There are three fundamental tenets that should be your focus when developing your online marketing strategy.  If you understand what these basic building blocks are and the effect they can have on your marketing it will be easier to develop an effective strategy.

As you develop your marketing strategy there are several additional tactics that will want to add due to the complexity of internet marketing. Should you miss the mark on any one of these building blocks, your overall results will be considerably diminished.

1.You Must Be Seen

This almost goes without saying. If no one sees you, how will they know if you’re there? You can use several ways to make yourself known and begin getting traffic to your site. Many people use strategies such as search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, pay per view marketing, social media marketing, and content marketing in order to build a path for people to follow.

Getting discovered can be achieved utilizing a wide variety of strategies, as you can see. The similarity is that they are all designed to eventually lead people to your website – even if it is not directly apparent to them.

2. You Have to Really Be Seen

For instance, when you look at the first page of search engine results or advertisements on Facebook there are any number of listings to choose from. Even with the large numbers you are by no means actually seeing all of the options available to you.

Visibility is driven by several central concepts.  You must put your message in front of users when they need it, you need to make sure that your message stands out and draws their attention, In addition, there needs to be an clear next step for them to take.

It Is Important To Deliver On Your Promise

Finally, you need to deliver on whatever promises you made that got them to your website.  It doesn’t matter how good you are at getting people to your website. If they are not spending any time on your site and looking elsewhere for their answers, you will not be successful..  In most cases, websites overcome this by providing information in layers so that visitors can learn as they go.

It’s not good marketing practice to give all of the information up front. The key is to give them the most important information immediately and lead them to discover additional details This is accomplished with an effective information structural design and fluid website design.  This is the stage where you want to show that you have a personality and you’re not just another pretty face.

For example, if you are attending a conference and hope to meet people with whom you can exchange information and, more importantly pick up pointers that can help you, the first thing to do is show up.
Next you need to make it a point to meet people and engage them in conversation. Learn about their interest and share something of value with them.

This is basically what online marketing strategy  is. You need to connect with people and show an interest in them and provide them with enough value that they continually come back for more.

Before getting to the details if this article I would like to explain to all who read my posts why you haven’t heard from me recently. I had major surgery on my neck on March 1 and have been unable to move my head enough to do any typing. I am still restricted in the amount of time that I can spend at the computer; therefore, will be limited in my activity for several more weeks. I must wear a stiff neck brace 24/7 to allow time for healing which will be followed by physical therapy.I trust this article will be beneficial as you advance your internet marketing career.

Email marketing as a primary customer engagement and sales tool has often been under siege in recent times as being an outdated method of marketing. Currently, social media marketing is the chief contender. There are both benefits and drawbacks to social media, which makes comparing it to email marketing an appealing task.

It will be much easier to compare both options and decide which one is going to be the best for your business. if you can understand what social media marketing has to offer. Let’s take a few moments to look at a few differences between the two and see how it affects their overall value.

Reasons Email Marketing Is Still the Best Option

1. Social Media Isn’t Scalable on Every Platform

So you understand the term: in electronics (including hardware, communication and software), scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process, to handle growing amount of work in a capable manner or, its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth.[1] For example, it can refer to the capability of a system to increase total throughput under an increased load when resources (typically hardware) are added.

One of the primary problems with social media is that it still isn’t scalable to the level that email marketing is. This is particularly true on certain platforms. You can easily get thousands of followers on Facebook and Twitter, but niche social media sites such as LinkedIn isn’t going to be as scalable for networking purposes. On the other hand, no matter how small your niche is – email marketing will always be able to grow as long as you are generating leads.

2. Individual Messages are Temporary

An email that has not been deleted is always available to be read again. With social media your messages won’t in front of your audience for very long. In some cases, it may only be for a few minutes.

Also, with email and an autoresponder such as Aweber or Get Response , you can create a set of 10 or 20 or more emails that will be sent automatically to every single prospect who signs up. With social media you will constantly have to generate new content.

