When it comes to marketing, the web is the most powerful tool ever invented. It is the great leveler of the business world. That is, it allows a one-person company to compete equally to, and sometimes better than, a large multinational corporation.

Of course, that assumes that the small company has been diligent in designing the internet business from the start. Notice I said internet business and not website. The website is only a part of the overall business.

It is the intent of this article to give you the concepts, tools and guidance to help build a strong internet business.

First, let’s take a look at the elements needed to make up a successful internet business. This may be a bit elementary for some, but it is important to state them again here for clarity. I’m going to list them in reverse order so that you can see how each element depends on the one that comes before it. Let’s start with the main goal:  

Sales (Conversions) – We are all in business to make a profit, and we get that by making sales.

 Call to action – In order to make sales, we need to ask for the order. This is important. If we don’t ask, people will not buy and there is no sale.

Targeted Traffic – To make a call to action, we need someone to take the action. Notice that this is ‘targeted traffic’ not just traffic. We want to have people who are truly interested in our products and services, not just a bunch of lookers who come and go.

Links – In order to get traffic, we have to have some way for people to get from where they are to where we want them to be: our site. This is done by links on other sites pointing back to our site.

Relevant Content – Once the prospect gets to our site, they must find what they are looking for and it must be related to the subject they want to see.

Unique Selling Proposition – This is what makes you different from the competition. It takes a lot of thought and careful consideration, so don’t cut it short. This might also come under the heading of Product / Service Differentiation. Find something special that others in your niche have not considered, even if it is old hat to you.

Keywords – This is the last and most important item. Everything listed above depends on this one. Get it wrong and you are guaranteed to fail.

Later, we will go over this list again from bottom to top. But for now, let’s look at internet marketing itself. There are literally thousands of articles given to the subject of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM). However, both are overstated, especially SEM. First of all, we are not marketing to the search engines. We are marketing to people. Even if we are a B2B company, we are still marketing to people. Companies are just groups of people after all.

Secondly, we are optimizing for people too. SEO is only a tool that helps us get in front of people when they are looking for what we have to offer. And that is the whole crux of internet marketing: being in the right place at the right time with the right solution.

Let’s take a look at some traditional marketing principles.
Before we begin an internet marketing plan we need to ask ourselves a few questions:

What is our product or service?
How does it benefit our customers?
How are we selling it? (Direct, Agents / Representatives, etc)
What is our sales cycle?
What makes us different? (Why should the customer buy from us?)
How do we measure our success?

That is about it. These are very simple questions, but they sometimes have difficult answers. You need to be clear on them before you can design an internet marketing plan, so write them into your plan from the start. This is something only you can do. Others may be able to help, but you know your business best. Take the time to be honest and thorough.

Now let’s get back to our list from above. As I said before, we will now start at the bottom and work our way back up. We start with keywords. And I am going to spend a bit of time on keywords because they are that important.

Keywords

When people have some problem they want to solve, they are turning to the internet like they used to turn to the phone book (Remember those?). When they want something, they type a few words into the search bar of Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask or some other search engine. Those words are the search phrase, or keyword phrase.

Once they hit enter, the search engine (SE) goes into its database and finds the documents most relative to that phrase. Its methods are not important here, but it will choose to show those it considers most relevant. If you want to be number one on that all important first page, you must have the most relevant content. And that is the first rule of keywords – Relevance.

There are four criteria that every keyword phrase must have:

Relevance – It must be relevant to your content and product or service
Traffic – It must have sufficient traffic to make it worth building web pages around
Low Competition – The lower the number of competing documents the better
Profitability – It must be able to generate revenue

Notice item 2, traffic. Note that this isn’t the number of searches. That is different. Just because someone did a search doesn’t mean that they clicked on anything. Also, they may do one search and click on several links. Traffic is the estimated number of clicks each item in the results page receives. This depends on the position. The number one spot gets about 42% of clicks, number 2 gets about 12% and it goes down with each position lower on the page. So it is very important to be number one for your keyword phrase.

Also take note of number 3, Competition. The search engines don’t see websites. They see documents. Each page on your website is a document. Do you see the opportunity here? Design a page on your website specifically targeted to one keyword phrase and you stand a much better chance of ranking high for that phrase. Carefully choose the phrase and you have just increased your odds of being number one by a hundredfold.

