All about Marketing

For those who don't know, Google Adsense is an advertising medium presented by the number one search engine Google. The basic concept of adsense is that you use coding provided by Google to place on your website, blog, or what have you. When your account is approved for adsense ads then the most relevant ads will show on your webpage. When a visitor or hopefully visitors click the ad, then voila! You have a nice amount of supplemental income. The use of Adsense is often in great debate in most popular SEO forums. The majority of the topics are on how to place the ads on your site to get the most out of a page hit. Some SEO's (Search Engine Optimizers} say that the ads should be towards the top of your page to get a higher CTR (click-thru-rate). Of course other SEO's say the bottom is best for the ads.

My opnion is that top or bottom it really doesn't make a difference. You should always place a ad in a spot on the page where it can be seen without making the visitor feel like the ads are interfereing with them reading your page information. Remember, they are at your site to get infromation on a service or product. Also the, placement of the advertisements should be in a spot where it must be read, or glanced at without making the visitor feel overwhelmed. Remember, that we all still have that ole phobia of visiting banner only sites.

One of the next topics discussed are the facts of blending the adsense ad to the rest of your site or not to blend it in with your site. Some SEO's say that you should blend to not disturb the visitor and also it seems more like a part of your site and will make them believe they should click for even more information. This is not always true when the ads are placed on a site that doesn't offer information in the first place. Then on the other hand if you make a ad that sticks out they feel it will draw attention and get more clicks. Other SEO professionals feel that this will only irritate the visitor and may cause them to leave the site.

The major thing that you must learn is to use your blending and placement together in a manner where you can say yes to the following questions:

- Did I place the Adsense ads where they can be seen?
- Did I place them where they aren't obstructing what my visitors are orginally there for?
- Did I blend the text color of the ad to make it look like its part of my page?
- Did I match the background and border color in a way that would raise the ad off the page, giving it a slight 3-D affect?
- Did I place the google adsense ad in a place that is in the line of the visitors reading path? - After looking at my page, was the placement and blend atleast where I would read the adsense and possibly click?


If you can answer yes to yourself and be very truthful then your adsense ad is in a good spot for now. Don't forget that you should experiment when you get your traffic up. Find out what works better for you and your pockets. If you would like a good idea of how this should be done just pay a visit to my site.

Have fun out there!


Written by Carlos Penn
Courtesy http://www.teawithedge.com

It is late afternoon as the sun is slowly setting, you are lying comfortably on your beach chair watching the waves and your sipping a pina colada with one foot in the sand. A gentle breeze is bristles through the palm trees keeping you cool. You have two waiters at your beck and call, and another on standby for just in case. Next to you the dachshund is comfortably in his own chair with the latest branded dog sunglasses, watching the French poodles go by, thinking, “If my legs were just a little longer”. The laptop by your side connected to the Internet via satellite, announces every few minutes with the all too familiar sound that yet another payment has been made into your account. The utopia we would all like to be in, on autopilot, doing the thing we desire. .

Now close your eyes and imagine yourself there.

If the Internet business was as easy as it is sometimes made out to be we would all be on that beach. Thinking about it, it will become quite a crowded beach, so we will have to build some high rise buildings to get the view, and before long we will have another city with everything we tried to get away from...

For most of us that utopia is our room or office and the view is mostly the computer screen. Pina colada's are replaced by coffee, but the dog is still in the same frame of mind. But honestly, nothing stops us from taking that holiday, I would however suggest leaving the laptop at home. If you are reading this I assume you are a Internet marketer fighting your way through the dense jungle of cyberspace to get your spot on the beach.

This is a hard slog as the Internet is growing and changing daily and there is no surefire way of achieving top status and then just staying there, sorry if I just ruined your lifetime dream of a permanent beach vacation.

Making money on the Internet is as easy and as hard as it gets. Here are some tips on web promotion if you intend to get to the top.

There are three ways to drive traffic to your site:

1. Buy traffic, with PPC, banners, and so on.
2. Generic searches through the search engines.
3. Articles.

The first method is simple if you have enough cash to throw around, but I do believe that that is not the case with most of us. A well planned and executed strategy with advertising has it's rewards and can be very profitable but most marketers go about it the wrong way, you just don't put ads up and expect people to buy. It just does not work that way and that is why so many startup Internet ventures fail.

