Web Site Marketing Strategy

Website Marketing Plan

 5 Golden Rules To Web Design

Golden Rule #1- Do not use splash pages

Your Goal here is to stand out from the norm.  A Web Site Marketing Strategy needs to be a statement about you and what you have to offer. Give yourself a unique position so that when people come to visit your site you do not look like the status Quo.

Usually, splash pages are the first pages you see when arriving at a website. They  have  beautiful graphics with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. How boring, come on really, do you want to look like everyone else. I’ts like going to the prom and “Becky” Ms. Popular cheerleader shows up wearing the same darn dress you spent 3 month’s trying to find.

Just a pretty dress  with no real pizazz. I can tell you right off the bat your visitors will take one look and turn around and exit as fast as they entered. Your website business strategy needs to include giving them the value of your site up front, without the splash page parade.

Golden Rule #2-Do not go banner ad Loony

Your web site marketing strategy needs to include not getting ignored. Having a bunch of useless banners flashing all over your site says only one thing, you must have been bored. I mean really, sorry to be so harsh but I want you to succeed. If you want to give a 4th grader a project to cut and paste then take them to Rite-aid and buy some construction paper and some scotch tape, don’t have them setting up bits of streamers all over your website. Tacky, Tacky, Tacky.

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. This is not a good use of web site marketing strategy, Instead, provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being blind sighted by your Vegas lights flashing all over the pages.

Golden Rule #3-  An effective Web Site Marketing Strategy includes being sure that your navigation is clear, simple and easy to follow

You must create a simple and very precise navigation menu, so that even a child will be able to follow it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. You are not producing a Broadway show here. If your website visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will turn around and leave. End of story.

Golden Rule #4- Be sure that you have a clear indication of where your visitors are

It would be rather embarrassing if someone is visiting your site and a voice comes on through the loud speaker stating…”Hello”? “Are You O.k.”? “Where Are You”? When visitor is exploring your site and is deeply engrossed browsing , you really need to make sure that your web site marketing strategy plan includes a clear road map so they know what part of your website they are in at that moment in time. If guided properly,  they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “Let’s Get The Heck Outta Here”!

Golden Rule #5-Avoid using audio on your site, it is not the Coppa Cabana

If you want your visitors to stay at your website, reading your value packed content, you most definitely do not want them to be distracted because you have some creepy trans music looping it’s way to oblivion in the background. If you are a person that is audio compulsive, we won’t hold it against you, just be sure that your visitor has some sort of means to either mute it or turn the volume down. A web site marketing strategy plan should always have these 5 basic rules, in order for you to get the most effective outcome.

Affiliate Marketing Strategies

Affiliate Money Making Strategies

The Best thing about Affiliate marketing is having the ability to sell someone else’s products without having to do any of the pre-work yourself. There is no software to develop no digital content to produce or back end service to be concerned about. The Affiliate is simply the Money Maker while the product creator does all the work to give you something for your web marketing strategy.

Now let’s not be greedy of course, the Affiliate does not make ALL the money per say, it is shared with the product creator who sets a percentage of which will be paid to the Affiliate Marketer. This is basically the agreement the merchant set’s up in advance so that you know how much you will be paid to promote/market that product, and a sale is made due to your efforts.

Once the Affiliate has implemented their web marketing strategy, there is nothing else that needs to be done in regards to managing the process of that sale. The Affiliate simply markets the product in which ever legal means which they feel effective and direct any prospects to the Merchants main sale page and if a sale is made…Voila! You get paid. Off you go to wash, rinse and repeat.

How Do you get the Moola for your Efforts:

This is pretty basic and usually is set up the same with a few tweaks here and there. Generally some merchants will have their own Affiliate program which they set up when the product is ready to be launched.

Most will use ClickBank, the largest digital product source on the net today. They will create certain tools that assist’s Affiliates in marketing and promoting their product. Some of these tools would be e-mail examples to run on safelist’s or to promote to your own e-mail list which gives more specific details and highlights of the product.

They will also include an Affilite Code, which is used for tracking which Affiliate sent the prospect, Banners, Product Graphics, script codes and text ad’s are also part of the Affiliate’s web marketing strategy package, that the Merchant sets up. This helps the Affiliate tremendously since none of it will have to be created by you.

The commissions are usually paid on a semi monthly basis (some sooner than that) and paid to the Affiliate through paypal or direct deposit etc. It is also advised that the Affiliate have their own tracking program in place to make sure that all efforts the Affiliate makes to benefit the merchant, are being accounted for. Selecting Which Products or Services to Promote The amount of money you will make will rely heavily on which “Niche” the product you choose is tied to, and how well products in that Niche are selling.

