Make Money Online With a Website
Once
you have your product and your site you need to tell people about it.
There are many, many ways to do this - for free and for a price. Some of
the best ways are in fact free so don't neccesarily equate price with
value.
The first thing you must do is place your site
in the Search Engines. There are actually two types of search engine,
proper search engines themselves and directories. Some of the biggest
names are actually directories, such as Yahoo. Others, like AltaVista,
are search engines.
Because
of the fall in advertising revenue for these sites it is an unfortunate
fact that to get listed in big search engines you must now pay. It is
up to you if you think it is worth the expense but a good listing in
Yahoo can generate thousands of targeted visitors easily, while a
paid-for listing in Overture (formerly GoTo) can place your site in the
top of many directories. This is still the best "bang for your buck"
available in online promotion. More on pay-per-click later.
There
are also further complications in that many directories and engines
source their results from other central servers. So for example Google's
directory comes from the Open Directory Project, and Yahoo is now owned
by Overture. Inktomi is another company that powers the likes of
HotBot.
In essence you must submit your site to as many
of the big directories and engines as you can. This means Google,
Inktomi, DMOZ (the Open Directory Project), Yahoo, Overture, Excite,
Lycos, AlltheWeb, AltaVista, AOL Netfind and MSN. You have to pay for
some of these. As for your ranking it depends on the many arcane laws of
the engines and they change frequently. Google lists you according to
how many other sites link to you among other things, others list
according to the density of keywords in your text or how long your site
has been active.
To give you all the information needed
on Search Engines would take another site. I recommend that you visit
some of the sites listed in our Links section. It is far to easy to let
all your energy be consumed by trying to get that top site listing. Just
make sure your site is finished, that you submit it to the correct
category, that you include contact details and that it is professional.
There is some software that may be useful, such as Web Position Gold. In
fact, this is one of the only web positioning packages that
consistently get rave reviews!
To enable your site to
be listed correctly you have to set `Metatags` in your source. If you
are using a HTML editor there may be an option to do this or you may
have to insert it manually. To do this use the <META
NAME="keywords"> and the <META NAME="description"> tags. Put
these in the <HEAD> section of your webpage. The format is
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="put keywords here"> and <META
NAME="description" CONTENT="put description here">. There is a good
meta-tag guide at Jim Tools. In essence don't repeat any keyword too
often (keep it to three times) and make sure that the keywords you use
appear in the main text, especially heading text and title text.
As
I mentioned earlier Search Engines are a subject in themselves. If you
want to learn more I recommend you take a look at the Search-Engine
Report, an excellent e-book on the subject that will teach you the
insider secrets to generating top places. You can also pay dedicated
companies who will keep you at the top of your chosen search terms - but
if you use automated software and learn the subject thoroughly then
that is money best spent on other things.
There are a
lot of other ways to promote your site or list. We'll discuss some of
the more popular soon. There is one last thing you need to do BEFORE you
run any ads or promotion campaings - track your visitors. That is, you
need to know how many visitors each page gets and where they come from.
Without this information how do you know what forms of promotion you are
using actually work? Read tracking for more information on this.
Banners:
These have dropped in popularity as web surfers mentally filter them
out. Some new tricks include disguising your banner as actual text, with
perhaps windows-like buttons and drop-down menus as pictures. You can
pay for banner exposure or you can join banner exchanges which will show
your banner for every 2 or 3 times you show another.
Place your banner into programs such as Banners Go MLM.
FFA
Pages: The consensus is they are not worth it. Some sites STILL
recommend them and some auto-posting programs will still send your ad to
them. Hardly anyone reads them. They are only used to increase your
link popularity. It can be beneficial to run your own FFA page if you
can get people to post to it as you get their emails and can send them
messages - known as Reverse Advertising. If you still insist on using
one try ours here to get a feel for it.
Classified
pages are similar to FFA pages but you get to post a full ad rather than
just a link. Again, bulk posting and spamming are the norm here but at
least it costs nothing. A well written ad can still get some replies.
Try ours at this link.
Pay Per Click Directories: Many
larger directories now use this model, with Overture being the
originator. In their model you can bid for keywords and every time
someone clicks on your keyword you are charged the bid amount. If you
have the highest bid you are listed first. This can be extremely
lucrative, but high bids on certain keywords could be out of your reach.
You really need to know your cost per visitor, so if each visitor makes
you an average of $1 you can safely bid up to that amount. You need to
know how many of your visitors buy from you (say 5%) and how much profit
each they make (say $20) to work this out. In our example 1000 visitors
will cost you $1000 and they will make you $1000 so you'll only break
even. In this case you'd try bidding at about $0.8 to make a profit of
$200 per 1000 visitors.
Google is now a big player in
the paid advertising market with their Google Adwords. This is the ONLY
PLACE you can start a campaign and begin to receive hits and sales
almost immediately. Google uses many different methods to ensure you
only pay what you are willing to pay and get the best position for your
money. Google Cash is well received book by Chris Carpenter that
explains everything in detail.
Special Offer: Click here for free credit in Overture!
Also visit PayPerClickSearchEngines.Com for more help on this kind of promotion.
An
interesting twist on the pay-per-click engine is to bid miniscule
amounts on a lot of underused search terms. This way you'll get cheap
semi-targeted hits. Your link will get listed in unrelated searches, or
perhaps in slighly-related searches, but if the visitor actually clicks
then he was interested in that link and you'll get charged a tiny
amount.
Traffic Exchanges: These are a variation on the
old banner exchanges, and invaribly take the form of a pop window of
some kind. Every visitor to your site will generate a visitor to
another, and vice versa. These visitors aren't really targeted unless
your exchange lets you select a good category in which to show your page
or link. Even then the visitors won't stay long but it can be a useful
low-cost option to get some hits. Traffic exchanges either take the form
of start-page or exit-page exchanges. There are some new variations on
this, such as e-zine exchanges (an exit page with ezines listed) etc.