3. Social Media Isn’t a Direct Line of Communication

With most social media platforms there isn’t a good way to directly communicate with an individual person or group of people. Even though interacting through comments is still possible, the one-on-one setting isn’t. With an email, you are speaking directly to one person, regardless of how many people you are sending it to. social media can make it much more difficult to build a deeper relationship with anyone, outside of a group setting.

Reasons Why Social Media Could Surpass Email Marketing

1. Subscribing is Easier

Facebook. doesn’t require any personal information and it takes only a few seconds for someone to follow you. It only takes one-click to get a Facebook follower, but much more to get someone to opt into your list.

2. You Don’t Need to Give Anything Away

Getting everything set up for an e-mail marketing campaign takes more time and effort than setting up a social media profile. Most people will only sign up to your email list if you are giving away something of value. They will follow you on Facebook and Twitter. because they find you interesting or fascinating.

3. There is no Training Involving Your Followers

With e-mail marketing, it is important that you get your followers into a routine. If you send a newsletter you need to do it on a regular schedule.On the other hand,with social media marketing,  they will be shown your message regardless of whether or not they are looking for it.

It doesn’t matter what type of campaign you are running, your landing page should be designed for one purpose and that is to capture more leads. You can do numerous things to make your traffic squeeze page more effective. We’ll cover 6 of those here to help you do this.

1. Create a Page That Requires No Scrolling

I do not have any survey results with specific numbers.  However, I believe the majority of people who visit your landing page will not scroll down and will leave the page. If you do choose to have a page where they must scroll you will jeopardize your chances to capture leads.

The better choice is to create a page with a compelling headline, a brief message highlighting the benefits of your program and concluding with a strong call to action.

2. Benefits of Your Program

Create a mini-headline followed by 4 or 5 benefits of your program highlighted by bullet points

3. Develop a Clear Call To Action

Without a clear call to action, how do you expect your landing page visitors to know what you want them to do? There are a variety of different ways to do this. Preferably, you should keep it short –generally with only one sentence. One way to help you stand out is to make the text a color that contrasts with the dominant color of the page and other text.

Don’t forget to ask your visitors for their name and email address. Some squeeze pages will request phone numbers and even home addresses. If you ask for too much information visitors will be less likely to sign up.

4. Don’t Let Your Visitors Travel

One of the biggest mistakes that many landing pages make is that they include links to other pages on the website.  The belief is that these links will get the visitor to explore the rest of the website in hopes that they will convert later. I don’t buy this philosophy because if they do go to the website they probably will not think about returning to sig up for your list.

5. What About Infographics?

Another recent trend has been adding infographics to landing pages in order to capture the visitor’s attention immediately.  A very thoughtful and well-designed infographic can be a benefit and may increase conversions.  At the same time, they take up a lot of space that may be better utilized differently.  If you are going to create an infographic for your landing page, make sure that it is thought-provoking, useful, and continually test it to make sure that it is actually helping your conversions.

6. Offer a Free Gift

There are some who now wonder whether offering free reports are any longer beneficial. People still like to get free stuff. You should provide them with a compelling reason to join your list and include a free item or two as a bonus to help seal the deal.

While these six methods tend to be fairly common, but it is important to repeatedly test and tweak your landing page for maximum success. Just remember, your landing page has been designed for one purpose and that is to capture more leads.

Traffic is unquestionably important in the success of an online marketing business. However, it is important to understand why quality website traffic is critical to the success of your site. That’s what we are going to help you with in this article.

Why are the visitors there? Is it because they are interested in your niche or your product and the content on your site or are they there because they have been paid to click on an ad? Those in the first group are there because of their interest. They are targeted or pre-qualified leads. The latter group is not targeted and unlikely to stay on your site very long or to ever return.

It will be much easier for you to strive for targeted traffic once you understand the difference. Let’s take a look at some of the ways the experts do this.

You are no doubt familiar with the phrase” content is king” and that certainly applies to your website or blog. It is greatly important that the content you put on your website is interesting to your visitors. It should also be informative. It can be educational; it may answer a question or even solve a problem.

