003 I started a leather accessories business with two friends. We invested a lot of time and money, opened our online store, and got two sales in four months. We were trying to sell luxury leather goods with a brand that nobody knew through our e-store. People didn’t know about us or our collection and since they were shopping online they couldn’t even touch the items to appreciate their quality before giving us their money.
We got really frustrated and decided to sell our inventory for whatever we could get. We went to a very wealthy area in Colorado and sold our items to accessories stores in less than one day. Once the store owners could get their hands on our products they were sold already. They later re-sold these items for three times the price that we were charging on our website and it only took them a week to do it.
If I could go back in time, this is what I would have done: - I would have spent $200 instead of $4,000 getting professional photos. I would have started with a couple of items, not 150. - I would have used a basic e-commerce solution instead of getting a fully customized e-commerce website. - I would have used Google AdWords to buy 200-300 clicks and see what kind of results we could get.
It would have cost me $1,000 instead of $25,000 to figure out that those items wouldn’t sell well online and that I should try something else (like selling them to stores).
Test out your ideas with as little money and time as you can. If they work, then put more money and time into them. If they don’t, drop them and look into new possibilities. After all, if you go to Vegas and only have $5,000 to gamble, you wouldn’t put all your chips at once on number 11, would you?
Zeke Camusio The Outsourcing Company - Professional Web Design www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com (1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
How to Promote Your Business Online
There are several options for those who want to promote their websites. I will go over some of the most effective ways of getting traffic, but before I start, I want to give you a word of warning: not all these techniques are good for all the businesses. Some might work very well for a certain industry and not work at all for a different niche.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is great. Think about it. People go to Google, search for what you sell, your website pops up, they click on it, and there you are, offering them what they were searching for. Then it is up to you whether they become customers.
The downside of SEO is that if you don’t know what you are doing, reaching the top positions is extremely hard. You need professional SEO people working for you. But once you are at the top, be prepared to get more business than you will be able to handle. It is a great investment.
Pay Per Click
The reason why I love PPC is because you can start getting traffic in less than 15 minutes. Sure, you are paying for that traffic, but if you sell a superior product, price it right, and do a great job marketing it, there is nothing for you to worry about. You will get your investment back several times.
Just like with SEO, if you don’t know what you are doing, you better hire someone to manage that campaign for you or you will be overpaying for each visitor you acquire.
Forum Marketing
Let’s say you are an attorney who specializes in incorporating new businesses. It would be smart to post valuable information on forums where people are asking things like “Should I form an LLC or a Corporation?” There is one golden rule, though: don’t just spam the forum with self-promotion. You have to be willing to give, give, and give before you receive anything. Once you have established yourself as an authority, people will come to you for advice. It is up to you then to show them the value of your services. You can also use article distribution services to post articles on subjects you are an expert at.
Online Classified Ads
Personally I haven’t had much success using online ads with my clients, but some people claim that it worked really well for them. They are free, so there is not much you can lose by giving it a shot. The most popular classifieds websites are Craigslist, Kijiji, and US Free Ads.
Direct Marketing
This is one of my personal favorites. You need to think who your prospects are and where you can find them. For example, one of our clients was organizing a baseball tournament in Atlanta and wanted us to help him to promote it. We bought a database of baseball teams in the US, prepared an incredible landing page with copy that made the offer irresistible, and email all the clubs inviting them to see the landing page. He got so many clubs interested that he had to turn down half of them because he couldn’t accommodate them all.
Press Releases
Press releases are one of the best things that you can do to promote your business. However, most people don’t know how to write a press release or choose the right topic. Make the press release about something that the media will want to publish. If it doesn’t sound like news, it probably isn’t. If the release doesn’t have anything worth publishing, don’t even bother writing it.
Affiliate Programs
I love affiliate programs. It is a risk-free way of getting traffic. Affiliates send visitors to your website and they only get paid when a sale is made. If you sell services, you can pay them for each lead that they help you get. It is almost impossible to screw up with affiliate marketing. However, if you are not familiar with it and don’t know the secrets of the trade, you are not likely to attract the best affiliates and you will barely get any traffic. Ask for professional help to set up your affiliate program.
