- Internet Marketing Strategy -
One of my favorite BLoggers, “Yoast” recently gave a presentation at WordCamp NL (Netherlands), and that presentation was fully recorded. In the presentation he gives his tips on how to Optimize your WordPress Blog.
Yoast is one of the smartest WordPress guys I know, so be sure to check out what he has to say here, there are some valuable Golden Nuggets of information. Great ideas on Analytics, Automation, RSS, Commenting and Plugins.
Today’s article is from guest Blogger is Debra Mastaler.
I visit most of the SEO forums at least once a week to keep up with what’s going on in the link building community. This past week was fairly quiet, but over on the HighRankings Forum, a thread on time management vs. link building efforts caught my eye. A webmaster wanted to know the best way to go about securing quality links if he only had a limited amount of time to do so. Since this is a good question and a situation many of us experience, I thought I’d add my two cents to the discussion.
How would you use your time to build links?
Here’s the gist of what the webmaster asked:
I’m currently working on a price comparison type site…We don’t have any competitors doing the same as us….I was hoping that people would be able to advise me on the best use of my time for this. If you had 2 days a week to devote to link-building for a site that you genuinely believed to be link-worthy then how would you use the time?
Here are 11 ways to build links efficiently:
1. Since this is a product comparison service, participating companies probably know their products are being showcased, but I’d make sure and contact each directly. Create marketing collateral which highlights the benefits of being included on the comparison site and send it to each company partner. Include copy and paste “link to us” code and encourage linking by offering an incentive to link. If you haven’t already, ask for permission to use their brand name in your advertising to avoid trademark issues down the road.
2. Find out if any of the participating companies sends a newsletter to its customers; if yes, offer to provide link embedded content and/or offer to purchase the mailing list for a promotional mailing of your own.
3. Use the content you created for the newsletter, lengthen (or shorten), embellish with additional facts and verbiage from other comparisons, distribute to the article directories.
4. Develop a list of media and blogger contacts who write about the types of products you’re comparing. Write to each, point out you have a comparison service and ask if they’d like to become a resident “expert” in their respective category. They’ll be featured on the site in return for providing “expert views” on the products you’re hosting. If they accept, issue a press release announcing their involvement, optimize it for industry keywords and the name of the journalist/blogger. Allow them to reprint the review on their blogs/sites with proper accreditation.
5. Create a Flickr stream using product images (only those you have permission for.) No link juice here, but great exposure. Issue press release when this resource is up and running.
6. Create a Facebook page for the comparison service, update through Twitter feed and daily with new comparisons. Encourage any company featured on comparison search to join.
7. Run keyword searches and brand name searches on Twitter, friend those people and engage. Create a special promotion for this group, email and ask for link. Use keywords in your Twitter bio to attract followers.
8. Invest in a tool to automatically tweet comparisons 24/7 by keyword and brand name. Use an occasional tweet to ask for a link.
9. Write content on everything you’re comparing and add it to a resource center on your site. Promote this content center through press releases, to your media database and your customers. Add “link to us” information on these pages.
And finally, the last one is a biggie, as it relates to your business and attracting high quality authority links.
10. Join and get involved in the industry associations your products represent, including the benchmarking associations. Create detailed, graphic rich reports from your statistics and customer feedback. Offer the reports to the associations to use and link to in their studies, blogs and newsletters. Here’s a directory listing of associations by industry to get you started.
11. Pitch industry journalists with your detailed comparison reports, offer to write a year-end wrap up and New Year forecast based on your research. Create a text version, a video version and an audio version.
If you’re strapped for time but need links, focus on getting the attention of people and sites who can channel their credibility to your business in short order. The media and bloggers will keep your information in the public eye and provide a little link juice as well, but industry authorities such as associations will give you the long-term public and algorithmic boost you need to rank well.
Wow Cool – Thanks Debra for this Great Article on Linking Strategy, I’m sure our readers will find it very useful. I would highly encourage you to click the link below and check out Debra’s Link Building Blog!
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily that of SteveRenner.com
Debra Mastaler offers link training and custom link building campaigns through her Williamsburg Virginia based firm Alliance-Link. She is also the author of the link building blog The Link Spiel.
