Go to www.2createawebsite.com Also download my free AdSense guide at www.2createawebsite.com
Tags: AdSense, cpc, Google, make, Money, online
Make Money Online | mick | 
September 3, 2010 12:31 am | 
Comments (17)
Making money Online can be very easy, but it can also be a long, strenuous process. Follow my ways and you should hit the jackpot.
Google is set to release an updated version of its Keyword Tool which will combine features of the Keyword Tool (primarily for AdWords users) with features of the Search-based Keyword Tool (which is based on actual Google search queries) to create one of the most comprehensive and valuable keyword research tool on the Web today. It might just be the greatest keyword tool of all time.
The new Keyword Tool offers flexible search options, enabling users to search by any combination of keyword, website/URL, and category and receive a single set of results.
Users will also be able to filter result by word or keyword match type, and even view statistics for mobile search and use data filter based on local search, as well as search and ad share. It might just be the greatest keyword tool of all time.
Google also added some new features based on user feedback including the ability to remove duplicate keywords (which appear with an “Already in Ad Group” message) and the ability to add negative keywords automatically to your account from your keyword idea list.
The depth and value the upcoming tool provides kind of makes me wonder about the viability of commercial keyword research services. If Google dominates the search and ad space, what do the others know that Google doesn’t? Do you even need to consider using alternative providers? Is Google’s upcoming keyword tool the greatest keyword tool of all time? Share your comments below
Tags: Google, home based business, Internet Marketing, Internet Training, Making Money Online, Marketing and Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, social media marketing, Web search engine
FaceBook Tutorials, Internet Boot Camp, Internet Marketing, Internet Training, Make Money Online, Mind Set, Online Expert, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Training, Social Networking, Twitter Tools, Twitter Tutorials, Visualization, facebook, home based business opportunities, home business, social Media, twitter, wealth creation, work at home opportunities | mick | August 12, 2010 3:31 pm | Comments (0)
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This is a great post about Everything You Need to Know About YouTube’s Promoted Videos by my buddy Merle from MerlesWorld.com.
We’ve looked into using this platform ourselves and will be doing a follow up to this post to let you in on any secrets we run across.
That said, here is the post and what I feel is enough information to get you up and running with your own Youtube ads.
Way back in 2006, Google purchased YouTube.com for an alleged reported figure of 1.65 billíon dollars. And, like with everything Google does, they’ve added their own special “Google Touches” over the last several years, turning it into one of the most popular video destination websites online today.
Need proof? According to Comscore.com’s December 2009 “Videos Viewed Report”, YouTube was ranked as the top U.S. video site serving up 13.2 billion of the total 33.2 billion videos that were viewed online in the U.S. for that month alone. That’s a lot of people watching mega videos. For more stats see tinyurl.com/y8jbnqh.
Furthermore, according to Google, YouTube has twenty hours of new video uploaded every minute and 420 million unique visitors per month. Watching online videos and sharing them with others has become an Internet obsession. People really love watching videos. Remember the old song “Video Killed the Radio Star”? In today’s marketplace, it should be called “Video Killed the Television Set”.
What if I told you there’s a way to harness that huge audience in your onlíne marketing campaign? Now you can with YouTube’s new advertising program called “Promoted Videos”. YouTube and its other site, Google Adwords, have partnered together in this latest ad serving project. When promoting your videos on YouTube, they’ll also be shown across Google’s Content Network, aka sites running Google Adsense on them.
The purpose of “Promoted Videos” is to help your videos stand out from the millions of others on the site. At the time of this writing, they’re available in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
The first step is to sign up at ads.youtube.com, or if you’re already a user of Google Adwords you can access “Promoted Videos” from your control panel. You must have a YouTube and an Adwords account which will be linked together as the video ads are served up by Adwords. To find them in Adwords, log into your account, select the “Ads Tab”, then the “Display Ad Builder”, and finally select “Video” from the category menu and you’ll see “promoted videos”. Once your accounts are linked, you can manage your Promoted Videos campaign from the Adwords Console, or YouTube directly.
So where do Promoted Videos appear? By default, they run on YouTube’s site and those sites that run Google Adsense ads. On YouTube, the video ads are shown below and to the right of search results pages and on some of YouTube’s Watch pages in the “related video section”, if related to the content of the page. Watch pages are like the home page of a video that displays all of its public information. Advertisers can option in or out of the “Content Network”, which gives some control over where the video ads may be shown. The videos are clearly marked as “promoted videos”, but it seems Youtube has moved back and forth between labeling them “promoted or sponsored videos”.
Like other forms of pay-per-click advertising, it’s an auction like setting where advertisers bid on selected keywords, set a maximum cost per clíck, and a daily budget to spend. The Promoted Videos program uses the “Adwords Discounter” to help keep costs down. No matter your maximum cost per click, advertisers only pay one cent more than the other video ads shown on the same page. When selecting keywords make sure to choose the ones you would want to appear when a search is done on a particular subject. YouTube’s Insight is helpful when choosing keywords. For more on this, see searchenginewatch.com/3640113.
