Internet Marketing with Vic

Okay, this guy is crazy, what is he talking about?  It gets me all the time.  You see a headline some where that has someone making some crazy comment or claim, and BAM there you are in someone’s sale page, or blog post trying to find out what it is that’s going on.

Are they really a goof ball, or a marketing genius?  It’s obvious they’re the second…usually.

You only have a few seconds to gain someone’s interest, and whether you’re posting a PPC ad, or getting attention in a forum posting, you need to stand out and get noticed, or no one will ever click on your links.

So here’s a few Tips for creating Powerful Headlines That Sell

#1  Tap into Your Prospects’ Emotions

According to psychologists our buying decisions are based first and foremost on our emotions.  Use headlines which offer your readers a strong emotional benefit or reaction.  Some possible emotions are:

1. Danger
2. Sexy
3. Assertive
4. Pampered
5. A sense of belonging
6. In control of their own destiny
7. Wealth
8. Pride
9. Respect
10. Security

#2 Make it Active

Use language that shows movement and commands attention.

For example, “Stop Your Sugar Cravings Today With This Simple Step,” is a fine headline however it doesn’t command action nor does it really tap into any emotions.  However, “Conquer Your Sugar Cravings With This Simple Step.”  Conquer is an active and emotionally powerful word.  Readers receive the benefit of feeling powerful and in control and it commands action.

#3 Let Your Reader Know They’re Important

The word YOU is a very powerful word.  It let’s your reader’s feel as if you’re talking to them specifically and interested in solving their problems, issues and helping them achieve their desires.  Instead of using I, Me or We in your headlines, use You.  Using the headline example above compare the two options
“Conquer Your Sugar Cravings With This Simple Step.
“Conquer Sugar Cravings with Our System”

People want to know what’s in it for them and when they can assess that information in the headline, they’re going to be compelled to continue reading your copy and making a purchase.

Here are three more ideas for powerful headlines:

* Make a promise -  Fix Your Credit in 30 days
* Make it newsworthy – New program guarantees perfect credit in 30 days.
* Ask a question – Tired of Harassing Creditors Calling You?

Three Simple Steps to Write Headlines That Sell

So now you have some ideas about what types of headlines sell, how do you begin to write those powerful headlines?

Step One – Get to know your audience intimately. What are their hopes, dreams, desires, and problems?  Understanding your audience will help you create an emotional and powerful headline directed specifically at your audience.

Step Two – Determine how your products or services are going to make your prospects’ lives better or solve their problems.  For example if you sell fitness equipment and your audience struggles with feeling attractive then you can create a headline that highlights a specific benefit your fitness equipment offers to solve that problem.

Step Three – Write ten to twenty, yes twenty, possible headlines.  Not only will this give you practice writing compelling headlines, it’ll help you hone in on that perfect headline.  And if you think you have a few winners you can always test them for conversion rates to find out which headline is more effective.

Marketing and copywriting experts consider your headline to be the most import element of any effective marketing piece.  Take the time to craft a compelling, and selling, headline and you’ll reap the benefits for years to come.

5  Tips For Fast Website Traffic!

Online, one of the most significant keys to success is getting website traffic.  The more visitors you have, the better your sales and profits.  Presumably you have a niche and you know your keywords, and regularly conduct keyword research to stay on top of what’s popular.  Based on those assumptions here are five quick and easy tips to get website traffic fast!

Tip #1  Make sure you’re actually tagging your keywords.

Do you spend a lot of time optimizing your content and then neglect to tag them on your webpage?  Tags are where search engines look and if there are no tags they’ll pass right by your web pages.  Here’s a quick brief on tags.

There are a number of tag types including,

* Title tags.  Title tags are quite possibly the most important place to situate your keywords.  Here’s what they look like – <title>Primary keyword phrase here. </title>

Your title tag is where you place your primary keyword or keyword phrase.  The sentence will describe your business in less than 90 characters.

* Header Tags.  Header tags are next in order of importance to search engines.  They’re ranked in order of importance and look like this – <h1>Primary and/or Secondary keywords here</h1>

The “1” designates this header as the most important header on the page.