The information you post should be updated frequently. This will keep your visitors interested and increase the chances they will return often.

Now let’s examine some ways to drive even more traffic to your site.

• Write Articles. Writing articles pertaining to your niche is a good long term strategy for sending traffic to your website. This is especially true if you submit them to 4 or 5 top article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles ArticleDashboard Buzzle, and ArticleBase.

For article marketing to be successful you should submit articles on a regular basis. The articles need to be 400 – 500 words long with an author’s resource box at the end which directs visitors to your site.

• Use Social Marketing. Facebook and Twitter, as you no doubt know, are very popular all over the world and more and more internet marketers are making use of these sites to market their business. These sites offer exceptional opportunities to advertise your site for free.

• Participate In Forums. Forums can be of great help to you in 2 ways. First, you can learn from others in your niche what has been successful for them in their internet marketing endeavors. Second, you can offer your own advice or assistance to others which will increase your credibility and the trust of others. This can be big boost in your traffic.

• Do Your Keyword Research. I could have placed this at the top of the list because it is so important. However, hear near the end is a good place to emphasize how important it is to use the right keywords to improve your website traffic – and increase your sales.

There are numerous sites and tools available to help you with keyword research.and many of them are free such as GoogleKeywodsAdwordsTool.

Using keyword phrases related to your topic will help people find your website. You need to develop a list of these phrases that you have determined to have a high number of searches and low competition and the use a different one in in each of your article and posts to your site.

These are all ways to get quality website traffic- traffic that is targeted and pre-qualified to improve your sales.

Creating and managing a blog is much easier and cheaper when you compare it to a website. It also gives you access to a world wide market. As a result blogging has proven to be an exceedingly valuable tool whether it is a small part of your website or the entire base of it.

The main reason that it is so effective is because you are providing readers with a regular supply of valuable content. Ideally, this means that you are getting readers to visit your website on a regular basis. Therefore, part of your marketing strategy should be creating frequent posts. Here is a quick look at 4 reasons why you should make this part of your routine.

1. Regular posts build a routine

One of the chief benefits in making regular posts is that it establishes a routine for both you and your readers. With this strategy you are guaranteed to have at least one post per week or whatever interval you decide to use.

In order to ensure that you continually create these types of posts, you should .establish some type of content publishing routine. This also creates a routine with your readers because they know when to expect your content.

2. Regular posts draw people back

This strategy trains people to come back and visit your blog on a regular basis. While using e-mail marketing and RSS feeds is a great way to syndicate your content as well as to let your subscribers know when you publish new content, there is no guarantee that they will actually return

In many cases, they will simply miss the update. However, with recurring posts you increase the probability that they will visit your blog on a regular basis, regardless of the rest of your posting schedule.

3. Posting regularly creates a basis for future products and reports

Over time your recurring posts alone will have established a very strong foundation for the possibility for promoting additional products. You will be able to discover .what your regular readers want to learn about.

In some cases, you will be able to actually repackage these posts without making any significant modifications. This means that you can create free reports within a matter of minutes instead of having to write entirely new content.

4. Recurring posts give you a sounding board

The final benefit of using a recurring post schedule is that you can test. areas in which you can introduce new ideas and concepts to your readers. This will permit you to learn more about what your website visitors are interested in.

The main thing is to decide what your recurring theme will be and sticking to the schedule. All you have to do is find out what topics your niche is interested in on a consistent basis. Then set a schedule for posting and stick to it.

It is easy to set up a blog site with Blogger.com or WordPress but the difficult part is promoting it. To shorten the learning curve and to get the tools you need to build and promote your site I recommend the Affiliate Power Group.

If internet marketing was the easiest thing to do, everyone would be doing it. However, there are no magic buttons and it does require work.

There is one way to make it easier that far too many people overlook. They don’t make a plan. Simply saying “I’m going to make some money on the Internet” is not a plan.

At one time in my business career I owned a franchise and the company had a very detailed plan for just about every aspect of running the business. The purpose was to provide the best opportunity for the franchisee to achieve success based on the company’s success. I also owned a traditional bricks and mortar business. and we had both detailed short term and long term business plans. Both were updated annually at a two day retreat.