The videos created can include a clickable link to any site you choose. On sites running Adsense ads that haven’t elected to block YouTube’s Promoted Videos from within their competitive ad filter, the videos appear as a thumbnail with three lines of text. Adsense content partners must also be running ad formats in one of these sizes for video ads to appear. They are: 300X230, 336X280, 728X90, 250X250, 200X200. They must also be opted in to show text and image ads on their sites.
The Promoted Videos are different from Adsense video ads. Promoted Videos will always take the viewer to YouTube’s site to be played, whereas Adsense video ads are played right on the website it’s being viewed on.
When creating videos make sure they’re fun and entertaining; something people will really enjoy to watch and will want to pass on to their friends and family. The sharing of popular videos on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, will help it to go viral. Generally speaking, funny always translates well. The less it looks like a commercial, the better the odds of people liking and sharing it.
If you’ve been wanting to try your hand at video marketing and reach millions of potential customers, Google’s Promoted Videos may be for you. For further information see:
Promoted Videos Optimization Guide
Show & Tell with YouTube – Showcases the best examples of marketing on YouTube
Hope this helps in getting you started in promoting your own infomercials and video advertising.
Tags: Advertising, AdWords, facebook, Google, Google Adwords, Social network service, YouTube, YouTube.com
Internet Marketing, Internet Training, Make Money Online, Mind Set, Online Expert, Social Networking, home based business opportunities, home business, wealth creation, work at home opportunities | mick | July 2, 2010 1:44 pm | Comments (1)
Gone are the day of spending countless, exhausting hours setting up carefully constructed pay per click marketing only to discover that all of your ads were pulled without notice, and apparently without reason.
PPC (pay per click) marketing is a high speed strategy for getting your advertisements in front of your targeted market quickly, however with the risks involved with Google pulling the rug out from under countless marketers by pausing their ads or worse, BANNING their accounts without notice, it’s become evident that anyone serious about maximizing exposure for their advertisements while retaining FULL control over your promotions needs to look for an alternative provider.
Enter Facebook.
Facebook is currently used by millions of users who log into their accounts every day to communicate with friends and family, to network with businesses and to post updates on their personal and business lives.
It’s one of the fastest growing sites online, with over 400 million user-created accounts and receives a greater number of page views every month then even Google!
With this mass exposure and incredible outreach, Facebook has quickly become the leading contender in the paid advertising scene, giving anyone serious about marketing their business the opportunity to tap into their target audience quickly, easily and most impressively – CHEAP.
In comparison with traditional pay per click marketing, the actual costs to advertise on Facebook are well below industry standard, PLUS even more importantly perhaps, Facebook actually has fewer advertisers then Adwords or other PPC marketplaces.
That means that you are have less competition to worry about and will be able to reach your target customers faster, easier and at a lower cost than with any other advertising network.
How Facebook Advertising Works
With Facebook, their advertising channels are based on DISPLAY rather than per SEARCH .
What this means is that instead of users having to enter in specific search terms or keywords, your advertisements will be trigger to appear based on the page content that the user is reading.
Another factor that plays a part in the advertisements that are shown to Facebook users is based on whether they “vote” for current advertisements. You see, with every advertisement featured within the Facebook network, there is a ‘thumbs up’ icon that appears below the advertisement that allows someone viewing the ad to ‘vote’ for it.
If someone votes for an advertisement, it indicates to Facebook that they should display additional advertisements of the SAME kind (based on category, keywords and overall relevancy), ensuring the best experience possible for Facebook members.
As a Facebook advertiser, you will also be able to promote your products and services using images, a feature that is not usually available within traditional PPC marketing. Images are an incredible asset in maximizing conversion rates because you can tailor the images used in your ads to push the “right buttons” or pull at emotional triggers that you know will have an impact on your average customer.
For example, if you were placing an advertisement that offered a teeth whitening kit, you could place a simple image of a “before” and “after” that offers the reader with a visual aid that leaves an incredible impression. Images can ultimately be one of the LEADING motivators in getting targeted customers to click through your advertisements and explore your offer.
So, how can you start exploiting the popularity and massive outreach of the Facebook network to gain maximum exposure for your business?
Here are a few tips to help you get started:
Target Your Advertisements
You want your entire advertisement to be heavily targeted towards your average customer.
This includes any images that are featured within your ads as well as the advertising text that is featured below the image.
With Facebook, you are able to set up a very targeted advertisement, including targeting specific age groups, locations, education levels, what people have indicated that they are interested in based on their profile summary, and can even target primarily men or women.
The more carefully you create highly targeted advertisements, the better your ads will perform, so make sure you spend a bit of time crafting your ads so that they effectively target your customer base.
Create Facebook Compliant Advertisements
Facebook wants to maintain a user-friendly community and in order to do this they are very strict with the types of advertisements that are allowed to be circulated throughout their network. This means that you cannot use slang; improper grammar and you must refrain from using any images or text that could be considered offensive.
Don’t look at these guidelines as a downside to using Facebook but instead, consider how this quality control will HELP you create higher converting advertisements that are genuinely targeted to your customer base.
