How Effective is Your Online Marketing?
Many people struggle with their day to day routine. From the time they sit down in their home office with a fresh cup of joe, and are plagued with the anxiety created by the day’s marketing events
One of the best ways to avoid “paralysis of analysis” is to write out the next days activities before you go to sleep. This will help you to avoid the morning feelings of “I don’t know where to start”. It also helps to imagine yourself completing all the tasks with ease.
Allow your thoughts to bring you visions of how you will feel when you complete these tasks and the fun things you will get to experience when you are done. If you are having a hard time figuring out how to do something, i.e. getting information from someone or a great price on a product you need, ask yourself throughout the day, “where or how can I most easily get x”? and then let it go and move on with your day.
You’ll be surprised how the answers will pop up when you are at the gym, the grocery store, or where ever.
When it comes to internet marketing, there are many paths one can take to make their marketing efforts successful. However, many of them can be costly.
If your budget is tight, article marketing can be a very helpful source to get your message out. We’ve all had experiences and many folks are experts in certain niche fields. People are always looking for new and improved ways to do the things they are doing. By writing articles, you will simply share much needed advice to people actively looking to be helped. This is also helps get your message and name out to the communities you are looking to target.
Branding is now becoming even more paramount as website marketing becomes flooded with competition. Just having a company landing page that looks like everyone else’s just won’t cut it anymore.
People are even more skeptical these days, and they want to be able to connect with the someone attached to a certain product or service. Landing pages or “squeeze pages” have been proven more successful when there is a specific person they can connect to. A simple picture with a nice introduction about who you are and how you can help is great.
Even more effective, is to shoot a video about you and the product or service you are recommending. Your conversion rates will be much higher using the video method.
A strong marketing plan is always valuable and it must be written down on paper. Otherwise you have ethereal wishes that continue to take up space in your mind and annoy you from time to time.
To be successful, you must plan your work and then work your plan. It is helpful to be able to cross off “money getting” activities as you go. This will also help you keep a log of your progress. There is no way way to track the effectiveness of what you are doing without this. If you don’t make note of it, you will continue to spin and recreate the same madness that is holding you back.
Buy or journal or a notebook. Type it in a file you will save online. Just make a record of it so you can chart your progress and move towards making money online.
How effective is your marketing? Only you will ever know this. But taking some baby steps in advance, like the night before, will allow you a sense of peace as you tackle the days events.
About the Author: George T. Hammett is an Advertising/Marketing Major from the University of Georgia. He offers cutting edge marketing tools and information to help you save time and make more money. His interests are world travel, screenwriting, and kite surfing.
How To Find A Good Web Host?
Usually when someone contacts me online, one of the most frequent questions I get asked is this: “How do I find a good web host?” or “Which web host do you use?”
This is one of those essential things you will need in order to earn that online income. You will need a web site and you will need a web host – somewhere to place that web site.
Sure there are countless marketers who work without a site but most have at least one main site which acts as their online calling card; where people can find them on the web. Of course, you can always use the social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter… but that’s like operating your office out of Starbucks!
Instead, a well designed site is just more professional and business like. It also means you’re serious about your online business.
Picking a good web host is not easy. I have had numerous different web hosts over the years. Most of them have been very good and served their purpose, but I have had some bad experiences too – what long term webmaster or marketer hasn’t? Something always goes wrong eventually, especially if you have a lot of sites and many different web hosts.
Sometimes having a web host can be downright scary. Several years ago, the web host that I had my main site on was first sold and then went bankrupt. One day your site is running fine and the next day the web host is completely gone. Shut down. Your site and all your files completely gone. Vanished. Your host can’t be reached. Total blackout!
Fortunately, I had my site backed up on several systems and since that experience I always back my sites up on several computers and I go even further by copying them onto DVDs should those computers crash. If you have a site, I always suggest you back up your site files and make it redundant. The very worst can happen to you.
Overall quality and good 24/7 support should be your first objectives in choosing a good web host. You want a site that’s fast, easy to use, rarely down and has good support that you can reach at all times, should something go wrong.
You need to check exactly what features your web host is offering and for what price:
- How much storage space?
- Daily traffic limit or transfer?
- Email system? How many accounts…
- What type of server Linux or Windows?
- How many other sites will be sharing your IP address?
- Do You need SSL or a secure site?
- Are sites/files backed up? How often?
- What are the support hours?
- And of course the Price?
But don’t always try to get the cheapest price hosting, keep in mind, you always get what you pay for. A cheap web host won’t save you money if it’s a poor service and your site is always going down. So don’t always pick the cheapest web host.
Match up your hosting service with the type of site you will be running; a simple HTML site will have or make simple demands on your hosting service. So a shared hosting service may be quite adequate to meet your hosting needs. For SEO reasons, you should always check the location of your site, I have found which country your site is hosted in, plays a role in your rankings, especially in Google.
However, if you have a site that’s extremely interactive with forums, discussion groups, get large bursts of traffic or you’re running a lot of server-side scripts and programs – then you may need a more robust hosting service to meet your needs.
In this case, you might need a dedicated server to handle just your site. Many web hosts offer this service and it’s worth looking into if you have a site with extreme amounts of traffic or if you’re running forums, affiliate programs, email services… from your site. Most of my own sites are very simple and I have them on many different web hosts. Mainly because of my own experiences, I just don’t want to have all my sites on one host… the old “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” reasoning.