A business plan for internet marketing success is going to take time and effort. Without one, however, you will be wandering aimlessly through your business and any money you earn will be purely due to luck.

You may make some money, but you won’t realize your full profit potential without a business plan in place. Think of it as the difference between having a hobby and having a real business that makes you money.

Your plan is like a road map to help you define and reach your goals. A good way to start your business plan is to think of where you want to end up and then start working backwards from there.

What is your goal?  Do you want to develop the business to sell it for a profit?  Is your end goal to pass it in on to your heir? Perhaps you just want to earn money to allow you to travel extensively.

Whatever your goal you need to answer a lot of questions about how you are going to get there. Part of your plan also has to be a financial plan including how much you can invest.

The questions you ask are important. Try to think of as many aspects of your business as you can. And when answering, be as detailed and specific as you can.

The next step is to start organizing your plan. Try to arrange things in a logical way so they make more sense. As I mentioned earlier divide your plan into short and long term goals. You will find that it is necessary to alter your plans occasionally so you should revisit them periodically.

You should be ready to make revisions to your plan as needed. Your business is going to grow, and the Internet market place changes frequently. So you need to be able alter your plan when the situation warrants it. Remember, your business plan isn’t written in stone and is there to work for you.

As you can see, one of the chief factors in becoming a successful internet marketer is to have a business plan. Some would say that if you don’t have a business plan, then you don’t really have a business.

If you have a blog and want to learn how to make money blogging or even if you don’t have a blog the Affiliate Power Group has all kinds of
options to get you setup and running within a few days.

The APG has organized a competition beginning August 1 that has been specifically geared to teach people HOW TO BLOG….and how to make money doing it. Not only that, you can earn BIG PRIZES TOO!!! You can try it for only $1 for a 10 day trial:
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Internet marketing is a term that is frequently misunderstood. If you ask, some would say it’s all of the junk email messages they receive. Others may think that it pertains to all the information available online.

If you are thinking about becoming a home based business internet marketer, you need to be aware of what the term means. In simple terms marketing is described as the method of selling something and internet marketing is a way to reach large numbers of people promoting your product or service.

The first principle of marketing is to find those people who are interested in what you have to offer. The second principle is actually comprised of two points: 1. Advertise in the right places and, 2. do not advertise everywhere.

Any worthwhile internet marketing strategy is based upon systems. Many marketers think that if they have an attractive website and put it online the customers will come. You might make a little money this way, but it won’t be very profitable. So you need a step by step system.

To begin with you need to know who your market is even prior to creating you site. You should also determine how your product or service will help them. You need to be precise. Many inexperienced marketers think there are markets where none exist.

Assumptions are not good when it comes to internet marketing. It’s important that you locate the market first, and then work out how to accommodate them.

Next you need to figure out the best way for potential prospects to find you. An internet marketing system takes this into account. Again, here’s that word assume. You cannot assume that they will just find you by searching for some product or service at Google. That’s really a long shot.

They may, or they may not. The truth is that you get to decide to a major extent how you want people to find you. Whatever you choose, make it a part of your marketing system.

Now you can begin thinking about putting your website together. Your site needs to incorporate everything you have done up to this point. You need to know the best way to communicate with your market, and how you are going to direct them to your site.

There are many methods and strategies for internet marketing such as article writing, blogging, search engine optimization and forum marketing. In addition, the internet marketing business has appeal because you can make money from home and you have so many marketing ideas to choose from.

However, if you are like I was in the beginning with little experience and little first hand knowledge of the Internet, the learning curve can seem insurmountable. If you need help with any part of internet marketing I highly recommend the Affiliate Power Group as a great, inexpensive way to learn home based business internet marketing.

Home based business marketing is where you will spend the majority of your time once you get your business set up. This means you need a website and a marketing strategy for promoting your home business online.

The real question then becomes how much money should you spend to promote your business. Many people get excited when they first start out and they quickly spend a lot of money in a way that is not effective.