Keep An Eye On Your CTR
CTR which stands for Click Through Rate and you want to keep an eye on how well your advertisements are performing. Your ads should never go below 2%, and if you notice that an advertisement is starting to fall below that level, you will want to tweak your advertisement and reconsider who your advertisement is targeted to.
Are you asking the right questions in your advertisement? Using the right image?
Make sure that you spend time evaluating the effectiveness of your advertisement to generate maximum conversion rates and avoid having your advertisements paused or removed.
Choose The Appropriate Time To Run Your Ads
You can choose to run your advertisements continuously throughout the day or based on specific start and end dates. You will want to run your advertisements throughout the day continuously, unless you need to pause it for a specific reason such as if you are going away on holiday, or you find that specific times of the day are converting better (based on the locations you are interested in targeting).
Set A Reasonable Maximum Bid
You will want to set a maximum daily bid that you are comfortable with and fits within your budget.
Facebook will provide a suggested maximum bid based on the content of your advertisement and your targeting configuration. Consider setting your maximum bid slightly lower than Facebook’s recommended minimum and adjust it as you need to based on your advertisements conversion rates and overall exposure.
Choose CPC Over Impressions
You can also choose to pay for impressions or per click. It’s always best to choose CPC (cost per click) for the most part, especially during your testing phase. You can always change this later on if you need to.
Highly Recommended Resource
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Tags: Advertising, Business, Click Through Rate, facebook, Google, Marketing, Online advertising, Pay per click
FaceBook Tutorials, Internet Marketing, Internet Training, Make Money Online, Social Media Training, Social Networking, facebook, home based business opportunities, home business, social Media, work at home opportunities | mick | June 9, 2010 10:37 pm | Comments (0)
Twitter, the net’s networking success story, is intriguing and intimidating because of its message limitations: they can be 140 characters, and no more.
This is to say; each message sent on Twitter can be no larger than the previous sentence. Not an additional letter, space, period or dash can be added. These limitations have proven to be the greatest asset and the greatest challenge for people trying to use Twitter for any number of purposes.
On the advantageous side, the short messages have created an entire culture of Twitter-fluent writers. The brevity of the message stretches creative muscles, making people use every trick to get the most information into the fewest characters. On the other hand it creates a severe headache for the marketing minded, as it doesn’t leave much room to present a case. Thus the vast majority of Tweets are short little social comments or updates, and most marketing revolves around calling attention to particular links.
Of course, there are always ways around limitations, and Twitter is something that every seriously market-minded organization needs to embrace in order to see continued success on the web. In the case of short message services like Twitter, the key lies as much in the peripheral data that builds up around the message as in the content itself.
Be SEO Minded
Twitter profiles are now ranked by search engines, Google in particular. Every SEO technique you’ve learned now has a new, exciting purpose. For example, consider the biography you’re able to construct using Twitter. This is a ripe opportuníty to develop some brand recognition right away. Put the title of the brand you’re marketing in the bio, and consider including the most relevant keywords in your profile. As ever, do so in a way that respects the user’s intelligence, and gives them something worth reading. Simply stringing together a chain of keywords is not the way to go.
Include keywords in your Tweets as well, taking care not to be terribly obvious about it. The first 20-30 characters are the best place, as later words are of decreased importance in a Google ranking search.
Identify Your Audience
Each brand rises and falls on the whim of the audience, known in this case as tweeple.
There are a number of applications available to help you with the process of identifying the tweeple that you want to cultivate into an audience. Twitterholic can help you identify the movers and shakers based on their Twitter traffic and their location. If you know your field or brand well, you can use this to locate groups with similar interests and woo them to your feed. Tweepz is a similar tool, focusing on location, and Twitter itself has a ‘near this location’ feature that can be used to identify tweeple nearby your center of business.
Let’s Give Them Something to Tweet About
Yes, Twitter is an effective way to quickly distribute information. But its real power is in its ability to create conversations about something interesting.
In theory you could simply gather up a large user list of tweeple and start spamming them with links promoting your latest gig. This is a surefire way to get flagged for abuse or ignored entirely, and thus is rather counterproductive to good marketing goals.
Instead, consider using alternative methods to drum up those conversations that travel like wildfire.
For example, there is the technique of Alternate Reality Gaming. This is a phenomenon based on the idea of taking ‘real’ events and building a game out of them. Last Call Poker was an ARG that intended to drum up sales for an upcoming video game, GUN.
LCP spread out information about gatherings, online incentives, and other attractions to get people excited about the western theme of the game. Tokens such as poker chips and other goodies were given out at these events, and GUN went on to have a very successful launch. People were invited into the world of the western, and the chatter eventually included 8 million participants.
This kind of rogue advertising is tailor-made to work with Twitter. Locations and dates can easily fall within the 140 character limitation, as can short explanations. Consider creating an ARG with a short story designed to work within 140 characters, locate an audience with the assorted Twitter tools at your disposal, and plan some exciting events to promote your brand. The chance to get involved always gets people talking, and the more esoteric games can span entire continents.