They may be worth trying but don't use too many. One of the best
exit-exchanges is Exit Exchange itself.
E-Zine
Advertising: One of the best forms of promotion, and can be done
cheaply. There are a lot of advantages, mainly you are hitting a highly
targeted audience for your ad. It is best today to purchase a solo ad.
That is your ad is sent to the e-zines subscriber base on it's own and
not as part of the newsletter. Some E-zine broker services (such as My
Wizard Ads) will submit your ad to many e-zines for a low price but
although you can get say 30,000 ad exposures for $10 in practice your ad
is buried amongst others. It is worth trying if you are on a budget.
When you write your ad you have limited space to make sure you make a
catchy headline and use all the tricks on ad-copy listed previously. You
should always strive to track your ads. This can be done with
ad-tracking services or by simple sending them to a special URL (eg
index2.html) with a seperate counter.
Please visit the Netpreneur Now advertising pages for some good offers.
E-Zine
Articles: Another good method. This way you are establishing yourself
as an expert, making your name familiar, and getting your ad out in the
form of a resource box after your article. It's also free. You can
submit to e-zine owners directly or send your article to article
directories. We maintain an Article Directory at Netpreneur Now where
you can browse articles or post your own.
Your Own
E-Zine: The third E-Zine technique. Everyone should try to build a
mailing list from their site. This can be an informative e-zine or just a
site update notice. E-Zines are not the be-all and end-all that they
once were because of the sheer amount of them out there, but they are
still very useful. The reason? You have your own targeted mail list to
use when you want, and many people will buy from you again and again!
You can build an E-zine with proper mail list software or free services
such as Topica or Yahoo Groups. Free services will add advertisments or
may have downtimes and it isn't unheard of to lose your subscriber list -
so back up often! If you prefer use dedicated software then you won't
go far wrong with the highly rated Mail Loop
There are also some excellent services for promoting e-zines, such as the new kid on the block, Subscription Rocket.
You
may also feel safer hosting your eZine remotely, since you are less
likely to be shut down by your ISP (which can happen if you send too
many e-mails). Empire Building Essentials gives you a powerful
Autoresponder and List Server tool and also let's you buy leads for use
with it.
Bulk E-Mail: There are many ways to send bulk
e-mail. It's very important not to send Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail,
i.e. Spam. It can ruin your repuation and get your site shut down.
Sadly, it can also work. If you want to go this way then at least try
not to use your name or your proper email address. Include a link at the
end for the recipient to unsubscribe but if it's a one off you don't
really need to. Some people say this is enough to remain legal. To get
e-mail addresses you can use harvesting software that will search the
web and usegroups or you can buy them. Even though many people won't
even discuss the use of spam it can work because it is so cheap - even a
1% or less response rate can yeild a handsome profit. I'd still suggest
that you don't do it but it does deserve a mention.
Auto
Responders: Another essential tool in the net marketers arsenal. An
auto responder will send a specific series of messages to a recipient at
selected intervals. As a visitor to your site will buy after an average
of 7 messages you should try to get their email address as soon as
possible. Offer free services or reports in exchange for it. An auto
responder is one of the tools that will put your business on auto pilot.
Try EBEI.
You also get a Push-Button Reponder with membership to Push Button Publishing.
Finally,
to learn how to get most from AutoResponders take a look at
Autoresponder Secrets - Exposed! - probably the best work on this
subject ever written.
Leads: A lead is simply a name
and email address that you can send offers to. The best leads are those
you have collected yourself, usually by providing a "sign up box" at
your website and asking people to join your list. You can also buy
leads, but you need to make sure these leads are people who have asked
to receive internet marketing offers. EBEI, home of the Autoresponder
mentioned above, also sell these leads at just 2c each - which you can
import directly into your Autoresponder.
Viral
Marketing: This is basically some item, usually an e-book, that you can
spread like a virus. You give this away for free but embed within it
many links to yourself or your paying programs. To give others an
incentive to spread it you should give them the opportunity to add their
own links (via a branding tool) or perhaps a share of the profits or of
the traffic. If the e-book is genuinely usefull it should spread on its
own as others will be happy to give it away.
There are a lot of other ways you can advertise yourself and your business. In addition to the above:
Put a link in your .sig file. This will be added to every message you send.
Use changing content on your site such as news reports.
Offer a website award, such as ours.
Offer a service from your site such as free e-mail.
Offer lots of free stuff in general, and most will pay you as well such as free vacations, free newsletters etc.
Approach webmasters for reciprocal links to their sites.
Use
offline advertising such as business cards, flyers, print adverts, ads
on your car, trade shows, even chalked on the floor near campuses or on
bookmarks in library books!
Try running an ad on the high-traffic ebay site.
The Truth about Promotion
Promoting
your site properly means you MUST get TARGETED visitors. A well written
ad is the best way or a good listing on a search engine. To make your
ad stand out from the crowd it must be unique, even if it's only unique
on price or the amount of bonuses.
Your name is one of
the most important tools you have. You are in essence promoting
yourself. Don't put your name to everything and recommend whatever comes
along as it will ruin your reputation. Building a good reputation is a
must. One of the best ways is to write articles and participate in
newsgroups or message boards.
Promotion is really the
ongoing part of your online businesses. Once it is set up your online
businesses only needs a constant stream of visitors to operate. A good
auto responder system will keep buyers coming to you - you just need to
get them to sign up in the first place!
If you stay
respectable and professional and keep sourcing new visitors and avenues
for promotion you can't go far wrong. There are many more books on
Promotion at our Members Site.
