But, have audio only promotions made an effective transition to the world of the internet? The answer to this is a resounding “yes” as evidenced by the popularity of audio podcasts promoted on websites, blogs, and other online forums. For those wishing to boost their internet marketing and search engine optimization potential, audio podcasting may prove to be an enormously helpful process.

Podcasting has long since emerged as a brilliant strategy for boosting search engine optimization and internet marketing success. Some may look towards promoting video podcasts but there are also others that opt for audio only podcasts. The reason for this is that it is much, much easier to record an audio podcast than it is to shoot and edit a video presentation. Those that need a such a simpler process would are advised to explore audio only recordings. Such recordings can be done “live” in one take. If there is an error during the recording, you can always start over. It would be best to record the audio in thirty second sound bites so as to reduce the potential for making any errors.

In some instances, a promotional podcast can prove better than a video file under certain circumstances. For example, an audience unable to view a video file but is able listen to an audio file, an audio podcast proves appealing. For example, those that can listen with their headsets at work can access your podcast. This brings such an audience back to the marketing and promotional table. That means they are no longer overlooked which is a good thing. Anytime you overlook a certain angle you undermine your potential to succeed. Really, would that be the right approach to take when it comes to succeeding with your online venture.

Podcasts can be very versatile in terms of where they can be placed. Contrary to what some assume, you can place audio only files on YouTube. The audio can be accompanied by s static video image which can often contain the URL to the website you are promoting. Of course, video images of the product or service being promoted on the website can be a nice visual inclusion as well.

Such files can also be imbedded on a promotional blog. In addition to providing the audio promotional factor, a small amount of text can accompany the video presentation. Such text could be composed of promotional advertising copy and it can also include links pointing to the prime website. Again, you never want to miss an opportunity to boost your search engine ranking potential. Such a multifaceted approach to presenting the audio podcast allows it to cover a lot of promotional ground. In many ways, a series of simple steps combined together cover a lot of ground. Also, the inclusion of text and links in the podcast allow the blog posting to have value to those that may not find the actual posting.

Again, the links and text will aid in boosting the prime website’s search engine ranking. This will obviously enhance the potential for people randomly searching the internet to find the site. Even though the audio podcast might be the prime marketing item, it certainly would not hurt to have a little backup to make sure the overall process is impactful.

In short, audio podcasts have much value. This is why they should never be ignored when developing a SEO and internet marketing strategy.

Has there ever been a better concept than YouTube marketing. Now, some may say there are both positives and negatives to marketing via YouTube. But, in general, it would be very difficult to find anyone that states there is little or no value found with a YouTube marketing campaign. The low cost and high potential audience release makes advertising via YouTube one of the most accessible – and possibly successful – processes you could take part in. For those wondering why this is so, here is a brief overview….

Cost or Lack Thereof

One of the most common problems that internet marketers face would be the issue of budgetary concerns. Once again, those looking to launch their startup network marketing, affiliate sales, or internet promoted product or service will not have much in terms of a budget to work with. This is really not much of an issue when it comes to YouTube marketing for two reasons:

• YouTube does not charge anyone to post audio/video files on their site. So, you need not have to work with costly hosting services commonly associated with blogs or website.

• The production costs for producing videos for YouTube marketing are virtually non-existent as well. You could take video footage with a cell phone camera and edit with free software that can be downloaded from a number of websites. Again, this will certainly not set your advertising budget back anytime soon.

Then, there is another inexpensive component to YouTube marketing that deserves its own mention. This would be the situation that might occur if the YouTube video you produce goes viral. For those not familiar with the term, a viral video is one that is “spread like a virus” by those that view it. In short, if you were to produce a YouTube video that proves highly popular, those that view it could recommend the video, share the video, email copies of it, and otherwise promote it without any cost to you. This would greatly and widely expand the audience reach of the video far beyond what you initially thought would be likely. So impactful is viral marketing that many advertisers seek to manufacturer such interest. When you consider how much free advertising is derived from such a process, could you blame them for trying?