There are other methods, some more appropriate to each individual brand. Perhaps a modest bicycling business isn’t suited to promote a large ARG experience. They could, however, organize a bicycling flash mob by hopping onto the local bike hobbyist twitter feed and posting a date and time. The trick is less which technique you use, and more that you do your best to make it relevant. As always, strong content and clear presentation will win out over gimmicks and sales speak.
Also, consider one last thought. The introductory statements of each section in this article are Twitter compatible, and so is this one. Good luck and happy Tweeting.
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Tags: Brand, Business, Google, Marketing, Online Communities, Social network, twitter, Web search engine
Internet Marketing, Internet Training, SEO, Social Media Training, Social Networking, Twitter Tools, Twitter Tutorials, social Media, twitter | mick | May 14, 2010 12:04 pm | Comments (0)
Following is an abbreviated excerpt from Engage, a new book that helps businesses build, cultivate, and measure success in social media.
Last year, Forbes magazine assembled a visual list for its Top 21 Twitter Tips to showcase business examples on how to use Twitter for marketing, service, sales, and ideation. The original compilation served as inspiration for a new list, one that helps businesses of all shapes, sizes, and focus embrace not only Twitter, but all social networks of relevance.
While many of the examples and quotes remain the same, the list is modified based on my observations and personal experiences.
Number 1. Special Offers
People are making decisions on what to read, view, purchase, visit, and sample based on the information that filters through their attention dash- boards. At best, even the most qualified information sourced from the most trusted contacts will receive only a cursory overview. The trick is to concisely introduce the value up front. If the offer is compelling and affiliated with their interests, the consumer will make the connection to personal value and benefits and click-through to redeem the special or coupon when ready or so inclined.
For example, California Tortilla (@caltort), a chain of 39 casual Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, MD, sends coupon passwords via Twitter, which customers must say at checkout to redeem the offer.
Number 2. Ordering
While the distance between introduction and action is only separated by a link, many businesses are using Twitter to log orders. Coffee Groundz (@coffeegroundz) uses the direct message channel on Twitter to receive and prepare orders. Using Twitter as a promotion and marketing channel, Coffee Groundz reports 20 to 30 percent increased sales and market share.
Number 3. Word of Mouth Marketing
Moonfruit offered 11 Macbook Pros and 10 iPod Touches to celebrate its 10th anniversary. In order to qualify, contestants had to send a tweettweet using the hashtag #moonfruit. One month following the completion of the contest, Moonfruit site traffic was up 300 percent and sales also increased by 20 percent—and all because of a meager investment of $15,000. The company also realized SEO benefits, by landing on the first results page on Google for “free website builder.”
Number 4. Conversation Marketing
Zappos (@zappos) doesn’t necessarily market on Twitter; instead, it “unmarkets” via conversations and engagement. At current count, 436 Zappos employees use Twitter, including CEO Tony Hsieh. For the record, Tony has over 1.6 million followers.
Aaron Magness, director of business development at Zappos, acknowledges that proactively sharing the company culture and values creates a humanizing effect that invites people to be part of the community, and also acts as a sales driver. “It’s easier for them to embrace openness,” he said.
Number 5. Customer Service
Frank Eliason of Comcast (@comcastcares) and Richard Binhammer of Dell (@richardatdell) are paving the way for service-focused organizations on Twitter.
Eliason, whose title is director of digital care at Comcast, uses Twitter to help 200 to 300 subscribers a day. Frank and his 10-person help desk receive direct questions, but also proactively seek out complaints. His key to success lies in his desire to earn relations, not bark advice or chat people up. “If they want assistance, they’ll let me know,” he said.
Number 6. Focus Groups
Wisdom and creativity are widespread in social media. Tuning in to the frequency of conversations related to the brand or marketplace can serve as a real-time focus group for innovation and adaptation.
Over 3 million mentions of Starbucks populated Twitter in May 2009 and, as the company learned, the price for paying attention is less than that for a caramel macchiato, but the value is priceless.
Morgan Johnston, Manager of Corporate Communications at Jet Blue, was inspired to change policy because of Twitter. He helped eliminate a $50 fee for carry-on bikes after hearing complaints via Twitter.
Johnston listens to the people who are active on the Social Web in order to improve company processes and customer service. “Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine. We watch for customers’ discussions about amenities we have, and what they’d like to see made better.”
Number 7. Direct Sales
Brian Simpson (@BSIMI) has helped The Roger Smith in New York monitor dialogue related to hotel stays and travel in order to offer specials in the hopes of attracting new guests. Using Twitter search, he can identify prospects and offer them a 10 percent discount on the lowest-rate rooms. Simpson estimates that Twitter and other forms of social media have netted between $15,000 to $20,000 in additional revenue.
Simpson also professed the necessity of cultivating community in social networks: “It validates us more when other people talk about us than when we talk about ourselves,” he noted.
Number 8. Business Development
Twitter, along with blogs, blog comments, and other social networks, is abundant with conversations that broadcast and echo dissatisfaction with brands and products. One company’s crisis is another’s opportunity.