Be sure to chose your web marketing strategy wisely and do some research ahead of time before diving in and spending any time or resources on something that my not be doing well out in the market. This is the same for the merchant you partner with. Be sure to research them as well to see if other Affiliates are recommending them or if any bad experiences have occurred with that merchant that may help you to not follow suit.

Your Product Selection Will Be Key

You will do much better choosing products that you really enjoy or know something about. Do not pick something solely on dollar if you are going to be uncomfortable promoting and selling that product. The more fluent and comfortable you are with whatever you choose to promote, the more sells and success you will have Your strategies will be more successful if you have a broader knowledge of  the product and background, before you begin to promote it.  Keep in mind that  you are promoting to a specific niche or market.

That being said, dive into the mind of those who are seeking something from that niche, something which you are there to offer, but take yourself out of the equation. If What you are promoting does not appeal to you it will show through to those you are promoting to and they will turn you off, bingo end of the game. Put yourself in their shoes and know what it is you are saying so that you gain trust and not distrust. Only do business with those who offer quality product that have been statistically known to have great results and little product returns. Make sure the merchant is offering the web marketing strategy tools you need to begin actively promoting to your sources. Look for those products that are offering 60% commission or better and that have a high gravity.

If many Affiliates are promoting that product this is good news, but keep in mind you will need to be that much more unique in order to penetrate the niche market for that product. If you do your due diligence and can think outside of the box, you will prevail and perhaps switch your hat to the more prominent and skillful “Super Affiliate”

How To Locate a Niche

If you haven’t heard so already Niches is one of the most talked about web site marketing strategy in Internet Marketing. Locating a niche market does not have to be difficult though, with a little bit of knowledge and the right procedure, you can find a profitable Niche with very little difficulty. You should always start with a Niche Market that you are interested about. Hunting for a Niche that really doesn’t float your boat will end up sitting on the shelf with little to no further advancement on your part. If you can’t think of a Niche, as a general rule of thumb, think of a Hobby.

Think about things that you enjoy, such as cooking,  dirt bike racing, playing computer games, playing Poker etc. Don’t spend too much time thinking about it though because you will not take action and lose out. Once you have located your Niche, you will need to do some research to see if that Niche has a strong target market, is popular, in demand and will be profitable. There is a great product available, which will cut down hours of researching and zero in on hot untapped profitable Niches in a fraction of the time, it is listed on the web marketing strategy videos page of this site. You can also check it out at Micro Niche Finder

You want to start off by using a keyword or keyword phrase for that Niche and do  a search. You can use many tools to do this, web site marketing strategy recommends Micro Niche Finder, for the most advanced data, however you can use Google keyword tool or Overture as well for starters. Once you have searched your phrase, take the top 5 phrases that come up in your results. You will be able to see right away if there are many people searching for different variations of your Niche keyword phrase. If you have more than 500 searches in your top 5 phrases this is promising. If it is less than that you should pick another Niche plain and simple. Let’s assume that your top 5 have more than 500 searches. Now we need to find out if that niche is going to make you money.

Create a folder either in your documents or your desktop where you can store this data. This way you will have easy access to the information as you do your research. Now go to Google’s home page and do a search, one at a time, of your top 5 phrases. What you will see is what everyone is striving to achieve, Google page 1.  What you need to look at here is the number of results. Let’s say for example you typed “Quilting for Amatures” and the results were 18,500,000 then this is a good indication that that niche has a market.

You will follow by determining how many AdWords are in that phrase. The reason you will do this is because the more people are bidding on those words the more profitable that Niche is likely to be. The place I go to, to look at this data is http://www.spyfu.comThis site will let you see how much money people are spending  with Google AdWords, for that phrase. Do this for each of the 5 phrases you chose. What you want to see is high figures with low competition. If it is lower than 10 competing ads you may have found a fortune.

No worries though, as long as there is people spending money, and the market is there, 99% of the time you will make money. Now to wind things up a little you are going to want to dig a little deeper into that Niche to create some dominance. What I mean there is, as our prior example of Quilting for Amatures you will want to go a bit further and focus on, How an Armature can Quilt like the pro’s. Get the picture? Good.

Go to http://answers.yahoo.com and see what people are wanting answers to specific to your Niche. This will help you uncover patterns or popular questions , that you can later address to target those people.  By doing this you can come up with a good 5-6 different questions that you can address in a report by using bullet points.  You may also create a top 10 way…or 7 easy steps to… etc. You will see how this could cause a niche marketing internet frenzy so it’s best to make yourself stand out. You will also learn that this technique is highly used by as a super affiliate niche marketing strategy.