Of course, it is important to point out that the quality of the video you produce will factor heavily into whether or not you are successful with your marketing venture. Producing “any old” video is not going to yield results. There has to be a certain level of quality to the video and it needs to be effectively entertaining, informative, or a mix of both to succeed.

This definitely means you will need to review those other YouTube marketing videos that were successful. Look for the elements that made such videos successful and keep mental notes of these components. While your goal is certainly not to copycat anything, you do want to hold true to the aesthetic components that make it successful.

And yes, you may have to take part in a little trial and error to ensure your YouTube marketing plan works. However, if you are adaptable and flexible, you could find yourself crafting a promotional video that reaches an audience of millions.

SEM will provide you with two different forms of listings in search results, which are paid searches and natural searches. Paid listings are usually placed in a separate section of the search results page where “sponsored listings” appear. Natural search listings are listings that appear in the main section of the search results page. Many visitors are more apt to click-through the natural listings, since they see them as more accurate. For this reason, it is optimal to acquire a place in the natural listings section.

Paid inclusion refers to paying money to a search engine marketing company, so that your ads can be included in their engine’s search results. It is sometimes referred to as “guaranteed inclusion”. Paid inclusion may be helpful in the short term, but it doesn’t really do anything for your natural rankings. When you stop paying, your site will stop appearing, unless you also utilize natural search listings. If you use SEM techniques properly, they will give an immense advantage to your business.

SEM makes web pages more meaningful to search engines by first making them more transparent and perceivable to the search engines themselves. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is also an economical way that will help you rank more highly in search engines.

PPC search engine marketing is becoming more popular, and is used by marketing experts the world over. It can help generate awareness of your brand, even if you have a small business. Using SEM through pay per click marketing will allow you to generate more sales online even if your business has many competitors.

There are some owners of small businesses that will give up because they don’t feel that they will be able to compete with the big numbers of larger webmasters who are also generating traffic for their own websites. You don’t really have to worry about them if you can use SEM to boost your own ranking. This is a strong marketing tool that can generate excellent results. Simply focus on using SEM to promote your business and help to bring in more profit.

Although you will find many larger webmasters online, you don’t have to compete or compare your company with theirs. You simply need to understand better how to apply the proper SEM techniques to achieve better results.

When you are utilizing SEM, you need to be quite sure of what market you are targeting. If you’re at the beginner level, you can start with a smaller budget, while you learn to succeed. You will also need to know your target customers well so that your SEM can be effective. You may wish to test the waters, as it were, with a smaller project the first time, so you won’t be hit so hard financially if you fail in the initial stages. But don’t keep your eyes always towards failure, or you may be predisposed to give up too easily.

It can be difficult sometimes to determine what most consumers are interested in. Even after you do, you’ll need to find out what methods attract them most readily to your site. You may use more than one initial plan, to see which one works best for you. You can start out with AdWords at Google, and pay a little up front, to determine what SEM methods work best for you and your business.

How do you turn your “pretty good” articles into really great articles? It’s much easier, and much faster, than you might think.

First, start with the title. If you’re writing an article on, say, time management, an okay title might be “Learn Time Management Skills for Better Productivity.” Nothing wrong with that, but it could be turned into an eye-catching headline that would draw people into your article. “5 Time Management Tips for Doing More in Less Time” is much more interesting.

Next, take a look at your lead sentence. This needs to be something that really grabs your reader. Let’s say you currently have, “Time management helps you get your work done more quickly. Try changing that to, “If you manage your time well, you could save up to ten hours a week—hours that you can spend doing things you need to do, not things you have to do.” See how much more effectively that draws the reader in?

In journalism, there’s a saying that if you can get someone to read your headline, they’ll read the first sentence. If they read the first sentence, they’ll read the first paragraph, and if they read the first paragraph, they’ll read the whole article.