Monitoring conversations (social reconnaissance) related to competitors provides the ability to “save the day” with better service or monetary incentives.
Number 9. Curation
I’ve written in the past that Twitter is not necessarily most advantageous when used as a conversation platform. Embracing it as a broadcast channel is also beneficial when used strategically.
For example, Google maintains over 2 million followers, but only follows 230. It employs a strategy that I refer to as a “curation” feed. It compiles links to content and company posts elsewhere and aggregates them into one channel. I recommend that companies use this for information collected from customers and influencers, as well in order to truly curate the best, most helpful content from around the Web while building good will in the process.
However, Twitter accounts can also create and portray a persona around an social objects. For example Albion’s Oven, a bakery in London, notifies followers when fresh croissants are ready.
Number 10. Information Networks
Unlike a curated network that keeps followers in sync with trends, services, and solutions, Information Networks can serve up helpful alerts and notices to help followers avert problems, change plans, and also pursue new opportunities.
The Michigan Department of Transportation uses Facebook and Twitter to alert friends and followers of traffic and road closures. Oakland County Parks uses Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about events and news and also conducts polls to improve local programs and services.
In business, customers could also benefit from updates and alerts that they might not have otherwise have encountered on their own.
Number 11. Dedicated and Branded Channels
On Twitter, Ford Motor uses distinct accounts for sharing information about specific models and products. For example, @forddrivegreen focuses on sustainability, whereas @fordmustang, well, you guessed it, shares content related to the Mustang.
Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford, recognizes that social media reveals the people who formerly comprised the audience: “We give customers a choice as to how they want to consume information.”
Whole Foods maintains independent channels, as well, to better serve customers. For example, the healthy foods retailer channels specific information and updates for wine and beer, cheese, and recipes.
Number 12. Mobile and Geo Location Marketing
Local businesses are using social tools to identify customers within the area to attract new business and also extend the online interaction into a full-blown community in the real world. Because I was there when this story was just about to unfold, I will reference my good friend Mike Prasad and the great work he’s done for Kogi, a mobile force of Korean BBQ taco trucks @kogiBBQ.
One night in Hollywood, Mike and I were talking about getting a late night snack. He told me about the company he was working with and how if we sent a tweet out requesting their presence, there was a good chance that they’d stop by the neighborhood to serve us dinner. Thirty minutes later, Kogi was indeed outside our hotel and a group of about 25 to 30 people immediately began proclaiming their appreciation for on Twitter.
Prasad echoes this sentiment and is helping to lead the way: “We try to foster a culture by interaction with the people around us. Now, Kogi isn’t about getting a taco, it’s about having an experience.”
Expect to see this trend continue in mobile social networks dedicated to locale and accessible via mobile phones.
Number 13. Hosted Conversations That Generate Traffic and Referrers
Social Media Dashboards are the future of hosted and aggregated conversations. As we’re observing, those sites that integrate Twitter chat functionality can not only thread conversations in one place for easy following, but also send out tweets in the Twitter stream for all followers to see, and hopefully feel compelled or curious to join, as well.
During the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, Turner Broadcasting integrated Twitter into TNT.com with the help of Gigya. Visitors could log into the site with their Twitter ID and respond directly in the hosted timeline. As such, their tweets not only appeared on TNT.com but also in Twitter, attracting more fans into the site.
Number 14. User-Generated Change
As we’ve seen and will continue to see, in social media tiny online social revolutions can manifest and ultimately ignite change.
Historically, the 2009 Iran Election will serve as an inflection point for the rise of user-generated change. While the results of election itself weren’t altered, the Iran government was forced to respond.
Two services mentioned in the Forbes Top Twitter Tips article, Twitition and TinyPetition, are dedicated to organizing people on Twitter to call for change officially.
Number 15. Vendor Relationship Management
A form of relationship management introduced by Cluetrain Manifesto author Doc Searls, Vendor Relationships Management (VRM) flips the workflow of CRM (customer relationship management) from companies to customers.
Whereas people are relegated to faceless customers when e-mailing or calling into the service department, social media takes the power once held exclusively by the brand and injects balance.
UK-based Wiggly Wigglers, a marketer of farming and gardening supplies, was surprised to learn that British Telecom overcharged the company by $10,000. After five months of a stalemate and without any promise or hope of resolution, company owner Heather Gorringe took her story to the Twitterverse. Within 30 minutes, @BTCare responded with help and two days later, the bill was adjusted.
Number 16. Ideation
As we’ve witnessed with My Starbucks Idea (http://mystarbucksidea. force.com) and Dell’s IdeaStorm (www.ideastorm.com), crowdsourcing ideas can not only be an excellent source for innovation, but also an effective means for establishing goodwill.
IBM uses Twitter to test concepts and solicit feedback and ideas through @ibmresearch.
Number 17. Employee Recruitment
Recruiters and hiring managers are turning to Twitter to seek referrals and applicants for open positions. Twitter and social networks can spark a social effect that galvanizes community support and action. Not only can companies save a significant amount of money on listing and referral fees using traditional outlets and resources, they essentially create a presence through the practice of “unmarketing” itself through the process of seeking qualified candidates.