You start with a theme keyword. This can be the name of a product or service, a subject of interest to you and your clients, or almost anything you feel is a benefit to your potential clients. These theme or seed words are only used to find other more relevant keywords. They are usually so common or vague that they are useless for doing business.

At any rate, you go to a keyword tool like Wordtracker, Yahoo! or Google keyword tools or some other. There are many, take your pick. You will get back a list of keyword phrases that are relevant to your theme. The list should also have a graph or number indicating the number of searches for that keyword.

The Number 1 Keyword Mistake

Now, please avoid mistake number 1 of keyword research. Don’t just look at searches and choose that keyword phrase. That is the surest road to destruction. Before you decide on a keyword, type it into the SE and look at the results. In the upper right side of the results page (usually) will be the number of documents containing that phrase. Lower is better. That is item 3 on our criteria list above – Competition. You want as little competition as possible.

You can find item 2 by simply multiplying the number of documents by these numbers:

Position 1: 42%

Position 2: 12%

Position 3: 8%

Position 4: 6%

Position 5: 5%

Position 6: 2%

The remainder by 1%. Don’t bother with anything except the first page. That is where we want to be.

Now you have the approximate level of traffic for the keyword. Bear in mind that these are not exact. The actual traffic might vary widely from what you expect. That is because the keyword may match several different kinds of search. But at least this is a good guideline for design purposes.

Now you have items 1, 2 and 3. What about number 4, Profitability? That is also not too difficult to estimate. Go to Google and look up how much people are willing to pay for that keyword phrase. The more they are willing to pay, the more profitable the keyword. Just multiply the traffic (no. 2) by the bid amount and compare that amount to your profit margin. Multiplying that all out will give you the amount of extra income you can expect on a per day basis. Since your website will sell for you 24/7, you can multiply by 365 to see your annual revenue. Simple, Yes?

Well, maybe not. So what is the downside? Developing a good keyword list can be a time consuming process. It can sometimes take weeks and even months to develop a highly targeted and profitable keyword list. If you don’t have the time and/or resources to devote to the effort, you may be better off hiring a professional marketing firm to do the work for you. You can get a full report with all the necessary information for only a few hundred dollars, depending on how many keywords you want and so on.

If you decide to go this route, look for the following items in your report. For each suggested keyword phrase:

Number of Searches
Amount of Traffic
Amount of Competition
Amount of Expected Revenue per Day
Amount of Expected Revenue Annually
A List of Top Ten Competitors

For each of the Top Ten Competitors in number 6 above, you will want to see:

Number of Back Links
Years in Service
Page Rank
Total Number of Back Links by Page Rank
List of Top Ranking, Relevant Keywords
List of Sites Linking to the Competitor and the Page Rank of the Linking page

Since this article is a bit long, we will break here and continue in Part 2. We will pick up there with the Number 2 Biggest Keyword Mistake. This is a mistake common to both business people and developers alike. Be sure to check it out.

I hope that this article has been of value to you, and I thank you for taking the time to read it. I am much honored that you would do so. If you have comments or suggestions, I would also like to hear them. You may contact me via my website, by phone or email. You will find the contact information on the website. You might also want to visit my blog at http://blog.wgmoore.com.

For more training visit: noblesamurai.com This video will show you the nature of competition, the two most important aspects of competition and how to evaluate the competition in your niche using Market Samurai.

In this section, we further discuss the second most important keyword mistake and then continue our marketing plan by developing the other key aspects needed to succeed on the internet.

We begin with:

The Number 2 Keyword Mistake

By using the above methods, you will avoid the 2nd most common keyword mistake: Choosing keywords you think the customer is searching for. Most businesses and even some developers choose keywords based on what they know about the business. The trouble is they are too close to the business. It is very important to choose keywords based on numbers and that have a proven record or performance and not on guesswork.

You want keywords that are relevant, have good levels of traffic, acceptable levels of competition and are known to be profitable. Follow these rules, and you have a much greater chance of success.