So your goal with your first paragraph is to keep the readers who liked your headline and your first sentence. You need to convince them to read the rest of your article. You can do that by telling them, clearly, what they’re going to get from your article. For instance, after your great first sentence on time management, you could continue with, “By making a few very simple changes to your routine, you can create over an hour of free time each week.” Then in the next paragraph, you can start explaining what those simple routine changes are, and how to make them.

One of the biggest errors people make in writing articles to market their business, is in style. Many people try to write in a very journalistic style, like they’re writing for a newspaper. But the people who find your article online are more interested in reading articles that are clear and interesting. A relaxed, personal style is more appealing in this type of article. Fortunately, it’s also easier to write.

Many business owners are uneasy about writing their own articles, because they feel they “can’t write.” Chances are that you can write well about your own business, because you know it better than anyone. If you want to write your own articles, you can, and you can do it well.

Pretend you’re writing your best friend a letter about your business. Start out with a great first line (your headline) with the benefits of what you’re going to say. Follow up with a sentence that explains clearly what’s coming and builds it up, and then start telling your reader what they need to know. 

Finish up with a final paragraph pointing out the most important parts of your “letter,” and you’re done.

It is well worth your time to write articles that really grab your readers’ attention and keep them reading. If you do that, they will visit your web site and buy your products. And that’s your main goal, after all.

Why you want a Facebook Fan Page for your business

Facebook now has over 400 Million active users (users that have returned to the site within the last 30 days). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in July of 2009, the United States had 307 Million people. So, Facebook is actually bigger than the United States at this point, by almost 100 Million people. That is staggering information folks. Not to mention that Google ranks Facebook Fan pages highly in searches, and they are free!

So, you’re going to tell me you already have a personal profile page on Facebook. That’s not what I’m talking about. Your personal profile is for you, but your business can’t have a profile. Your business needs a Facebook Fan Page, where personal profiles can become Fans of your business on the Fan Page. When a person becomes a Fan of your business, they automatically see your posts in their Facebook feed every day (assuming you post something in your Fan page every day). It’s a constant reminder for these people that you exist, that you have good content to share with them, and they should invite their friends to be Fans too!

What can you put on your Facebook Fan Page?

1. Company overview

2. Website and contact information

3. Videos

4. Blog RSS feeds

5. Twitter updates

6. Company news

7. Events

8. Discussion boards

9. Photos

10. Promotions

11. Reviews

How do I create a Facebook Fan Page for my business?

Log in to your Facebook account. If you don’t already have a Facebook account, you can easily set one up at Facebook.com. Once you are logged in,  scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Advertising. The click on Pages, and then click on Create a Page. It’s going to ask you the type of business you have (it could be a local business, a brand/product/organization, or an artist/band/public figure). 

Facebook will then let you upload your company logo, RSS blog feeds, videos, photos, and other information you want to put on your Fan Page. Fill out as much information as you can possibly put down.

How do I jazz up my Facebook Fan Page?

In order to create a place that people want to come back to, add some applications to your Facebook Fan Page. You can do that by going here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/directory.php

You’ll see a list of categories on the left, and then you can scroll through the applications on the right. Some popular ones (in the business category) are Social RSS (to bring in your feeds from Blogs or Twitter), Promotions, and YouTube Videos. Look through all the available applications and see which ones your users would get some value from.

Now that I have my Facebook Fan Page, how do I get fans?

People can become Fans of your Facebook Fan Page, but only if they know about it. Start with your base of friends on Facebook. Invite all of them to be Fans of your business, and then ask them to ask their friends to be Fans as well. Contests are a great way to get new fans. If you have a free promotion or giveaway, you can make one of the requirements to be a “Fan” of your Facebook Fan Page. Put a Facebook Fan Page button on your website to let your customers know they should be a Fan as well. Put the link out on your Twitter account, put the link our on emails to your customers, put the link on your blog posts. It should be on your business cards too!

How do I build a community on my Facebook Fan Page?