Number 18. Events
Organizing and promoting events are natural applications for Twitter. Tweetups transcend online relationships and become real-world connections.
Using Coffee Groundz as an example again, the Houston-based business regularly organizes tweetups to draw hundreds of customers into the store for each event.
Number 19. Research and Intelligence
The Social Web is a real-time collective and assembly of valuable information that mostly goes unnoticed. A few existing services are dedicated to applying a magnifying lens into the dialogue that leads to insight, direction, creativity, and inventiveness.
For example, celebrity.peoplebrowsr.com provides real-time insight into the most actively discussed celebrities on Twitter at any moment in time, while also revealing the sentiment that is most associated with each. If you notice at the top, you can also view the latest on Airlines industry or stock market sentiment and associated tweets.
StockTwits provides an open, community-powered idea and information service for investments. Users can listen to traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation. The service leverages Twitter as a content production platform and transforms tweets into financial related data structured by stock, user, and reputation.
Number 20. Fund Raising
This is a big opportunity and one that will yield amazing stories on how people are using Twitter and social media to raise money for charitable causes and capital for projects and companies. It’s the art of spurring contributions through information and education, not solicitation.
When it comes to social media for Social Good, we don’t have to look much further than anything Beth Kanter touches or spotlights. She’s one of the most influential people in using social media for raising awareness, support and money for causes. One of the projects that she remains dedicated to is helping orphans in Cambodia and, to date, it has raised over $200,000. She has also used Twitter, Widgets, and other social networks to help many other organizations and causes. In one live demonstration, which still leaves me in awe, she raised over $2,500 to send a young Cambodian woman to college while she was on stage at Gnomedex in Seattle.
Number 21. Words of Wisdom
As reiterated throughout these top tips, listening and responding is helpful and efficacious in luring new customers, empowering advocacy, and instilling loyalty.
Serving as a resource for your community or industry positions, proactively responding to online users who are posing questions, and assisting those who are seeking advice and guidance can garner trust, respect, and camaraderie for you and the causes you espouse.
There are measurable and also incalculable benefits to dedicating resources to lead individuals and organizations to resolution.
For example, @homedepot monitors dialogue related to the company, but also those individuals who are tackling home projects and seeking tips and instructions.
BestBuy’s @Twelpforce has authorized its entire staff of trained employees to seek out discussions related to consumer electronics, home theaters, gaming, music, appliances, and technology, and to answer questions, whether or not they’re directly tied to the BestBuy brand.
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Tags: Branded Channels On Twitter, Business, Business Development Twitter, facebook, Google, Top 21 Twitter Tips, twitter, Zappos
FaceBook Tutorials, Internet Marketing, Internet Training, Make Money Online, Online Expert, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Training, Social Networking, Twitter Tools, Twitter Tutorials, facebook, home based business opportunities, home business, social Media, twitter, wealth creation, work at home opportunities | mick | May 7, 2010 11:22 am | Comments (0)
So how is it that your competitor’s site gets top rankings in the search results while yours seems to be buried on page 10 or lower?
Let’s look at the factors that Google takes into account to decide which sites will get those coveted top positions, and which will be relegated to obscurity.
First we need to recognize that there are both on-page and off page factors.
On-page refers to stuff that is actually on your page. In other words, the stuff that both Google and your visitors can see and read. Off-page factors are everything else.
In order to understand how these work together, you need to start to think like Google. Google’s goal is to provide the most relevant up-to-date information it can. They want to do that so that people use their search engine, and they want that so that people get to see those sponsored Adwords listings, which is where Google earns their money.
So, the first thing you need to do is to make sure that your web pages are good – that they contain quality information that the reader will want to read.
The second thing you need to do is to make sure that your website has the correct information in its meta tags, titles, and content. For more details on this, the best resource I can recommend is Google’s own guide to SEO. http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf.
This is where you use the information from your basic keyword research. Make sure that your most valuable keywords are the ones that you include in your site’s title, meta tags, headers and so on. And of course in your content.
Remember, Google likes content – it likes sites with lots of content, and it likes sites with recently updated content, and it like sites with themed content about the chosen topic – again, guided by your keyword research.
Now let’s get to the off-page factors.
Go over to Google and type in the key phrase ‘click here’. Here is what you will likely get:
Look at these results. See how the words ‘click here’ are in bold? That is because that was the your search phrase, and so Google highlights your search phrase in the actual results.
Now look at the number one result, Adobe . Notice that they don’t have the words click here anywhere on their page. If they did, then they would show up in bold on the search result listing, just as they do on the other results below.
So, for the search term ‘click here’ the Adobe site is totally lacking in on-page factors. Their page is certainly not about the subject of clicking here, or anywhere else for that matter.
So how did they get to number 1? Once you know their secret, then you can apply that to your own site too.
The answer is in their backlinks.