Always remember that a good web site marketing strategy requires you to do your research, once you have the information you need you can search for products that you can sell that complement your Niche by searching for them on clickbank or paydot.com and the rest is just marketing. See how easy it can be to target a niche. There are a few more strategies which will help you to find keywords and phrases that have been missed by the masses by using more advanced techniques like those in Micro Niche Finder. Either way you are on a clear and focused path to a successful Niche Marketing campaign.

Good Luck and Happy Niche-ing

Manny F.

mannyf@webmarketingstrategysite.com

Improve Web Marketing With Sitemaps

 Improve Web Marketing with Sitemaps

Sitemaps 101 – Here are Some Tips and Strategies on Building Sitemaps

Have you ever wondered how a search engine works? It would be great to watch a spyder crawl your site and find its way around by a simple sitemap you left for it to have a successful visit.  You may have even experienced that a link you thought was relevant to your keyword came back completely different than you had anticipated, and you could not figure out why. I bet you were thinking that there must be something wrong with the search engine that it generated irrelevant results or your web marketing plan had failed.

How does a search engine work?

Two things are basically the factors that will result in making search engines work effectively and efficiently:  the first would be an electronic search spider and the second, the sitemap.

What is a sitemap?

When using a web marketing plan that includes sitemaps, the sitemap is a page or pages that serve/s as a directory by listing all the connections or links, to all documents and files found on the website. It is not just a random listing of links, but organized in a way that it gives the web user an idea of how all the information, that can be found in the site,  fits into an outline or framework. It is like viewing the table of contents of a book, or viewing the “concept map” of the site’s content.

A Spider? Will it bite?

In SEO language, a spider is not an insect found in your basement. This electronic search spider is actually a bot which collects data and copies content to be stored in the search engine’s database when keywords are fed into the search dialogue box. The spider reads the content of the site and sends another bot to follow the links and copy the content contained in them.

What is the purpose of a Sitemap?

A sitemap,  like any other map,  gives directions to a navigator. It primarily targets search engine spiders so that they are properly directed to your site and to the links where keywords entered in the search dialogue appears.  As such, it is actually a useful tool in search engine optimization. A well organized web marketing plan with a  site map will guide the spider to find the information it needs when keywords are entered during a search operation.

As an additional beneficial consequence, sitemaps have proven to be useful even to web users. Since a sitemap displays all the links to information found in a website, it helps the user to search for a particular topic in mind. Many users also use the sitemap to navigate between pages in a site.

How Do I benefit from a Sitemap?

1. No page would be left unturned

Going back to the purpose of sitemaps, having one would mean faster and easier tracking and crawling of spiders all over your site. As a result, search engines would surely get to the view all the pages of your site and not just the pages containing random keywords.

2. Easier navigation for site visitors

Once a web user has accessed your sitemap, they need not go back to the search engine page to look for what they need. If what they are looking for is in your site, then they would have an easier and faster way of locating it.

3. Potential advertising value

If it so happens that a relevant product or service company reaches your site, then it would be easier for them to see how best they can position themselves in the different pages of your site as a paid page advertisement.

4. Encourage greater traffic to your site

If your web marketing efforts inludes a sitemap, then potential buyers would have an easier time in accessing your latest products and services. Moreover, they would not miss out on any product that might be off future interest to them since the sitemap would display all information found the site.

How does one format the sitemap?

Currently there are about three major types of sitemaps: an indexed, a full categorical, and a restricted categorical. An indexed site map appears as an alphabetical listing or directory. A full categorical map displays all links classified into categories; while a restricted categorical sitemap displays all links listed in a chosen category at a time. Web marketing plans that include the full and restricted sitemaps, are very similar except that the former displays all links in all categories all at once in a page, while the latter focuses only the links under the selected category for easier and less eye-straining viewing.

The most widely used format is the full categorical. Based on most research, the full categorical format is most preferred by users since it is easier to search for topics within the site and it allows easier comparison between and among categories.

Some tips in setting up your sitemap

1. Link the sitemap only to your homepage.

This is to ensure that the spider starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. In this way, no page would be left unvisited by the spider, although some factors may prevent that at times

2. Do not go beyond 30 pages for a sitemap.

Large websites having 50 or more pages should not go beyond 30 since this adds more pages to the site, and might make search engines think that the sitemap is a link farm.  Also, this prevents overcrowding of links which could be tiring to view. We do not want our little spider getting it’s legs all wound up now do we. This would doom all your web marketing plans for sure.