Once you have your keywords selected, you want to use them in your:

Title tag
Meta description tag
Meta keywords tag
Heading tags
Body content
Alt tags on images
Links to other content pages

What you will do next is prepare a web page that uses the keyword or related keywords as the subject for the page. However, we still have to a bit of work to do before we actually start designing and building the page. So now let’s move up the list to the Unique Selling Proposition, or USP.

Unique Selling Proposition

The USP answers the following questions: What is your USP? What makes you, your product or service unique? How does it benefit the customer?

Usually this is a difficult item to define but it becomes a bit easier because we now have a set of keywords to work from. The keyword helps us focus on what is important to the customer. Try to define those things that make the product attractive, exciting or necessary in the customers’ mind. Think of all the benefits they can derive by owning or using your product or service.

And that brings up another important point. We are developing a landing page. This is the first page the visitor comes to when they click on your link from the search engine results and it is ultra important.

Don’t try to sell anything on this page! I know that sounds counter intuitive, but it is important to do. Just address the keyword phrase that brought them here. Make the page very relevant to what the customer wants. Try to educate, solve a problem, entertain them or give them whatever they came for. Do it in a personal, helpful way. Relate to them and they will always come back.

It is proper to give them a link from this page to your products page. That is where you sell. You can do that because by clicking on the link, they have pre-qualified themselves as someone interested in buying. That is the number one step in making the sale.

On the landing page, you should also try to capture their name and email address and get them to opt in to your mailing list. You can do this with a free offer of more information, special reports, free software and so on. You need this list so that you can later make attractive offers, cross sell or up sell.

Now things get a bit easier. We move on to Relevant Content.

Relevant Content

Many businesses get this one backwards. They write content they think will interest customers, then pick keywords to match. Then they sit back and wonder why no one comes to buy. That is a tough way to try to build a business. It is based on guess work and we don’t like guesswork. This marketing plan takes the guesswork out of the equation.

So, why is this part easier? Because you now have a subject that is relevant to the customer’s need. It is a subject you know, since it is part of your business. And you have a great USP. All you have to do now is talk to your customer as you would your best friend. Just explain whatever it is they came for. No hype, no corporate jargon, just plain talk. Use the keyword phrase a few times in the content, but don’t overdo it. Remember, we are talking to people, not search engines.

 Make your content involve your customer, keep it personal, appeal to ego, greed, fear, or whatever it is that brought this visitor to your landing page. Remember, selling is an emotional process. People buy what they perceive as a need, even though it is actually a desire. Make your content compelling, build suspense and most of all make sure it is benefit driven. Show them what they get when they do business with you. And stay away from telling them what features are in your product. If you must show a feature, stress its benefit. Always stress benefits. Your customer only cares about what they want, so show them the benefits of your products and services.

Even though you are not directly selling on the landing page, the same rules apply. Respond to the customer’s needs as stated in their keyword search and give them reason to click through to your products page.

The SEs have gotten very sophisticated and know when the subject of the page is closely related to the search phrase. So keep it simple and clear and make sure it answers the question your customer asked. Then provide a link to your products page or to other relevant content.

And this brings us to

Links

Remember when I said that the SEs don’t see websites, they see documents? Well, those documents, or web pages, are all tied together. All of them! That’s why it is called the web. The documents are tied together by links and the links all contain keywords relevant to the content of the destination page.

What we need is lots of other pages linking to our landing pages. The best way to find them is to do a search for our best keywords. You will be given the top ranking (most relevant) pages. We want to get links from the same sources as those top competitors. This is not too difficult as it turns out. Like keywords, it just takes a bit of time.

At the bottom of each listing is a link to the landing page. Copy this link. Then from any search engine, in the search field type: Link: and then paste in the web page address you want to see. You will get back a list of pages that link to the competitor’s site. You want to get links from those same sites. The theory is that if it works for them, it will work for you.

Like keywords, link building can be a difficult and often time consuming task. If you don’t have the resources to do it yourself, it is money well spent to have a reputable service do it for you. Notice I said reputable. There are any number of supposed SEO companies that will guarantee you 10,000 links in a week. They can, but those links will be virtually useless for getting quality, targeted traffic. They may also get you banned from the search engines. So be careful when you choose to have someone else help with your link building.