Let’s look at this diagram for a minute:
This shows a hyperlink on a hypothetical site, example.com.
As you can see, the blue underlined text on the link says ‘dogs’. That blue text is what we call the link’s ‘anchor text’. If you clicked on this link, it would take you to another site, which we will call site A. So one can say that this link is pointing to site A.
Here is another link. On this one the anchor text says ‘dog allergies’. It just so happens that this link also points to site A.
Here are a couple more links, with different anchor texts. You can see that these point to site B.
Now, looking at that diagram, what would you guess is the topic of site A?
Yep, Dogs.
And the topic of site B? Yep, cars.
So you can see that you can get a good idea of what a site is about, based on the anchor text of all the sites that point to it.
So, if you were to search in Google for ‘dogs’ which site, A or B, is Google more likely to serve up to you in the search results?
You got it – Site A.
That is because site A has link reputation for ‘dogs’ whereas site B has link reputation for ‘cars’.*
Ok, now lets look at this diagram. Here we have a bunch of sites, all with anchor texts about dogs. 10 of them point to Site A and only 2 point to site B.
Other things being equal, if you searched Google for the term ‘dog’, which site would rank above the other?
Yep, Site A would sit above site C in the results, because it has more ‘link popularity’. In other words, it has more links pointing to it than site C.
So, going back to Adobe – it just so happens that Adobe has thousands of links pointing to their site, all with the anchor text ‘click here’. And so they rank number 1 for that search term, even though they have zero on-page factors for it.
Putting these two factors together, you can see that if you want to rank highly for your own search phrase, then you need both lots of links pointing to you (these are called back links, as they point back to you) AND you need lots of these links to have anchor texts that match your target keywords.
Ideally you would have thousands of links all with different anchor texts matching not just your top ten most valuable key phrases, but your top hundred, or even thousand. In this way you will get top ranking results for all those different key phrases that real people type into the search engines. Some may not have much volume, but when you add them up it can result in huge amounts of free traffic.
Let me repeat that, as it is important. To drive huge amounts of FREE traffic to your site, you need to have thousands of backlinks, all with different long-tail keywords used in the anchor text.
Where do you get this long list of valuable long-tail key phrases?
So, let`s summarize all this.
1.You need to be at the very top of the search results if you want to receive any organic (ie FREE) traffic. Being hidden down on the second or third page just won’t cut it.
2.You need to make sure that both your on-page and your off-page factors are optimized for your target search terms.
3.For on-page factors that means lots of quality relevant content – for example lots of articles about your subject matter. If your site is about dogs – then you need lots of articles about dogs. And, of course, make sure that your meta tags and titles are all correct too.
4.For off-page factors you need lots of back links. How many? That depends on how competitive your target search term is. For something very broad and competitive like ‘music’ or ‘how to make money’ you will need tens or even hundreds of thousands. But for more specific terms, and especially for localized terms, like ‘chiropractor West Vancouver’ you might need only a few hundred. And of course all those backlinks should use the correct anchor texts.
Those are the crucial fundamentals of SEO.
The next step is to devise a strategy that will gradually and consistently walk your own site up the search rankings. It doesn’t happen overnight. If you want that, then you need to go for those paid adwords advertisements. But that will cost you a lot of money.
But, if you do just one simple thing every week, you will get those top positions.
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Tags: Anchor text, Backlink, Google, Hyperlink, Search Engine Optimization, Web page, Web search engine, website
Internet Marketing, Internet Training, Make Money Online, Online Expert, Social Networking, home based business opportunities, home business, wealth creation, work at home opportunities | mick | April 28, 2010 5:39 pm | Comments (0)
But what if the backlinks pointing to your site don’t get indexed by Google? Then, for all intents and purposes, they are basically useless.
So how would it be if we could find those links and get them indexed by Google?
Now a brand new plugin, created by a UAW member, does exactly that.
Here is how it works (note, this does require you to have WordPress sites).
First you need to get the plugin. It is available at clickbank.
In there you will find two plugins:
The indexing Tool Plugin
And the Trackback Plugin
Ok, so here is what you do.
Let’s assume that you have a WordPress site, which we shall call your Money Site, that you are promoting through the wizard or by other backlink building methods.
Now, the clever thing about WordPress, is that it finds and records all links pointing to your site that come from other blogs. So every time a blog posts a link to your Money Site, for example when they publish one of your articles, then YOUR site will know about it. In fact, it will show up in your dashboard when you next log in to your admin panel.
What we are going to do is to convert all those trackbacks into an RSS feed. Don’t worry, you don’t need to know that that all means, as it is all done for you.
All you need to do is install the Trackback PLugin onto your Money Site. This is done just the same as any other plugin, so it is dead simple. The plugin will provide you with a URL which is where your feed is located. Make a note of that.
The next thing you do is to install the Indexing tool on your site. Preferably this would go on a different wordpress blog, not on your Money Site. We will call this site your Traffic Site – the only requirement for it is that it gets spidered reasonably often by Google, so you could use a site that gets lots of traffic, but doesn’t make you any money.