So the FTC is going after Bloggers. There has been a flurry of reports about this in the Blog-O- Sphere. The FTC published a new ‘Guide’ outlining it’s policy on the “Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”. See Official Report Here!
Basically the FTC is trying to eliminate Scammers from promoting Get Rick Quick Schemes. Which is really a good idea. They are also targeting Celebrities who fail to disclose that they are getting paid to endorse a product. This is the 1st revision to these rules in 30 years.
The new rules carry a fine as high as $11,000 if product endorsers and reviewers don’t comply.
CNN reported:
The new guidelines, which go into effect Dec. 1, are designed to adapt to a new world in which blogs and social media Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter have quickly become go-to destinations for consumers to get an opinion about a product. The last FTC rules revision was in 1980.
An existing FTC rule that states product reviewers must reveal any connection they have with advertisers was extended to bloggers. Companies will often distribute free products to bloggers for their review, and sometimes advertisers offer payment for endorsements. The FTC said that endorsements on blogs appear to be “word of mouth,” but that is not always the case – sometimes companies create their own blogs that can give the aura of objectivity.
The new rules also clarify that celebrity endorsers of products must reveal their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements if they are pushing a product on a blog, social network or television talk show.
“The test here is, if the relationship were known between the blogger and the advertiser, would that affect the credibility of the endorsement?”
“That question has to be determined on a case by case basis. What we have produced is a general guidance that says in certain cases receiving a free product is not any different than being paid directly for an endorsement.”
- FTC assistant director of advertising practices Richard Cleland
When asked about the $11,000 Fine Cleland went on to further say:
That $11,000 fine is not true. Worst-case scenario, someone receives a warning, refuses to comply, followed by a serious product defect; we would institute a proceeding with a cease-and-desist order and mandate compliance with the law. To the extent that I have seen and heard, people are not objecting to the disclosure requirements but to the fear of penalty if they inadvertently make a mistake. That’s the thing I don’t think people need to be concerned about. There’s no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We’re focusing on the advertisers: What kind of education are you providing them, are you monitoring the bloggers and whether what they’re saying is true?
OK so what does this mean for us marketers, be careful of what you say on your blogs and web sites. The FTC has the power to fine you shut you down and generally make life miserable!
I ran across this cool Do Follow List and thought you would find it useful. Since introducing Do Follow comments to my site a year ago, I have had tons of traffic. The post I created last year ( Steve Renner Introduces Do Follow Comments ) has been my most popular.
Back then SteveRenner.com was just a PR3 – now we are a PR6. Even more reason to comment on this site!
Anyway here is the list:
Commenting on Do Follow blogs is a great way to get Backlinks to your site. Comment on any of my Posts to get a PR6 Backlink to your site!
The Do Follow List is from one of our commenters who calls himself NiceBlogger.
My friend Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.com has come up with a great tool for improving your blog: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog WorkBook
Darren has been running a series on his blog on How To Build A Better Blog in 31 days.
As one of the Top Bloggers on the planet today, there’s really no one better you could learn this from. If you are a Blogger, you need to check this out!
OK – The concept was fairly simple: You set aside 31 days to work on improving your blog.improving their blogs.
Each day for 31 days readers were presented with a daily task and teaching to give them concrete ways to take their blogs to the next level – the goal being more readers, higher quality content, deeper reader engagement and higher levels of creativity and energy for the blogger. He called it the 31 Day Challenge.
The Challenges Include:
The Workbook that puts a Fully Updated Version of 31 Day Challenge in your hands
If you already know about it and want a copy you can: Buy It Here Now!
Over 13,000 bloggers signed up for the initial challenge and the feedback was fantastic. Bloggers who’ve taken the tasks seriously are reporting increases in traffic, greater reader engagement, fresh inspiration for posts and a greater sense of where their blog is headed.
However two common requests came from participants repeatedly:
As a result Darren has put together an Instant Download workbook version of the challenge. The workbook is professionally edited – and contains all new content.
The price is very low at only $19.95
>> Click Here To Get Your Copy Now
OK you are not going to believe this. Not 30 minutes after I posted my follow up to Internet Marketing Strategy I jumped up to Google Page 2 in the Ranks.