There are also those that will tell you that building links is not really necessary. Don’t believe that either. They say you can do Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to build traffic, which is true, as far as it goes. There is a major difference between link building and PPC. PPC has its value, but mostly as support for other (organic) methods. PPC is like a hungry alligator. You must feed it constantly for it to grow. Therefore, it is a constant drain on revenue. And the bigger the alligator grows, the bigger its appetite and the more you have to feed it.

Links on the other hand cost you up front in the form of time and labor, but they are effective for years. When you stop building links, those you already have will continue to draw traffic. When you stop PPC, traffic dies immediately and your business is dead in the water.

If you have been careful to follow the keyword advice above and chosen well, you can use PPC to build traffic while you continue building links. But links are vital to your long term marketing strategy, so don’t ignore them.

Another important consideration with links is that not all links are equal. This is why it is important to get links with high Page Rank. PR is the importance assigned to each page. A page with a PR of 5 is 10 times more important than a PR 4 page. And a PR 4 is 10 times as effective as a PR 3 and so on. Most links are from PR 0 pages. Thus, a PR 5 link carries about 100,000 times the weight of a PR 0. The more links you get from high PR sites, the higher you will move in the searches. Remember, your goal is to be number 1 on page 1 of the search engines so you can get 42% of all the clicks.

You can also generate links in a number of other ways. Some of the tried and true ones include writing articles, like this one, contacting businesses in businesses related to your own, vendors, blogging, and social media. There are many sources of good quality links.

Linking also takes time to be effective. It takes a while for them to propagate through the system, sometimes months. You just have to be patient.

From here on out, it is a no brainer. You have selected quality keywords that meet the four criteria of relevance, traffic, competition and profitability as outlined above. You have a solid USP. You have developed quality content heavy with benefits that help your customer, and you have developed high quality links that will push you up in the searches. This will all result in:

Targeted Traffic

Targeted traffic is the result of all the hard work you have put into your internet marketing plan. Now you begin to see how every part of that plan depends on the step before it, and they all depend on how you chose your keywords. Without good keywords, nothing else will work.

When you have done all the hard work, the traffic will qualify itself. Sometimes this process results in less traffic than you had before, but at the same time results in higher revenue because the traffic is more targeted. Now we move on to the next step:

Call to Action

This actually goes along with the content, but it is here because if you don’t compel your visitors to take action, nine times out of ten, they won’t. The action you want them to take is not always to buy. You might want them to click through to your products page, or another, related information page, or maybe download a report. Whatever it is you want them to do, ask them to do it. Don’t make them think and if possible don’t let them leave until they have taken action. At the very least, get them to leave their contact information.

Once you have done all this, you end up with the

Sale

Now the real fun begins. You have made it to the top of the ladder. You are on the first page of the search engines, keywords are working for you and money is coming in. Now you have the opportunity to do the cheapest and most effective selling you will ever get. If you have captured the email addresses from a good deal of your visitors, you can now make special offers for up sells, cross sells and additional add-ons to your original sales.

Now we come to something that is not on the list above, but is also critical to your success:

Metrics

Although I have put this one last, it is actually an integral part of the internet marketing plan. Metrics refers to the ability to quantify our successes. We have the ability to see and understand things in a way we never could before the internet came along.

When we run a television ad, hand out a brochure or put an ad in a magazine, we have no way to measure how many people actually saw or read it. Nor do we have any really effective way to tell how many people responded to it. Sure, we can ask them, but that is a notoriously inaccurate way to find out.

With the internet, we can tell exactly how many people were shown our ad, how many saw our page or our link and we know exactly how many people clicked on that link. We can tell which links were used and which were not. We can tell which content has the most appeal and which content led to sales and even how long they spent viewing our wonderful videos.

The first thing you want to do before you start a new web project is to measure where you are now. This sets a baseline by which you can measure all other progress. This is especially important if you are going to hire a marketing firm or consultant to help with your marketing.

After your new pages have been launched, it is a constant process of improvement. You must measure, make changes, test and measure again. Nothing will help you improve performance like measurement.