Industry-Specific Promotion Methods
Each industry has some promotion techniques that are specific to that industry. For example, if you are a programmer you can get projects on Elance or GetAFreelancer. If you are a travel agency you can list your packages on Expedia. Just think outside the box.
Alliance Marketing
Let’s go back to the business attorney example. Who are his clients? Mostly startups. What do startups need? Well, maybe a website, office space, office supplies, and startup money. He could have arrangements with web designers, office space owners, office supplies vendors, and investors.
Advertising
There are two main ways of advertising: graphic and text. Graphic advertisement is usually in the form of banners, both static and animated. Text advertisement is when a blogger or webmaster writes an article about your products or services and includes a text link to your website. Some good options are Pay Per Post, Blog Ads, Text Link Ads, Advertising Dot Com, Facebook, Business Dot Com, etc.
Local Services and Directories
DMOZ is a free directory. If you are not listed there, do it right now. There are also niche-specific directories. If you are an attorney, search for “attorney directory” on Google to find them. There are also some paid directories, such as Yahoo and Business.com. If your budget allows you to list your website there, by all means do it. It also helps with SEO.
If you have a physical store or an office, local websites such as Local Dot Com, Google Local, Yahoo Local, and MSN Local will give you some free links and also show your business on the map when someone is searching for it. And they are free.
Offline Marketing
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the only way of promoting a website is online. There are a lot of things you can do to promote your business offline. Brainstorm a little and you will come up with several ideas.
The Bottom Line
The most important thing is tracking, testing, and optimizing. Set up a tracking system to figure out how your visitors found you, which marketing campaigns are bringing you profits, and which ones are losing you money. Chances are that after testing everything on this list plus your own ideas you will keep two or three strategies and discard the other ones. And that’s fine. This is about doing a couple of things right, not doing as many things as you can. Focus. It pays.
If you need help with promoting your website, let me know. I can certainly help.
Zeke Camusio
The Outsourcing Company - Professional Web Design
info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com
(1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
Other Factors that Determine Your Ranking on Google
The age of your website For Google, a website’s age is a very relevant factor.
No broken links or grammar mistakes Google doesn’t like to send traffic to websites that have broken links or misspelled words.
Frequency of updates If Google and Yahoo see that you update your website frequently they are more likely to rank you higher.
Sitemap Having a sitemap is a great idea because all your pages and their links will be listed there.
External links quality If your website links out to low-quality sites, it will affect your rankings in a negative way.
Valid HTML Validate all your pages using http://validator.w3.org/
Text content Have your content in plain text, not in an image or Flash animation.
Site architecture Make all your links accessible from the home page or second or third level pages at the most. If in order to find blue Nike sneakers you need to go to the home page, then click on “clothing”, then “shoes”, then “Nike”, and finally “blue”, that is too many clicks. The deeper a page is buried, the less important Google assumes it is.
Breadcrumbs Breadcrumbs are excellent for navigation and also help with search engine rankings. If you don’t know what breadcrumbs are, this is an example: You Are Here: Home > Clothing > Shoes > Nike.
Have explanatory text links If you are going to link to the shoes section you should have a link that says “Shoes”. If you prefer to use an image, make sure its alt tag says “Shoes”. That way, search engines can figure out what each link points to.
Add new pages frequently Google and Yahoo love websites that add new content frequently.
Make sure that your server is fast and never down Be very careful when you choose a company to host your website. If their server is down frequently, not only will your visitors miss your website, but the search engines will not index it either.
Sign up with Google Webmaster Central This is the best and fastest way to submit your website to the search engines.
Tomorrow I will talk about the most important thing of SEO, link building. Getting quality links can get you at the top of the search engines in record time.
If you need help with getting a professional-looking website and a lot of new business by being at the top of Google, I am here to help.
Zeke Camusio The Outsourcing Company - Professional Web Design www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com (1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
We are The Outsourcing Company, a web design agency with offices in New York and Aspen.