Internet Marketing Strategy – Now #12 of 18 Million (Awesome!)
Although I am not totally surprised, I can hardly believe this one myself. But it does show you 2 important things:
Well this proves the point, and I feel pretty stupid for not seeing this before. Oh well every day is a new learning experience 
– Now look out for Google Page #1!
Blogging For Business is a way to interact with your customers, engage, and attract new customers, while providing valuable information about your business, and new content for search engine rankings.
A lot has changed since this Business Week article from May 2005. While many of the details of the original story are out of date, one thing for sure is, the concept of Business Blogging is here to stay.
So should your Business be Blogging?
YES! Whatever product or services your business provides you should be blogging now. But sadly, most businesses are still not taking advantage of this simple, easy and inexpensive way to promote your business.
According to research by SocialText only 61 (12.2%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging as of 04/17/09. This is a dismal figure, and it just shows that many businesses are still in the Stone Age when it comes to Internet Marketing.
Top 5 Reasons Your Business Should Be Blogging:
“But I don’t have time to Blog” – Your business can’t afford not to blog!
make the time, you may already publish a newsletter, press releases, or some other promotional materials already. Simple “Re-Purpose” this content and put in in your blog. Grab other related industry articles that apply to your business and publish them to your blog. There are many free resources for these articles that the authors make freely available for anyone to use.
Whatever you do just get it started. Don’t wait for someday which may never come, Do It NOW!
To get more indepth information about blogging and my upcoming Blogging Seminar go to >> MIT Workshop
I got an email yesterday from my friend Yaro Starak, promoting his new Membership Site MasterMind program. Normally I don’t read many promotional letters, but this one really caught my attention.
In the email Yaro basically bears his soul and gives an inside glimpse into his business and in particular List Building.
I am reprinting it here for your review. Pay attention to what he says about how his business really took off when he created his own Free Report and Recurring Revenue models.
It”s true, Email Marketing and List Building is at the heart of most any successful Internet businesses.
Here’s Yaro’s: Secrets of building an email list quickly…
———————
Hi Steve,
The biggest mistake I made when building my blog was waiting so long to start building an email list.
For a while I was under the assumption that just having a website or blog and daily visitors was enough, but boy was I wrong.
No example better illustrates the power of email lists than my success (and non-success) with affiliate marketing over the previous years.
During the first years of my blogging I’d write a review of a product that I’d promote with my affiliate link, stick it up on my blog and watch a
handful of sales trickle in over the following week.It was a painfully slow response rate and I just didn’t sell many products that way.
A short year later, I had built an email list so I started combining my blog with the list.
I’d write a review to my blog AND write an email to my list telling people about the review.
WOW, what a difference. Now I’d receive a rush of sales within the first
24 hours because people read email much more frequently than they read blogs and I’d do about three times as many sales when combining the two
mediums.Not only that – you should see what happens when you sell your OWN products through your list and your blog.
You always sell more of your own stuff than affiliate products, so when you can write multiple blog posts and multiple emails to promote your
latest offer, it’s like a license to print money.Why does this combination work so much better?
Because you are increasing the exposure points you have with your audience. They get the email and the blog posts, which increases the conversion rate.
HOW CAN YOU BUILD A LIST?
This is all well and good, but how exactly can you build your list?
The first thing is to not make the mistake I made. Don’t wait a full year worth of blogging before starting to build your list.
Make sure you have an opt-in form on your blog and start collecting those email address contact points with your audience.
However just using your blog to build your list is not enough. It’s too slow.
You need more leverage than this if you really want to ramp up your list growth quickly.
Let me illustrate exactly how I grew my list from zero subscribers to over 15,000 in just two years with a little background chronology -
November 2004: I start my blog on the topic of proofreading, which was the business I was running at the time.
January 2005: I switch my blog over to the entrepreneurs-journey.com domain name and change the topic to entrepreneurship and Internet
business.December 2005: After a year of blogging I have 1,000 RSS subscribers, but I realize I need to build an email list.
January 2006: I add an opt-in form to my new blog design and create my first landing page at blogtrafficking.com to start building my list.