* Meta Tags. Meta tags provide the small descriptive text found underneath the title tag on the search engine results page.  Like title tags these should be kept brief, informative and up to date.

* Alt Tags.  Alt tags are used to provide a text description of a graphic.  Each graphic on your site should have a description and an alt tag.

Tip #2 Add content to your site daily

Content is essential for traffic and a top search engine ranking.  Content is what search engine spiders look for and index – without it there’s nothing to index or rank.  Give visitors and search engines a reason to visit and index your site. Make a commitment to provide daily, optimized content and your traffic will soar.

Tip #3 Procure valuable and relevant incoming links

The more websites which link to your webpages the more valuable search engines perceive you to be, though not all links are created equal.  Search engines give more leverage to links from sites which are popular and credible and from sites which are relevant to your website topic.

There are different types of links.

- A direct link looks like a basic website address, for example, www.yourwebsite.com

- A text link occurs when the webpage address is embedded in the text.  Readers simply click on the link and are redirected to a new website page.

- If the link is to an internal web page, for example an article published on a website, rather than the home page, it is called a “deep link.”

You can encourage linking to your website by:

* Adding content to your site.
* Submitting to article directories.
* Publishing press releases.
* Blogging and participating in social networking forums, chat rooms and social networking sites.

Tip #4 Be Social!

Now more than ever before, internet marketing is about building a community.  Whether you offer a forum on your website or you participate in social networking sites, social networking is a valuable traffic generating tactic.  Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be powerful tools for generating links and traffic to your site – create a profile and then post comments, links to your site and ideas which generate conversation.

Get involved – many chat rooms and forums are industry specific, find those which cater to your industry, and begin participating.  Speak to and connect with a highly targeted audience.

Tip #5 Advertise for more exposure and traffic

Advertising, when handled strategically, can be used to promote your content and products or services.  PPC advertising is often the tool of choice because you control the advertising budget on a daily basis and have the tools to test and track your advertising efforts.  Once you’ve honed your PPC ads the return on investment can be phenomenal in terms of traffic and purchases.

For maximum results, create a traffic and SEO strategy.  Outline your plan and your goals and then take the necessary action.  Take advantage of these five traffic and search engine tips to boost your business.

How many times have you gone to a Pr5 or 6, and thought…what they hell, this looks like crap!  Do people enjoy a bland website with no boarders?!

Personally I hate those pages, I’d rather be on a page that looks nice, and is set up to be easily navigated by even the newest person.  Just keep it simple!

But there’s still a ton of these sites out there, we’ve all seen em…probably got frustrated soon afterwards and left the page because we didn’t want to waste more of our time straining to find the one bit of info we went there for.

But what if you have a site, it’s getting traffic, and making a profit…obviously it’s good right?  Wrong.  Have you ever heard anyone who’s big into PPC talk about how important it is to have competing ads?  Competition breeds success.

I recently changed one of my first websites that I set up, and the profit went from 25/mo clickbank and 10/mo adsense to 100/mo clickbank and 20/mo adsense.  I knew it was going to convert better, but I wasn’t expecting 400% growth…pretty nice.

So what was the change that I made?  What kind of site did I replace it with?  Well for that you’ll have to buy my brand new all inclusive …nah I’m just kiddin.  I set it up as a blog!  I already had a decent list flowin, but I had left it stagnant with only a 6 week or so email promotion going for one product.

Now it’s a lot nicer to look at, easier to find your way around, and the content is set up so that I can write it all on one day, and let it automatically post throughout the month, and then have an email sent out to bring all my readers back again.

I can’t tell if it’s the site that’s converting new traffic, or my list that’s bringing them back for more.  Personally I believe it’s the list that’s bringing people back to my site, and then they’re buying again.  The kind of niche that it’s in is the kind where they buyers seem to think about their purchase before they make it, then when they come back, and they see me talking about it again…they want it.

Do you have any sites sitting around that you started a long time ago?  If you gave them an all new look do you think they’d convert better?  I bet they would.

I started writing articles, and I still rewrite my posts that I put on my blog, and send off two or three articles pointing to that post…it’s a good/easy way to keep your articles/links flowing.  But if I want traffic, I don’t write an article.