We want to offer you $200 for each referral you send our way. Do you know people who need a website? If you do, let them know about us. If they decide to get their website done with us call us and claim your commission.
If you want, you can even split it 50/50 with your friend!
You can visit our portfolio here: www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com/portfolio.html
Thank you, have a nice day.
Zeke Camusio The Outsourcing Company - Professional Web Design www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com (1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
The Only Article You Will Ever Need To Read on SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Do you think that SEO is rocket science? What if I gave you a step-by-step plan that has worked for us and our clients time and time again? What if it was so easy than even a computer-idiot could do it?
This is going to be a long article so I will break it into parts and post one part every day.
Today we will talk about the very first step of SEO, keyword research.
Step 1: Coming up with a list of possible keywords Let’s say you sell furniture online. Some of the keywords that I could think of are: wood table, metal dresser, kitchen furniture set. Make this list a lot longer. Add as many keywords as you can think of.
Step 2: Use a keyword research tool to get even more keywords I love WordTracker and even the free version provides priceless information. When I enter “furniture” on WordTracker I get a lot of suggestions: dorm furniture, patio furniture, storage furniture, office furniture. This will give you a lot of keywords you didn’t think of before.
Step 3: Check search volume You can use WordTracker (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/) or/and Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) to find out how many searches your keywords have. You don’t want to waste your time optimizing your website for keywords that are searched for once a month.
Step 4: Check competition After you’ve found relevant keywords with a good search volume you have to make sure that they are relatively easy to rank for. The less competition, the better. You can go to Google and type “allintitle:patio furniture” (without the quotes) and it will tell you how many websites are competing for that same term.
At this point you should have 5-10 keywords that are highly relevant to your business, have a lot of monthly searches, and are not too competitive. For some markets this is a very easy task. For others, such as financial services and real estate, coming up with the right keywords can be a daunting task.
If this is the case, break down the market into micro-markets. For example, if you own a national chain of car dealerships, ranking for the term “cars” will be extremely hard. But by breaking down the market into locations, car brands, and models, it will be a lot easier. Take a look at how it should be done:
Toyota Prius Cleveland Ohio Ford Focus Denver Colorado
OK, this is all for today. Tomorrow I will give you the basics to optimize your current website for the search engines.
Have a great day!
Zeke Camusio The Outsourcing Company - Professional Web Design www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com (1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
Why You Need to Redesign Your Website Right Now
It is recession time. You might feel more conservative than ever. Redesigning that old, ugly website of yours might not be one of your top priorities at this time. I don’t blame you. In fact, your competitors are doing the same thing.
But what if instead of sitting back and waiting for the bad times to go away you decided to be proactive? What if instead of complaining about the economy you took advantage of this great opportunity where your competitors are doing nothing but waiting for a better moment to grow their businesses?
Few things in business cost so little and have such a major impact as your corporate website. Nowadays, few prospects will close a deal with you without checking your website first. In fact, that is exactly what you do when you are shopping around for vendors. Now, if they see a really aged website that hasn’t been updated in over a year and looks very unprofessional, what are they going to think about your business?
Few people realize that an ugly website has the same repercussions as inviting a prospect to a really ugly office and wearing a shirt with coffee stains.
Being myself a graphic and web designer, I realize that my opinion might be a little biased. But I know and you know that first impressions count.
Now, visit your own website and be honest with yourself: is it really professional? Will people trust your company after seeing your website? Now visit your competitors’ sites. Is yours better than or at least as good as all of them? If it isn’t, you are losing business every day. I can guarantee that.
I will be more than happy to take a look at your website and let you know whether I think it needs a lifting. No commitments, no strings attached. Just shoot me an email and I will take a look at it and write you a short review at no cost. I will also be happy to suggest ways you can promote your current website so you get massive amounts of traffic and new customers every day.
Let me know how I can help.
Zeke Camusio Customer Service - The Outsourcing Company www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com (1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
Why Some Websites Sell and Others Don’t? I am Internet marketing specialist and website designer. People ask me how to make more money online every day.