December 2006: I end the year with 3,000 RSS readers and 3,000 email subscribers.
At this point I’d like to clarify how painfully slow everything was going.
That’s two years of solid blogging and one year of email list building and I only had 3,000 subscribers on each medium.
That’s not a bad result of course, but it could have been so much more as I later found out if I just did a few things differently.
In the year 2007 my list grew from 3,000 subscribers up to 15,000 subscribers.
That’s dramatic growth compared to the previous years.
Did I reach a tipping point? No, I don’t think that’s the reason.
What happened was I did something I should have done long ago – I released my own product – a training program membership site called Blog
Mastermind, which you no doubt know about.HERE IS THE SECRET
It wasn’t the actual product that ramped up my list growth. It was because of the process I went through to promote it.
There’s a well known “secret” in Internet marketing that to truly build massive success online you need to continue to roll-out new launches and build on each previous success.
New product launches are incredibly powerful list building machines. You might think that it’s about selling as many units of whatever you are
promoting – but that’s only half the story.The real killer strategy here is to build each launch on top of the success of the previous launch and each time, grow your list by leaps and bounds.
Sure, 20 new email subscribers a day from your blog is great – but how about getting 5,000 new subscribers in one WEEK!
That’s the kind of result you get when you release your own product and do a few strategic things well when you launch it.
So, how does this work? It works because when you do a big promotion for your product you put out a lot of focused effort and deliver big value in a
short period of time.You might think that having your own product is important because you make money when you sell it.
That’s true of course, but the real power is having a product means you can get affiliates to promote it for you – and lots of them.
To help affiliates promote you can give them free resources to give to their readers, but in order for them to get the goods, the people need to join
your list.The affiliates do it because they want commissions and they know that giving great value upfront before a product goes on sale is the best way to
make more money.It’s a win-win. You build your list much more rapidly, your affiliates make commissions when they make sales.
HOW I WENT FROM 3,000 TO 15,000 SUBSCRIBERS
During the very first launch campaign I did for my membership site, I decided to release a free report.
You already know the report very well – The Blog Profits Blueprint.
When I released that report it was a hit and many top bloggers and email list owners told people about it during my promotion campaign.
Within the space of a week my email added 6,000 new subscribers.
It didn’t stop there of course, with a steady stream of people joining my list during the weeks that followed – several hundred each and every day.
The key here was actually knuckling down and going through the steps to release my own product and do it with a sound strategy.
From that point forward my business tripled. You might think it was because of sales of my own product, but once again that’s only half the story. With so many new subscribers, each time I did an affiliate promotion I made much more money.
When I went to sell my next product I made more money again because I had more potential customers.
Having a large email list multiplies the income you get from ALL the possible streams of income your business taps into.
That’s why the real secret to big success online is explosive list growth and the best email list growing strategy is to release your own product.
ARE YOU READY TO DO THIS?
If you “get” what I’m talking about in this newsletter and you want to start ramping up the growth of your own email list, then you need to learn my process.
Here’s what needs to happen -
1. You need to have an online content strategy – in other words, a blog – where you collect email addresses
2. It’s smart to also use something like Pay Per Click advertising and a landing page to ramp up your list growth speed
3. You need to sell your own product and the best product is a membership site
4. When you release your product, you need to market it strategically so you explode the growth of your list as a byproduct of your launch campaign
and…
5. You need to join my Membership Site MasterMind as it teaches exactly this process.
Yes, a blatant sales pitch I know, but seriously, this is exactly what I do and what I teach in the program.
It’s not rocket science, but there is a strategy behind this process that goes way beyond just making as many sales as you can.
If you’re thinking about building a long term business then you know how important it is to grow your list.
PROOF OF CONCEPT
Did you know the current launch I’m doing, the one that this email you are reading right now is a part of, added 10,000 people to my email list?
That’s right – 10,000 new subscribers in a week.
What would 10,000 email subscribers do for your business?
If you’re ready to walk the same path that I have, here’s the link to join -
Here’s to your online success,
Yaro Starak
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com
The Membership Site MasterMind program closes on Monday May 11th, so you’ve only got a few days left to take advantage of this program.