Be sure to post on a regular basis (I post at least 5 times per week), and encourage discussions. Post things that are sure to get a written response. Ask questions. Ask what you can do to improve your product. Give Facebook Fans a special discount for being a fan. I like to put funny videos and funny pictures, that is typically the type of thing that my fans will share with their friends, and that’s how I get more fans to my page. Keep on top of your new leads. If you continue to develop this community, you will find more and more new leads coming from Facebook. Facebook will even give you statistics on the demographics of your Fans, who is interacting with your posts, and graphs to show your progress. This, in conjunction with your Twitter page, can be a huge source of leads for your business!

Michael Ayalon

Online Pet Marketing Specialist

516-690-PET1

P.S. If you are struggling in your business, whether it be with your website, blog, social media, or SEO, it doesn’t have to be this way. I’ll help you personally: Petwebdesigner.com

If you are thinking of creating your own information product, or if you’re currently creating or marketing an info product, there are some things you should know that can increase your product’s quality and your resulting sales.

1. Not everyone likes audios and videos. There is a tendency now to offer audio products and videos, rather than ebooks, because “no one reads anymore.” Actually, a lot of people do read, and when it comes to information, many people prefer to flip back through a book looking for something specific, rather than having to listen to a whole audio again. Your best bet is to offer your product either as a combination of ebook and audio or video, or as a choice of ebook or video. This way you capture both audiences—the readers and the non-readers alike.

2. Your cover graphic matters. When ebooks were new, cover graphics were fairly crude, and no one really noticed. There are still several products on the market that create these rudimentary cover graphics. However, if you hire a cover designer, or invest in a high-quality cover-creation program, you will sell more copies of your product than if you have a noticeably “old”-looking cover.

3. Set your price point carefully. For a while, it was not uncommon to see a simple ebook going for $97, with some bonuses included to make it look like more of a “value.” Now, the prices of ebooks seem to be going down to $47 and below, while videos, audio series and home study courses are occupying the top pricing ranks. When you price your ebook at a lower price, you are likely to more than make up the difference in volume.

4. Think carefully about bonuses. Some marketers do not include bonuses with their info products at all. In their sales letters, they explain that the information is valuable and that they feel adding a lot of bonuses with inflated values would cheapen their product, not enhance it. Other info product owners add five, ten or even fifteen bonuses, to increase the perceived value of their product. Both approaches can be successful; the key is deciding whether your audience will be more receptive to bonuses or the no-bonus technique.

5. Promote your product through affiliates. Set up a good affiliate program and encourage people to sell your product to their website visitors and customers. When you have a large affiliate base, you will sell more products, and build your own email list much more quickly than if you go it alone. Make sure your affiliates receive a decent commission and a portion of any “back end” sales of other products. If you have a good ebook, audio or video program that people want and need, your affiliates will be glad to help you sell it.

Marketing your own information product is the best way to make money online, and if you have a good idea and the determination to create a great product, you can do quite well.

One way of viral marketing online involves leaving comments on blogs and messages in guest books. Before we go through with discussing this marketing scheme, let us just also point out that successful viral marketing makes you pause and consider, like a fascinating creature in your path and does not get swatted aside like a pesky fly. It is important for you to remember that viral marketing creates interest and does not get deleted as spam.

The thing you have to remember about viral marketing is that it can be hit or miss. Even if this is the case, working with a strategy is always advantageous. Randomly scattering links to your website on the internet may be a haphazard way of doing it, but it can turn out to be a fluke and actually work. This is not going to happen every time though. If you want the odds to be in your favor, have a game plan.

Before the advent of the rel=“nofollow” attribute, which hinders a hyperlink from getting any credit in search engine ranking, commenting on blogs was a reasonably effective way of scattering links. Nowadays, your efforts may just be in vain. If search engines do not acknowledge links with the rel=”nofollow” attribute, why bother to take up commenting as a tool for marketing?