If your website is not making enough money, it might be for one of these two reasons (or both of them):
More traffic If not getting enough traffic is the problem, there are a lot of ways of buying traffic. I use the word “buying” because that’s exactly what it is. Don’t fool yourself thinking that there is such thing as free traffic. If it doesn’t cost money, it takes time. And time is money.
A lot of people freak out when it comes to investing money to get traffic. Those are the people who aren’t serious about having a successful business. I’ve come across many people who think that owning an online business is a great way of making a quick buck without much effort. An online business is very similar to any other kind of business. You need to have a great product, price it right, and market it to the right people.
Many of these people get really happy when they get a $20 commission for an affiliate sale because they spent no money promoting this product. They only spent 3 days of their lives. Now, if you are happy being paid $20 for 24 hours of work, great. I am not here to judge you.
But don’t you wish sometimes that you owned one of those websites that make $10,000-$100,000 a month? If you do, you need to start thinking as a real entrepreneur. You need to forget about making a quick buck overnight and realize that great results come from hard work and doing the right things.
More conversions Once you start thinking as a real business owner and not like a wannabe Internet marketer you will realize that there is nothing wrong with buying traffic as long as your return on that investment is higher than the investment itself. How many people would you be willing to pay $5 to visit your website? None? What if I told you that for each one of them you will make $6? Then your answer should be “as many as I can!”
The reason why most people are afraid of spending money promoting their websites is because their websites don’t convert visitors into paying customers.
There are many reasons why this happens, but these are the most common ones:
Poor copy A lot of online business owners don’t realize that the copy they write will have a major influence in the buying decision of their visitors, so they really don’t spend enough time writing good copy.
Unprofessional website There is no bigger turnoff that an unprofessional website. People don’t know you. They don’t know your brand. All they see is a tacky website done by a high school kid. Why should they trust you?
No USP, poor USP, or USP not well displayed USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. It is a fancy way of saying “what makes you different (better) than the competition”. Your USP should not be based on what you want it to be, but on what your prospects would like it to be. In other words, don’t highlight your great prices too much if people are looking for quality instead of price. And vice versa.
Not testing the product and business model Several people spend months getting a website, negotiating with vendors, getting a fancy office with a brand new coffee machine, and then they throw a huge launch party. The day after, they don’t get one single sale. One month later, two sales only. The business is not working out.
We should never assume that we know all the answers and just because we think that a business is going to work, it will. We need to test the business model and the product as soon as we possibly can and spending as little as possible.
If you need a website for your business or want to redesign your current one to make it look more professional, let me know. I will be happy to help.
Zeke Camusio Customer Service - The Outsourcing Company www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com (1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
5 Things to Avoid if You Want to Rank High on Google
An effective website design not only is appealing to the eyes but also to the search engines. This is a list of the most common mistakes that web designers make and why they should be avoided at all cost.
Using tables for the layout Use divs for layout, not tables. Tables add a lot of unnecessary code to your pages and search engines don’t like them.
Using frames Don’t ever use frames. Google and Yahoo hate them. It’s a horrible way to structure a website.
Putting text inside images Search engines can’t read the text inside a picture. You need content to rank high on the search engines and that means plain text.
Making the whole website in Flash Flash is great for animations and some headers. But when your website is 100% Flash, there is no text for the search engines to read!
Not doing a basic optimization All the content on a website needs to be optimized for the search engines. Put your keywords in the title, meta keywords tag, meta description tag, alt tags, and H1 and H2 tags. Get a sitemap that links to all the pages on your website. And never stop adding quality content.
Now, if you want a website that will rank high on search engines but don’t want to do it yourself or don’t know how to do it, look for a great web design agency that knows about Search Engine Optimization and can create an optimized website for you at no extra cost.
There are not a lot of them out there, but I am sure you can find one.
Feel free to contact me with your web design related questions.
Zeke Camusio The Outsourcing Company – Creative Web Design Agency www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com info@TheOutsourcingCompany.com (1)877-581-3921 (Available 24/7)
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