Method two is a longer term method, but if done correctly you will be able to sip some pina colada's on the beach while all the others are stuck in traffic. Web Promotion is the best route to follow for sustained long term success.

You have to get your website seen by the major search engines, and you have to get ranked well in order to be found by people who are surfing. The main idea is to rank well in Google, but I guess you know this by now.

To get a top ranking in Google the following needs to happen:

1. Your site has to be indexed.
2. You must have links.
3. Your web pages have to be optimized and search engine friendly.

You are competing with millions of other sites and getting to the top is a difficult task for anyone. This you might not believe, but you can do it for free, or close to, the only difference is that it will take longer to achieve your goal. By the way 24 hours is not the goal, more like 4 to 6 weeks is a good estimate.

Lets work backward from point 3 to 1.

Web Promotion: On Page Optimization

Follow these steps to optimize your page:

1.The page has to have a title within the title tags 'TITLE'.

2.The title must be relevant to your page.

3.Use your keywords in the title.

4.Choose 2 to 3 keyword phrases for your keywords, not a million.

5.Use overture search to find the right keyword phrases and check them in Google.

6.Choosing the wrong phrases will never get you ranked, when starting out aim low, 1000 to 2000 searches per month.

7.Your heading must contain your main keyword phrase and must be in the 'H1' tag.

8.You must have a sub heading containing your second or third keyword phrase and it must be in the 'H2' tag

9.Your content must contain your keyword phrases, one per two paragraphs, don't overdo it, Google will see this as spamming.

10.In your content bold each keyword phrase once with the 'b' tag.

11.Make sure your main keyword phrase appears in the last 25 words in your body text.

12.Your content should be original, and shouldn't be less than 500 words.

In a seashell that is the basics of what you should do to optimize your page.

Web Promotion: Links

For Google however, off page optimization is the most important feature to determine your rank. This is nothing else than links to your site. This is the factor that determines the importance of your site.

Thousands of links will mean nothing to you, you have to get links that are relevant to your site and your site content. Choose your links wisely because unrelated links will count against you. You can use link farms but be very careful it can easily come back and hit you in the face. There are two ways of getting good relevant links to your site:

1.Find websites that are similar to yours and email the web masters and ask for a link.

2.Write articles. By writing articles you get two distinct advantages: 1.You will generate web traffic from your resource box in the article, anyone who reads it can click through to your site. 2.You will receive relevant links to your site from each website that publishes your article.

Web Promotion: Indexing

Last but not at all least, you will only turn up in a Google search once your site has been indexed. Getting your site indexed basically boils down to your links, if you have links pointing to your site, Google will follow those links from other sites find your site and index it. Again writing and publishing articles for web promotion purposes is the cheapest and best route to take.

If you need your site to be indexed faster, you are able to get indexed in 24 hours or 2 days. For a 24 hour index you must have a link from a PR7 page, and for a 2 days index a link from a PR6 page. There are sites where you can purchase these links if you are really in a hurry.

These methods, shortly described here are the basics of getting a better life for the dog, some really good looking French poodles, and some relaxation time for you on the beach.

You can read more on writing and submitting your articles by following the link in the resource box.

Never stop dreaming!

Written by Karl Stadler

Courtesy http://www.teawithedge.com

It may seem surprising but many companies, big and small, have yet to develop a rational Internet marketing strategy. Considering the Internet has now been used effectively by marketers since 1994, any organization without a strategy to utilize the Internet for marketing is probably making a big mistake. For any organization that still does not have a meaningful Internet marketing effort we offer 10 Reasons why you should.


1. The Go-To Place for Information

Possibly the most important reason why companies need to have an active Internet marketing strategy is because of the transformation that has occurred in how customers seek information. While customers still visit stores, talk to sales representatives, look through magazines, and talk to friends to gather product information, an ever-increasing number of customers turn to the Internet as their primary knowledge source. In particular, they use search engines as their principle portal of knowledge as search sites have become the leading destination sites for
most Internet users. Marketers must recognize that the Internet is where customers are heading and, if the marketer wants to stay visible and viable, they must follow.


2. What Customers Expect

The Internet is not only becoming the resource of choice for finding information, in the next few years it is also likely to be the expected location where customers can learn about products and make purchases. This is especially the case for customers below the age of 25. In many countries, nearly all children and young adults have been raised knowing how to use the Internet. Once members of this group dominate home and business purchases they will clearly expect companies to have a strong Internet presence.