At the moment I am quite pleased with all my web hosts… many of my sites are on GoDaddy and I find them OK for simple sites like mine. I also find it convenient because they are also a domain registry so I can easily use them to buy my domains. Although many experts suggest you should always keep your domain registration separate from your hosting service because if your host should suddenly vanish, it is only a simple matter of moving your site to a different host. If your host controls your domain, this can be a major problem. Always keep control of your domain in your own hands, but you probably already knew that.
Another web host I use is Bluehost which is very good, can’t remember the last time my site was down. They are very popular with around a million sites and my only concern is that they may become too popular and their services will be spread too thin. However, I have had very few problems with them and you can always reach their support.
I also have a site with Ken Evoy’s SBI (Site Build It), but I created that one mainly to get access to the enormous resources connected with SBI. It is slightly more expensive than some of the ones listed above, but SBI is an overall online marketing system that in my opinion can’t be equaled on the web. Well, perhaps the Warriors group could give them a run for their money, but it’s the community of like-minded webmasters with SBI which makes it special. They are always ready and willing to help you out, doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced pro or a complete newcomer. Several years ago, I took a very close first-hand look at the hosting service provided by SBI. You can find my opinions/review on SBI located in the resource box below.
There are countless webhosts you can choose from when picking a web host. But do your homework, check around to the different forums and see how everyone is rating the web hosts they are using. First-hand experiences are the best judge of whether or not a web host is good and reliable.
Although moving a site from one web host to another can be a real pain, especially if you have a large scale site, but if you’re not totally satisfied with a web host and are having serious problems – simply change your hosting. Just make sure you’re not going from bad to worst.
Still, finding a good quality web host will be a major chore, no matter how you look at it.
Perhaps, in the final analysis, nothing beats checking with your friends and fellow webmasters you trust. Ask them which hosts they’re using and if they’re satisfied with it. Nothing beats first-hand experiences when it comes to choosing a web host. Just make sure you’re comparing oranges to oranges, that is: make sure you have similar site requirements as your webmaster friends. If you both have similar type sites, then finding a good quality web host can be as easy as having a friendly chat over a cup of coffee.
About the Author: Titus Hoskins is a full-time professional online marketer who has numerous niche websites. Here’s a review of Ken Evoy’s popular marketing/hosting system: Site Build It Review For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools.
Web Optimization – Four Common Problems That Stop Your Success
Web Optimization – Four Common Problems That Stop Your Success
Anyone interested in online marketing knows that web optimization is critical to a successful business. Web optimization comprises a number of different ideas, including search engine optimization, website analytics, and design factors, among many others.
However, optimization is more than just a standard set of practices. As every good interactive marketing agency knows, it is different for each business, and within each industry.
Those differences are one of the primary aspects that make ‘do-it-yourself’ optimization without an interactive marketing agency such a risky prospect. An interactive marketing agency keeps abreast of the ever-changing landscape in order to implement best practices to achieve good positioning and visibility for a website — they are also able to conduct in-depth research to understand what your competition is doing as well.
If you are learning from scratch and implementing as you go, you can be put at a disadvantage compared to competitors who hire professionals.
In this article, we’ll walk through some of the most common misconceptions about optimization. We’ll also look at what your company can do to see real optimization success.
Problem 1: Seeing Optimization as a Project With An "End Date"
Optimization, and online marketing in general, isn’t a destination. Rather, it’s a road, one that must be constantly traveled for optimal levels of success. There is no time when your optimization is "complete", in fact, even once your initial online marketing plan sees success, there will be other ways that you can improve your online presence. The process can always be improved.
Problem 2: Not Planning For Optimization In The Long Run
Because online marketing is a process, wise companies will plan for optimization in the long run. Don’t think of it as a short-term investment, and don’t divert resources you are only comfortable diverting for a few weeks. Think about it more broadly, and give your optimization plan the time and support it needs to be successful. Like any company initiative, if the program is understaffed or underfunded, it won’t be able to thrive as it ought to.
Problem 3: Not Monitoring Progress
In the old days, it was next to impossible to know if your agency’s plan was doing the job. But now, tracking online marketing results are easy. Think of it like cooking: you have to test the food every so often to see how it’s going. If you need to make a change, you learn about it early on, and if the food is great, you know more about how to make it the next time around.
Web optimization is exactly the same way. Keeping track of what policies bring success and which don’t will help you in the short term and in the long term. You will have more to work with when you start additional campaigns, and you’ll have real results that you can point to. So much depends on customer preference, and only when you start to get a feel for that preference will you see the best outcomes.
Problem 4: Working Alone
It is the rare person who can successfully design and implement an online marketing optimization strategy without the help of an interactive marketing agency. Optimization is a very particular process, with a number of techniques and strategies to learn. Articles like this one can help, but it takes years of experience to become a real optimization expert.
Does it really make sense for you to spend your time learning, rather than hiring the expertise of an interactive marketing agency? In almost every case, focusing on what you do best – running your business – is the best idea.
Putting it All Together
Now you know some of the most common pitfalls that make optimization programs fail. Do any of them sound familiar? If so, then you’re now equipped with the knowledge to change the problem. You can start fresh, and get the optimization results you’re looking for. You might not see them overnight, but with time the effect will be noticeable.
About the Author: Christine O’Kelly writes for CloudBurst Consulting, a top interactive marketing agency. As an online marketing leader, CloudBurst has helped many companies design and implement successful web optimization campaigns.