3. Be Sure You Have checked all the links listed in your sitemap.

It is frustrating to some when you click on a link only to find out that nothing is displayed. Test your sitemap; click all links in every page to make sure that all links are indeed linked to the right page.

4. Give keyword-rich titles to sitemap links.

Keyword-rich titles give your site more advantage in being searched properly under the right category. But be sure to have this sitemap link linked back to the sitemap (e.g. back to sitemap).

5. Provide a short description for the links in the sitemap.

Doing so would give readers a better idea of what to find in the link and save them time on surfing.

6. Be consistent in designing your sitemap with the other pages of the site.

Be sure your web marketing plans include Employing a recurring design and the same HTML template for all pages to establish identity and build character to your website.

O.k. Do you have the picture? They are really not that difficult to put together and in most cases there are programs that will build them for you. That being said get going and build yourself a great sitemap

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at support@webmarketingstrategysite.com

Cheers,

Manny F.

mannyf@webmarketingstrategysite.com

Online Marketing Tips and strategies

A Web Site Marketing Strategy Plan

Web Marketing, in general was always known as putting an ad in the local paper, penny saver, a magazine and of course TV. When it comes to setting up a web marketing strategy plan it really is not that different. Technology has certainly advanced more than the traditional way of advertising which has made the financial rewards far greater. In order for your  web site marketing plan to be effective, there are generally two things that a business will need in the Internet market.  The first is to have a product that can be  sold and distributed. The second is to have a product that is marketable and is in need by the consumers in that market. The fastest and most effective way of getting your product noticed is to generate traffic and when that traffic starts coming, you most definitely need a website for them to come to. So let’s say that your website, by far, is where you need to start. If you are ready to move into this direction then here is a solid web site marketing strategy to help you get started.

1. The first thing to do is to determine what the market or consumer is looking for weather it be a solution to a problem or a way to give them a more solid financial future. Research will be of vital importance to make sure the product you will promote is going to help those that are searching. You must take YOUR personal needs and wants completely out of the equation or you are doomed for failure. What you need and want may not be another s cup of tea.  In other words, what may look and sound great to you, or vice verse, may not look so good to someone else. They will be buying not you.

2. You will need to focus on some key Internet strategies, to be able to zero in on your target market and their needs.  Your domain name plays a big part in this process so if you have others involved in the decision making for your company, it would be best for all to concur on what the best name would be. Your web site marketing strategy for this needs to be well planned. It needs to be easy for people to remember, so you can build brand recognition, as well as being one that catches on. A good rule to follow is to think of it in different angles, switch words around, drop some, add some see what sounds best.

If I was to say to you, “what is the happiest place on earth”? I will assume you will say Disneyland. This is what I mean by catchy.  You will be surprised at how many names you will come up with that are already taken. Their are billions of people in our world and most people have been online at one time or another to see if a name they have always thought of was available. Sadly, at times their fantasy is crushed so it would be wise to have 3 or 4 names just in case.

At this point you will also need to develop a search engine marketing strategy because the search engines are looking for specific things and names that their searchers are looking for. They will not send your information to them unless they feel it best represents what they want. Crazy, I know, seems unfair that someone would decide this ahead of time without giving us a chance but it is what it is and you will need to be prepared for that or I am afraid to say you will never sell a thing nor will anyone ever know about your business without it.  These sites also allow one to make a sitemap which can be downloaded in minutes for a small fee. No web site marketing plan should be without one.  Another good example is the various email sites which you can partner with for some good exposure and some free services. Most of these services will let you sign up for free. When you have money to add to your marketing campaign, you can upgrade to a paying member and get as much as double even triple more exposure and services. That sounds good doesn’t it? O.k. let’s move along…

3. A product of good quality should be sold at a decent price. Sometimes, the product one makes is already available in the market. To be competitive, one must figure out a way to convince people as to why this product is better than the other leading brands available. What features does it have that the competitor doesn’t? What makes it unique which is not only about the product on hand but the service that this can give as well? Remember always to keep in mind that your web site marketing strategy will need to be creative and different with an impulse to act quickly.

4. Just like having a normal business, one must acquire the right equipment and machines for the job. Here is where your online marketing tools play a very big part on out smarting your competition.  It can be a physical piece of equipment or something electronic that is online. You will however, need to have an ordering system on the Internet to have things move quickly or you will be swallowed up whole, bones and all.