For starters, let us try to understand this attribute better. The rel=”nofollow” feature is interpreted differently by different search engines. Mostly, the link remains clickable and it will bring you to the given address, but its mere presence will not do anything for your ranking. However, there are search engines that literally interpret the rel=”nofollow” attribute by not following the link, while others simply do not score the link for ranking.

This attribute has received some flak because it is not an effective tool for discouraging spammers. What it has, in fact, discouraged is the willingness of professionals to give informational comments in aid of boosting their PageRank reputation. Also, Google, the one that strongly advocates the use of rel=”nofollow”, is being viewed as spiteful for wanting to deter the weight of inter-blog linking in site rankings.

If you must take this point into consideration, note that not all sites use this attribute. Having put that out of the way, let us discuss how we can actively promote websites by leaving comments in blogs or guest books.

1. First of all, you have to find your niche. You know what your website is about, so come up with a list of keywords for search engines that would generate a listing of sites that are related to your business.
2. Once you have a list of sites for a particular topic, figure out which ones are popular and start visiting. Read the relevant post or posts and decide how you would like to comment or which part you want to comment on. For added sincerity, copy and paste a portion of the text and comment on that.
3. Your URL will, of course, be a link to your website, but it’s better if you embed a link in the comment itself. Do not be spam and just put, “You want to know all about *topic*, click here.” Put an intelligent, non-generic, non-“canned” comment and then be subtle about the link you are about to share.
4. Keep a record of blogs you have commented on and other specifics such as the date you posted a comment and the message you actually left. It will be embarrassing to hit them twice, especially if it is evident in your comment that you are not aware of it.

The World Wide Web is growing every single second of every minute of an hour everyday in a week for the whole month in 365 days in a year. Websites are sprouting like mushrooms everywhere, and thus, the not so fortunate websites are forced to drown in the abyss of the unknown. Sad, but that is the truth, if you are not a wealthy website owner, it’s really something to be afraid of, unless you learn the basics of social marketing.

Why Social Marketing?

Implementing a successful social marketing campaign should subsist in the law of attraction. You should be a worthy member of a similar minded social community. Demonstrate and contribute your point of view, expertise, and perception. Seek for an opportunity to be able to endorse others in a good way. Let the community know that you have a lot to give, and you’d be surprised to learn that you have more to offer than what you think.

Here are more convincing reasons why you ought to practice social marketing:

1. It is Natural – You acquire natural links without being to pushy. Your website is very much exposed to a huge community of populace in a spur-of-the-moment style. This is different with paid advertising, which is usually littered with commercial partial tone.

2. It is Rock-Solid – Once perfected, social marketing in social communities can and will be a huge source of targeted traffic to a website, aside from the traffic from natural searches through search engines. Although you can’t simply amplify website traffic, the beauty of social marketing in a social community is that it can be controlled by implementing strategical promotion.

3. It Complements Other Marketing Efforts – Social marketing is generally community-based. It does not get in the way of other marketing strategy in acquiring traffic to a website. It works perfectly well with other promotional campaigns, which targets search engines or other websites.

4. It is Free and Effective – If you Do-It-Yourself, social marketing can cost you nothing or conceivably a low one-time cost if you hire a freelancer to handle your campaign. The advantages and benefits will of course justify any cost, if there is any cost at all.

 Just think about it, buying links or paying for advertisements will cost you thousand of dollars. Social marketing has the power to give it to you for gratis plus it’s highly efficient. The sites to check out? Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, and Twitter.com.

Using YouTube to a marketer’s advantage is pretty simple. It all starts with letting your presence be known. How exactly do you accomplish that? It is simply social networking with videos involved. Having an account means that you have your own channel. This allows you to have your own YouTube URL, create a profile and content that is interesting, supply a link to your actual website, and come up with playlists from both your own and other people’s accounts. Make sure that you choose the appropriate account type to indicate the kind of content visitors can find in your page. You can also design your YouTube page to optimize exposure for your website.