Summary

In this article, you have seen the major elements of developing a solid internet marketing plan. You have seen the importance of selecting the correct keywords and how everything depends on them. We have also looked at the Unique Selling Proposition, Content, Links and link building, Traffic, Call to Action and Sales.

This has by no means been a comprehensive how-to manual (there are whole books on the subject), but it highlights the importance of the major components and what you can expect when developing your own marketing plan.

We have also seen that for the small to medium sized business (SMB), it may be faster and cheaper to hire professionals to provide certain pieces of the plan rather than try to do them in house. This is especially true for the keyword research process.

I hope that this article has been of value to you, and I thank you for taking the time to read it. I am much honored that you would do so. If you have comments or suggestions, I would also like to hear them. You may contact me via my website, by phone or email. You will find the contact information on the website. You might also want to visit my blog at http://blog.wgmoore.com.

[eba kw="keyword analysis tool" num="4" ebcat=""]

keyword analysis tool

[eba kw="top sellers on ebay" num="4" ebcat=""]

top sellers on ebay

There are many people who make a living trading on eBay or who have made a living trading on eBay. Many people start off with items they already have, listing such items as clothing, toys, antiques, jewelry, automobiles, electronics, etc. Any item that you feel that may be of some value to others might be worth looking into. You can always search eBay to see if an item you have is selling, and the price for which it is selling.

Many people choose to make a business out of their eBay sales. Knowing what to sell or what’s selling is not a difficult task.

EBay’s Advance Search is one strategy to use is to search for items that have sold. By clicking on the Advanced Search link located at the top of eBay pages, and entering your keyword, whatever it is that you’re searching for, and selecting the Completed listings only checkbox, you will find out if items have sold, and what they sold for.
EBay’s Seller Central’s “What’s Hot” section helps to keep you on top of the “hot” items selling on eBay. In this section of eBay, you will find the Hot Categories Report which is updated monthly. This report lists what’s Super Hot, Very Hot, and Hot in each of the selling categories.

There are also hundreds of eBay statistics tools available on the web, such as Vendio, one of eBay’s first developer partners. With Vendio’s Sales Analyzer, you can understand eBay sales and improve your profits by getting a clear snapshot of sales history and recommendations to help you better optimize your sales, for $5.95 a month.
You can also search the categories listings to see what is selling.

Once you have decided on what you’d like to sell, you will need sources in which to purchase your goods. The idea is to buy low and sell high. There are hundreds of thousands of wholesale sources on the web that offer just about anything you’re looking for. It is very important that you do your homework and research various wholesale sources before you make any decisions. There are many wholesale sources on the web that sale wholesaler lists that are nothing more than fronts for middlemen and not true wholesalers. Many more sell lists of wholesalers without checking to see if the companies still exist or checking to see if they deal with small businesses. Many people have wasted money trying to buy merchandise from wholesalers that either require thousands of dollars in initial orders or unreasonable account setup fees. Any distributor who wants you to pay a “membership” or “setup” fee is probably not a true Wholesale Supplier. If it sounds too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.

There are reputable sources out there, you just have to do your homework. Alibaba (alibaba.com) is one of the sources used my many. Alibaba has millions of selling leads from around the world, and specializes in business-to-business trades, especially for international buyers trying to get into contact with Chinese sellers. With their Gold Supplier and TrustPass programs, Alibaba endeavors to provide transparency on the identity and legitimacy of your trading partner. Some people only conduct business with members that are TrustPass members. Of course, you should always do your own research when dealing with anyone supplier.

Another good source (if you are able to travel), is New York’s Wholesale District, especially if you’re looking for jewelry, clothing, and accessories. Most of the stores in this district require that you have a tax id number. Good bargains at wholesale prices are also found on New York’s Canal Street.

There are eBayers that search sales advertisements or other discount sources and try to find merchandise that is heavily discounted enough to buy and resell on eBay and make a profit. Some people even clip coupons from the newspaper and mailers, and sell them on eBay. Check eBay for various store coupons and you’ll see how it is being done. The key here is volume.
Local Auctions are also a good resource for finding things to sell on eBay. Check your local paper for upcoming auctions in your area. Depending on type of auction, you may be able to view a list of items available for auction or even view the items beforehand. This would be helpful because you could search eBay to see if any of the items available for local auction, are selling on eBay, and for what price.