On Tuesday the doors will be shut and Yaro will be busy working with the people who had initiative, took a risk and decided to take his program.
If you want to be one of those people and give yourself at least the chance of success and a guaranteed amazing learning experience, then you need to:
Click Here >> Membership Site MasterMind
Way to go Yaro > (Awesome Email) Good luck in your Membership course.
I am recommending this to all my clients, students, and friends.
BTW for running your email list I recommend V-Mail (It’s what I use)
Twitter Demystified or a One Trick Pony? Here’s a cool article written by Linus Gregoriadis of @Econsultancy. So what else would you be talking about an an Internet Conference these days?
The burgeoning interest in Twitter was evident yesterday when several hundred people turned out for a keynote panel session at Internet World. Here is a summary of the question-and-answer session, with some additional pointers which might also be helpful.
Yesterday’s obligatory Twitter event on Day 2 of London’s Internet World conference (#IWTD) was an open Q&A session with a panel featuring Econsultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein, Kai Turner of Agency.com and Guy Stephens of Carphone Warehouse.
Former Revolution editor Philip Buxton, who was moderating, ascertained that the audience was split pretty evenly between those who “use Twitter and love it”, “those who use Twitter but aren’t sure about it” and those who “don’t use it”.
Despite the lack of a live, online demo due to technical reasons (the curse of too many internet conferences), there were some interesting takeaways from the panel session which I’ve summarised below with some paraphrasing, direct quotes (where my shorthand was keeping up) and some of my own observations.
Who (within an organisation) should be Tweeting?
According to Ashley Friedlein (@AshleyFriedlein), it makes sense to see who in the company is already “Tweeting” so that an organisation’s Twitter efforts can be streamlined and managed efficiently.
Guy Stephens (@guy1067), Carphone Warehouse’s online help manager and author of a recent Econsultancy blog post on corporate tweeting, stressed that companies should see Twitter as “just another channel” and not get too fixated by who within the company was doing the Tweeting.
Kai Turner (@kaigani), Agency.com’s head of information architecture, added that Twitter “was a protocol which will work its way into every aspect of a business”. His point was that Twitter is becoming a channel which transcends its original role as a microblogging service.
I would add that Twitter ownership within a company depends on what you are using Twitter for. If there are real and tangible sales objectives then it is probably something for a sales team employee whereas, more typically, it might be something owned by a customer service representative (as in the case of Carphone Warehouse) or by someone working in marketing and PR (who can monitor what is being said about a brand).
It’s worth checking out a previous Econsultancy blog post on ‘The 13 types of Tweet to take notice of’.
Of course, it may be that an organisation doesn’t allow its employees to Tweet about company business. For every Carphone Warehouse, there are dozens of organisations where devolution of control to individual employees via Twitter and social networks is anathema to senior management.
Will Twitter have any longevity given its simplicity and focus on one function (a 140-character message)? Will it matter that it is a “one trick pony”?
The panel strongly agreed that part of Twitter’s appeal is its simplicity and that this was certainly not a stumbling block.
So what’s the mesage here? One Trick Pony, these guys are missing the point, the Twitter platform is the ultimate Networking tool, that’s a given.You can tap in to an army of different niche groups, at will. What remins to be seen is how to best use it to get the most out of it. Marketers are scrambling to stake their claim.
My friend @harrisfellman says he’s taking over Twitter, and once he does he may create a product to show us how he did it. And I’m sure he’s not alone, I plan to launch my own Titter Domination Strategies in the very near future.
Well that’s all I got today. I’m off to Tweet myself into a stupor (It’s Friday Night!)
Click Here To Follow Me On Twitter!
On Saturday I posted about my friend Yaro Starak‘s new Membership Site Course. He calls it the Membership Site Masterplan.
Yaro has just released a great Free 72 page report on building Membership Sites.
I have had the chance to review the report and can tell you that it contains Excellent Information on Membership Sites. Yaro shows you from his own experience how he has created a 6 figure Residual Monthly Income from his own Membership sites, and how just about anyone can do it.
He offers some very cool Strategies in the Report including:
Grab your copy of this Free Report while you can. (You’ll Be Glad You Did!)
Go to >> Membership Site Masterplan
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