Once you have got your own channel up, it then becomes a matter of judiciously uploading content. With videos involved, brevity is a virtue. Infuse as much quality as you can in your videos in the less than five minutes recommended by experts. Grab your viewer’s attention in the first few seconds of playing. It’s hard to keep people hooked, so make sure that you are aptly convincing about the fascination of your content.

Once your page has content, get organized with your tags and categories. You have to be smart about these features. Remember that YouTube is a network. With tags, the prevailing slogan is “the more, the merrier”.  With categories, think “big fish in a small pond”. Include the seemingly obscure categories. Your video just might rule in them. The main thing is that you get your videos recommended in the sidebar as often as possible.

Another thing you can do to draw traffic to your page is to make playlists. Using your own or others’ videos, compile a list that relates to the nature of your website. This is a sort of service provided by your page to the target market of your website. It is better to look for videos with not a lot of previous views so your page can have a comparatively unique offering.

When you have things running smoothly, you can start emailing other YouTube users and posting bulletins. This way, you can let people know about your updates. Remember never to seem like you are spamming. There are ways to feign relevance when your ulterior motive is  just drive traffic to your page.

Be as active and social as possible. Leave comments. Join groups and communities. You can even start some yourself. Same goes for chat streams. Take advantage of active sharing. The more activities you participate in, the more exposure you garner.

These are all logical methods of self-promotion on YouTube. However, there is now an outright venue for people who want to transparently advertise on YouTube. Those with brand channels are allowed to customize, produce a unique background image, a distinct color palette, and an attractive header besides being provided a platform for a particular message. YouTube also actively points visitors to these brand channels.

YouTube has certainly established itself as a great venue for advertising. Take advantage of the service and have fun doing it at the same time.

1. Submit to Google Directly– You need to submit your website info to Google. Be sure that your website is completely ready to be crawled by Googlebot.

2. Keyword Research – This is very significant in gaining a good ranking in Google search engine. What you should do is conduct a brainstorming meeting, study your customers and the market, use keyword research tools, chart your selection of keywords, and test and analyze their performance to get the best refined selection of keywords.

3. Ease of Access – An accessible website is crucial to the successful delivery of its contents. The pages, server, HTML elements, components and coding should all be valid and running. If these are disregarded, then Google may favor other sites over yours.

 4. Meta Tags, Title Tags and URLs’ – These give information and a description of your website to search engines. Keeping them pertinent, convincing, and precise are your keys to ranking well in search engines. You can also utilize these areas for your keywords.

5. Information Structure – The document and link configuration of a site is beneficial to search ranking, especially when done correctly. The key to an effective structure is in its usability to its users:

Sitemap – This is the page that links all the other pages in a website.

Category Structure – Begin with a broad topic category, and then you can expand it to deeper pages of definite topics. This will convey a message to Google that your website is appropriate and includes thorough topics.

6. Duplicate Content – Probably the most universal problem a website can encounter, especially those who have huge, high-capacity websites powered by a database. If your website has several pages with similar contents, then you are causing those pages to lose valuable ranking in the search engine result pages (SERPs). The answer to this problem is to identify all pages with duplicate content and use a 301 Redirect.

7. Penning First-Rate Content – The true potential of a website is shown through the quality of content that it contains. If your website delivers content that a majority of users need, then that will constitute a high ranking on Google.

8. Public Relation and Press Release – If you can influence the mainstream press to feature your website, that can get you attention. There are a lot of press release websites that can be your starting ground for getting traffic and links, and what’s better is that these sites feed major news search engines such as Google News.

9. Assess Your Success – Do not rely on good faith alone that what you are doing is right. It is imperative that you check statistics, which will greatly help analyze and improve your SEO campaign.

10. An SEO Strategy that Works – You may have a killer website that everybody will envy, but if it will not show up in the top SERPs, it’s worthless. Patience is a virtue when planning your SEO. Google can be very slow – but let’s face it, SEO is a very long and tedious process. To ensure that you succeed in the end, you must seriously consider these guidelines: Uniqueness and quality of content, access to communities, links that are format friendly, budget planning, and market knowledge.