Not because articles don’t work, because they do, but because they’re posted, and generally get some traffic from google, and while that’s great, there’s another site that gets twice as much traffic as google…the content is easier to create, and most importantly there’s more traffic for the amount of time you’ll spend working on it.

It’s utube.  If you haven’t been posting videos on utube, you need to start now.  It’s as easy as getting Camtasia for free, and letting the video roll.  Depending on your niche of course, you can make how to, instruction, funny, remarkable, confrontational, or anything that will get a rise out of people.

I recently saw a video on utube that had over 125,000 views in a just a few months, and he was simply promoting his product for a travel website!

One of the most important parts about internet marketing is to be on the forefront of technology, and leveraging traffic to your site.  Are you marketing to the right audience?

If you read my first post, you’ll remember that I mentioned some very important practices that every business must use to be successful.  Provide a quality product, good customer service, and most importantly…especially online is to retain your customers.

When I first started in Internet Marketing, I set up a static site with good content, and started driving traffic with articles, link exchanging, and posting in forums.  It worked awesome getting a burst of traffic, and quickly I began to notice that my traffic was slipping away.

What about all that hard work I had put into those articles?!  I couldn’t believe it was all vanishing before my eyes.  I couldn’t continue the process, and continue using article marketing for traffic.  After all, I wasn’t trying to get rich quick, I was attempting to set up a long term profitable website.

I quickly moved into link building to help offset my hard work.  While these worked well for getting into the top ten on several keywords for my niche, and some decent traffic to my site.  I still needed a way for my “base traffic” to not have to be a constant struggle.

As soon as I heard about email marketing I knew it was exactly what I was looking for, and it’s completely true what they say…the money is in the list.

I changed the whole layout of my website from a static site to a blog, and started giving away free reports for opt ins to my list.  Right away I began noticing a difference, and it only took me about 3 or 4 months, and I had already reached 2,000 subscribers, and started noticing that when they were coming back to my site they were now purchasing from my site.

I still run that blog…it’s really simple.  I just write a post every few days, re-write it and post to a few article directories, and then send an email to my list who want to know what I’m helping them with next.

It’s fun, it’s easy, and the best part is that it’s a long term growing site that will continue to grow in subscribers, content, and profit.  None of this would have been as easy, or profitable without email marketing.

If you’re serious about internet marketing, you need to start building your list as soon as possible.  It’s easy and effective in building long term success online.

Are you running a website?  Are you getting rich quick or quitting?  I’m not really doing either.  Sorry, but I’m not interested in get rich quick bs, and I’m horrible at just about everything HTML related.  But thankfully I have the help of people that I can count on.

So what am I doing you ask?  I’m running a business.  And as a small business owner I chose a market where I have extremely low over head, unlimited income potential, and tremendous room for growth.  I haven’t been in this business for very long…just a few months.  But so far I’ve had quite a bit of success with several avenues.  So much that it was recommended that I start this blog to help other people with their online business.

I’ve always had a knack for business, and in high school I was even the Treasurer for the Business Club… fun stuff.  My point is, it’s just something that I really enjoy and I’m good at.

To understand how to be successful on the internet you have to understand what it takes to create a successful business offline.  If you’re wanting to get rich quick, ask yourself how long it would take offline for you to get your business to a profitable “financial freedom” level.  1…2…or maybe even 3 years?  3 years is the average for a new business.

There are SEVERAL businesses that you can start that have a low overhead and can make profit much sooner… Websites are one of those incredible oppurtunities for any entreprenuer.  You can start part time, and with less than $20 have a website up and running.  Heck you can even turn a profit without a website, and re-invest that back into your business!

But just like any business you’ll need the right tools, marketing, and a lot of hard work to get it all going.  Provide a great service, treat your customers the way you’d want to be treated and you’ll have a successful business.

Keep it simple, be patient and over time your customer base will grow, and so will your profits and financial freedom.  Obviously there’s a lot more to Internet Marketing, but keeping it simple and being patient work.  You won’t need to re-create the internet to be successful.

I keep it simple, and honest.  It can be long hours, hard work, and sometimes when you’re starting out it may seem like you’re getting no where.  But you will, and it’s my goal to help you along the way.  I look forward to your comments, and the long term success of many of my readers here.