State Surplus Auctions auction surplus property generated by the state government. These are usually one day auctions. You can sign up for notifications of upcoming auctions through your official state website. You can usually find good bargains at these auctions, including properties and automobiles, and you can preview items beforehand.
There are also auction and surplus resources on the internet. GovSales.gov and GSA Auctions are products of the Federal Government which features government assets available for sale. GovSales.gov allows the public to search assets available for sale, and makes it much easier for the public to find and purchase real estate and personal property from the federal government.

Liquidation.com is a business surplus auction that sells a wide variety of products such as apparel, computers, electronics, housewares, industrial equipment, vehicles, and more. Products are auctioned in single to bulk lots that range from new in a box to customer returns and used. Registration is free and easy. GoWholesale, a division of Liquidation.com, is a source that helps wholesale buyers connect with wholesale suppliers. Many auction sellers use goWholesale to find the products, services, and information they need for their businesses. You can find just about anything through these surplus and wholesale sources.

Trade Shows are also great venues for buying items at wholesale or discounted costs. As a jewelry seller on eBay, I got my start by attending a jewelry trade show in my area. I picked up some unique pieces and my first thought was to sell them on eBay. Before leaving the show, I made sure I had the contact information of the seller because I thought that I might purchase more from the seller. I photographed my items, wrote my descriptions, and posted my auctions. The items sold like hot cakes. I immediately called the seller and ordered more. It wasn’t long before I became a Power Seller on eBay.

[eba kw="top sellers on ebay" num="4" ebcat=""]

top sellers on ebay

[eba kw="how to set up a blog" num="4" ebcat=""]

how to set up a blog

The information in this article presents points of web site adjustment that can help increase your rankings and traffic.  This is part one of a series.  An essential part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) depends upon accurate, informative, and effective page design.  We begin with the application; the science of SEO will follow in a later article.

Things that will hinder your site rank:

Irrelevant content.  When someone clicks on a site that promises garden tools, they expect to see garden tools.  Sites that focus away from the promised content rob visitors of time, offend their intellect, and result in zero return business.  Keep your subject matter on track.

Fraudulent schemes.  Software sites often promise FREE products, and then end up offering no more than a crippled trial package.  It takes time to download and install a new product.  When a web site fails to deliver as promised, when an advertised product is surrounded in guile, your reputation will suffer.

Refrain from hidden text.  Adult web sites have been famous for this, slipping themselves under the radar by posing in the likes of a legitimate web business.  Be who you are and no one else.  Honesty wins repeat traffic.  Deceit kills traffic.

Avoid cloaking techniques.  Web cloaking is the deliberate practice of false programming.  A server presents false or misrepresented data to search engine spiders.  It can get you banned from the search engines.

Irrelevant Keywords.  This is a reflection of inappropriate content description.  When words that have no association to the web site content are thrown out for the sake of misleading net surfers, the lifespan of your business will decrease.

Content Duplicating Sub-Domains.  Maintain one business per sub-domain.  Avoid any appearance of content duplicating sub-domains.

Keywords, Not Graphics. Do not capture keywords as an image display: spider crawlers do not recognize text within an image.

Things that will increase your site rank:

Site Hierarchy: Establish a concrete website hierarchy.  Create distinct links that are easy to navigate.

Include a Site Map. Google provides a free site map generator tool (http://googlesitemapfree.com/).  Use it.

Keywords.  It is critical to have a list of keywords that create an exact mental and electronic footprint of your website’s features and purpose.

Stick With Plain Text. When dealing with keywords, links, and important events refrain from the temptation to publish them as graphics.

Page Title and Alt Tags. Fill these in.  Be accurate and descriptive.  Spider crawlers will use this information.

Robots.txt.  Know your site.  Block only what must be kept private.  Otherwise, give the crawler free access.

Final notes:

Content is what counts.  The HTML title and the beginning text are more important than the ending text.  For great search results, use precise and unique titles.  Note your own browsing likes and dislikes and then incorporate them into your web site designs.