To be successful, your web site marketing strategy needs to be one that involves a delivery system that is able to get a product to your customer on time if not sooner. In addition you will need to have some kind of staff on hand to answer questions or complaints should something go wrong.

5.  I am sure you have heard this phrase more than you care to mention, or that I care to quote for that matter, however you will need to spend money to make money, plain and simple. You can do a lot of things for free but you will not make any serious money in this business unless you pay some money for the proper web marketing tools and products you are going to need to stay competitive. That does not mean spending money beyond your means which will put you in the poor house before you ever get started. It means as you make some money , you will need to put back some and a little more after that. It is a gradual process that takes time, and is a web marketing strategy you need to follow cautiously, but the end reward is un-matched by anything and you can make a ton of money in this business if you play it smart.

Don’t set yourself up for failure be sure to properly manage your expenses. Test your web site marketing campaigns so that you are always aware of what is working and what is not. Tweak the ones that are showing potential and scrap the ones, right away, that are not. This will save you thousands of dollars. STAY WITHIN YOUR BUDGET, nothing more nothing less, until you are ahead enough to invest a little more to grow a little more.

6. With everything in place, it is now time to promote your website.  This is where the rubber meets the road. It is a lot of information and far to many different Internet strategies which will show you hot to increase web traffic.

I have a newsletter that I send out to my subscribers that goes into more detail and it is done like a college course. Only in Internet terms we call it an e-course. You are welcome to subscribe to my newsletter, I am sure you will find it valuable and you will get some great free stuff from time to time to help you on your road to success. It is free to join, and you can sign up on the form that is just to the right of this post.   Good luck and I wish you years of success.

Manny F.

mannyf@webmarketingstrategysite.com

Use Autoresponders

Autoresponder Marketing Strategy

Let’s face it, these days with unemployment at a high, wages being cut by more than 40% and the economy trying to heal it’s wounds, looking for the best web marketing strategy that can bail us out of our very busy lives, may seem to be close to impossible. We are running from one place to the next juggling everything we possibly can and taking on a new middle name of  “multitasking”. Who has time to sit, even for a minute to do things we know we need to do, like check and answer our email.

What luck did we come across to have come to meet the Autoresponder. I take a big sigh of relief. Now we can scratch that task off of our list since our Autoresponder is now working hard responding to all of our business and delivering information to our customers that would have taken weeks to do ourselves. Pretty amazing eh?

While this may seem impossible, it is becoming more and more popular among the most successful Internet marketing gurus. This is all due to what is called an auto-responder. This jewel of a web marketing strategy is an automatic method of responding to emails sent by existing or potential customers and has become a must have for any Internet business or marketer. Time is money and answering emails personally takes a lot of valuable time for both you and the customer. Not only do auto-responders allow you to spend the time elsewhere in your business, but it gives the customer access to the information they are looking for almost
immediately. This is strategic internet marketing.

Autoresponders are also a nice way to welcome new members to a website or group as well as to thank them after a visit. Since there are so many different uses for autoresponders, they can be of value to virtually any type of business. Some choose to use the autoresponders to answer frequently asked questions about a product or service, while others use them to provide information about products or pricing.

If you are wondering why autoresponders are the choice of many, rather than just posting the information online or on a website, is because using and autoresponder becomes a long term courting of that customer to later down the line, becoming a repeat buyer.

If you take the easy way out and just post it for all to see, this is a poor internet strategy and you stand the chance of never making a sale. This allows you to track the success of your promotions as well as have the email addresses of potential customers at your fingertips so that you can easily send out updated and new information as it comes available. You must always be looking for time saving tools. This is an effective web marketing strategy and its done on autopilot.

As rule of thumb, advertisements should be short and to the point. However, in this case, the customer has asked to see this  specific information and therefore an effective autoresponder should allow you to place as much text on the page as you desire. It is of the utmost importance to choose an effective autoresponder. An autoresponder should be as personal as possible and send out follow-ups to potential customers since it has been proven that persistence pays off. It could take up to seven contacts before a final sale is conducted. Which ever autoresponder that you chose, be sure it provides automatic updates to your customers and is
free of charge.

The autoresponder is one web marketing strategy and an effective Internet marketing tool, that will not cost you an arm and a leg. You can get free autoresponders online from several sources. The automatic responses will be a welcome addition to your marketing strategy and will help to automatically increase traffic to your website all while you do nothing. Don’t get to cozy though you will need to start thinking about your next web marketing tool that will keep you in the life your getting used to.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at support@webmarketingstrategysite.com