Once you have installed it, go to the settings and configure them as you want them. Probably the default settings are fine. You will need to input the url to your trackback RSS feed that you just created on your Money Site.
What the Plugin Does
Now, what this plugin will do is to take that RSS feed and extract the URL’s to all the pages that are linking to you. Then it will check Google to see if those pages have been indexed. If they have, all well and good.
If they haven’t then the plugin will display those URL’s on your site – either in a sidebar widget, or underneath your blog posts. So, now you have a link pointing from your Traffic Site to the Third Party site that is backlinking to your Money Site.
The idea is that those links are now visible to Google. So when Google next visits your site, it will find the links, follow them to the distant URL. There it will index THAT page and, in turn, find the link from there back to your Money Site.
Hey presto! Now your backlink is properly indexed and COUNTS for SEO!
But this is where gets even more clever: Every few hours the Indexing Tool will go and check with Google to see if any of those pages have been indexed. Once it finds that a page has been indexed, it now removes that link from your Traffic Site, goes over to the RSS feed on your Money Site, and pulls out another page to be indexed.
So the links stay on your Traffic Blog only long enough for the backlink to your Money Site to get indexed. How cool is that?
This is a VERY powerful tool. I strongly recommend that you use if for all our Money Sites. If you don’t then, unfortunately, many of the backlinks you are building are being wasted. Sad, I know, but unfortunately true.
Why Not Put the Indexing Tool on your Money Site?
You can if you wish and you will probably be fine, but here are two reasons that I think it is preferable to use a different site:
1.The indexing tool creates a link to the page that is linking to you. That sets up a two-way reciprocal link. Not a huge issue, especially since that link will come down as soon as the destination is indexed, but Google isn’t too keen on reciprocal links. It likes one way links.
2.Do you know who it is that is linking to you? If you are using automated tools to create backlinks (such as UAW and other submission services) then your articles or backlinks will end up on a whole raft of site over whom you have no control. In fact, in most case you won’t even know who they are or what they are about.
Now, in the vast majority of cases that is not a concern. However, it is theoretically possible that some of those site may be what Google considers to be ‘Bad Neighborhoods’. If that is the case, and Google finds you connecting to them, it won’t be very happy with you. You don’t want that.
Furthermore, since the bad neighborhood site is probably itself banned from Google, the indexing tool may never find it when it checks with Google to see if it has been indexed. In that case, the link won’t be removed from your site, and Google will STAY unhappy with you.
All of this is, I believe, a remote risk. But I like to err on the side of caution, and the last thing I would want is for my site to be harmed because I am inadvertently linking to a bad neighborhood. For that reason I suggest putting the Indexing Tool on a non-money site, so you won’t cry too much is something does happen to it.
That’s it! As I said, this is a very powerful tool. Even with my slight note of caution, I DO recommend that you use this.
There are some other ways to use this plugin that are also very powerful – for example, putting in your author RSS feed from Ezine Articles to make sure all your articles there get indexed. Full instructions are provided
P.S. Here is a video that Paul (the author) just posted on You Tube to helpd explain the trackback plugin:
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Tags: Blog, Ezine Articles, Google, RSS, Search Engine Optimization, Trackback, Web search engine, Wordpress
Internet Marketing, Internet Training, Make Money Online, Mind Set, Online Expert, Social Networking, home based business opportunities, home business, wealth creation, work at home opportunities | mick | April 27, 2010 7:01 pm | Comments (0)
Do not try and “force” the market to buy your product. It won’t work!
A few good message boards to check out the latest ”buzz” are Warrior Forum, www.warriorforum.com/forum/
Tony Blake Forum http://www.ablake.net/forum/ and Michael Green Forum http://www.howtocorp.com/forum/
Another telltale sign of a “buzz product” is owners claiming massive conversion rates, or if you see a lot of people pushing the same product. If that happens chances are the market is RIPE for that type of product.
A good way to keep in touch is sign up to the following email lists and “spy” on what they are promoting.
By the way all these people below are my friends and TOP marketers and I’m proud to give my solid recommendation to all of them.
Watch, study and prepare to pounce. How To Spot the Buzz and Pounce!
Back 2006 around April the Internet Marketing crowd was going totally NUTS about making money with Google Adsense. Now here is a very KEY point. While everybody was out there buying everything and anything related to Google Adsense I was doing the opposite.
And this is where my “simple” method comes in and what the “gurus” don’t want you to know…
“Sell shovels to people who are digging for the gold. Don’t try and dig for the gold yourself!”
So reverse engineer this…
When you see a HUGE trend don’t get sucked in and buy everything about that topic.
Don’t become another crazed buyer.
DO THE OPPOSITE!
Look for something to SELL to people on that topic.
And that’s exactly how I came up with the idea for the Home Business Success Kit
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Tags: Business, Business opportunity, Gold, Google, Google Adsense, home business, Internet forum, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Money, Opportunities, search
Internet Marketing, Make Money Online, home based business opportunities, home business, wealth creation, work at home opportunities | mick | March 25, 2010 11:07 pm | Comments (0)
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