3. Captures a Wide Range of Customer Information

As a data collection tool the Internet is unmatched when it comes to providing information on customer activity. Each time a visitor accesses a website they leave an information trail that includes how they got to the site, how they navigated through the site, what they clicked on, what was purchased, and loads of other information. When matched to a method for customer identification, such as login information, the marketer has the ability to track a customer’s activity over repeated visits to the site. Knowing a customer’s behavior and preferences opens up tremendous opportunities to cater to customer’s needs and, if done correctly, the customer will respond with a long-lasting loyalty.


4. Extreme Target Marketing

The most efficient way for marketers to spend money is to direct spending to those who are most likely to be interested in what the marketer is offering. Unfortunately, efforts to target only customers who have the highest probably of buying has not been easy. For instance, consider how much money is wasted on television advertisements to people who probably will not buy. Yet the Internet’s unrivaled ability to identify and track customers has greatly improved marketer’s ability to target customers who exhibit the highest potential for purchasing products.


5. Stimulate Impulse Purchases

Whether customers like it or not, the Internet is proving to be the ultimate venue for inducing impulse purchases. Much of this can be attributed to marketers taking advantage of improvements in technologies that: 1) allow a website to offer product suggestions based on customer’s online buying behavior, and 2) streamline the online purchasing process. But online impulse purchasing also takes advantage of the “purchase now, pay later” attitude common in an overspending credit card society. How this plays out over time as many customers become overwhelmed with debt will need to be watched and could impact online marketer’s activities.


6. Customized Product and Service Offerings

Companies know they can develop loyal customers when product and service offerings are designed to satisfy individual needs. This has led many online marketers to implement a mass customization strategy offering customers online options for configuring products or services. The interactive nature of the Internet makes “build-your-own” a relatively easy to implement purchasing option. An empowered customer base that feels a company will deliver exactly what they want is primed to remain loyal for long period of time.


7. Takes Prospects Right to the Sale

No other form of communication comes close to turning exposure to promotion into immediate customer action as the Internet, which allows customers to make purchases immediately after experiencing a promotion. Prior to the Internet, the most productive call-to-action was through television informercials that encourage viewers to call toll-free phone numbers. However, moving customers from a non-active state (i.e., watching television) to an active state (i.e., picking up the phone to call the number) is not nearly as effective as getting people to click on an Internet ad while they are actively using the Internet.


8. Conveys Perception of Being a Full-Service Provider

For distributors and retailers the Internet makes it easy to be a comprehensive supplier. Unlike brick-and-mortar suppliers who are often judged by the inventory that is actually on hand or services provided at a store, e-commerce sites can give the illusion of having depth and breadth of inventory and service offerings. This can be accomplished by placing product and service information on the company’s website but behind the scenes having certain orders fulfilled by outside suppliers via shipping and service agreements. With such arrangements customers may feel they are dealing with providers that offer full-service when in reality a certain percentage of the products and service are obtained from other sources.


9. Lower Overhead, Lower Costs, Better Service

Internet technologies are replacing more expensive methods for delivering products and services, and for handling customer information needs. Cost savings can certainly be seen with products and services deliverable in digital form (e.g., music, publications, graphic design, etc.) where production and shipping expenses are essentially removed from the cost equation. Cost savings may also be seen in other marketing areas including customer service where the volume of customer phone calls may be reduced as companies provide online access to product information through such services as Knowledge Bases and answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Field salespeople may also see benefits by encouraging prospects to obtain product information online prior to a face-to-face meeting. This may help reduce the time devoted to explaining basic company and product information and leave more time for understanding and offering solutions to customer’s problems. As these examples suggest, the Internet may lower administrative and operational costs while offering greater value to customers.


10. Create Worldwide Presence

The Internet is a communication and distribution channel that offers global accessibility to a company’s product and service offerings. Through a website a local marketer can quickly become a global marketer and, by doing so, expand their potential target market to many times it current size. Unlike the days before e-commerce when marketing internationally was a time-consuming and expensive undertaking, the uploading of files to establish a website is all that is needed to create a worldwide presence. While establishing a website does not guarantee international sales (there is a lot more marketing work needed for the site to be viable internationally), the Internet provides a gigantic leap into global business compared to pre-Internet days.

Courtesy www.knowthis.com