When you first begin you should establish a modest budget and spend more time learning how to promote online. Track your results and increase your budget accordingly.

Never invest more money then you are willing to lose. There are not any guarantees in paid internet marketing.

This does bring up an important question though. If you could get more of your home based business marketing done for free would that be worthwhile to you?

The trade off when it comes to free advertising is that you will need to invest your own time. If you have more time than money this is a good way to promote your business.

So what type of free Internet marketing strategies work?

1. Article marketing.

2. Blogging.

These are two proven strategies that have worked now for several years and continue to do so. To do this you need to basically learn how to write short articles targeting specific keyword phrases.

EzineArticles.com is the  largest article directory in the world. They provide excellent free training on how to write and submit articles that bring in traffic and rankings within search engines.

ProBlogger.net is the #1 online blog offering training on how to build an Internet business doing blogging. You can subscribe to their RSS Feed and be kept up to date on what is going on in the blogging world.

Many people become intimidated about writing articles. In reality this is not that difficult to do. You just need to learn a few basic strategies on structuring an article.

Hopefully you choose a home based business that has products you believe in. You might even be promoting a specific home business opportunity. If the subject is one about which you have much knowledge and if you are passionate about it, you should have no difficulty writing about it.

You’ll never run out of ideas to write about because people come online every day looking for information on starting and running a home business. Your ability to put together useful articles that help them find information they are seeking is a good strategy for promoting your own business.

The exciting thing is when you do this type of home based business marketing it doesn’t cost you any money. All you do is invest your time.

A great place to learn marketing strategy for your home based business is with the Affiliate Power Group. Whether you are completely new and not sure how to get started or already have a website and need some technical help I recommend the Affiliate Power Group. They will help you succeed.

Do you sometimes feel like it is impossible for you to earn at home? After doing internet marketing for a number of years now I have found a few common factors that separate people who really do earn money from  those who do not.

Let me list a few things you might be able to relate to!

1. You are online, but are not working. There is a difference between surfing the Internet and actually doing things that will make you money.

The Internet is the greatest invention in the history of mankind for making money. It can also be a tremendous waste of time if you are not careful.

A perfect example of this is social networking. It’s very easy to interact with people on Facebook and think you are benefiting your business somehow. In reality you may just waste several hours every day talking to people and not actually earn any money from it.

That said, you can make money with social networking but it does require a balancing act between the socializing and the marketing.

Another example of this would be people who have a website and are constantly making adjustments to it.  You are not going to earn money at home if you do not increase the number of visitors you get to your website.

Tinkering with your site every day to make it look more attractive is not going to get you more website visitors. The only way to do that is to actually do the grunt work such as article marketing, blog commenting, placing classified ads, managing your Pay Per Click campaign, and so on.

2. Not understanding who you are. This is actually a very big mistake many people make.

Are you entrepreneurial in nature or are you a worker? An entrepreneur is somebody who is going to want to start their own business and build it. The Internet is a great place to do that.

A worker is somebody who wants to sit down in front of their computer and do specific tasks. Get paid to programs are perfect for this type of person.

You can get paid to take surveys online, perform data entry, type at home, read emails, etc. Your goal is to make a little bit of money every day on the work you actually perform.

The mistake lies when people who are not entrepreneurial in nature try to build an internet business. The same thing is true for people who are entrepreneurial and are wasting their time with get paid to programs.

It certainly is possible to earn at home. If you do the kind of work that is suited for you, and actually work at it on a consistent basis, you will earn money.

For more help to earn at home and build your home business and as my gift to you get your free copy of this life-changing report.

A lot of people get so involved with creating their email messages that they completely neglect the most critical step – getting people to sign up in the first place. It’s awfully easy to get weighed down and discouraged with building a list when you have worked at it and found little success.

If this describes you do not give up. Building your list is important if you expect to earn extra money working from home. There are some things you can do to get sign ups to your opt-in page.

People Need a Reason to Sign Up

Opt-in pages also known as squeeze pages are really just mini-websites. Therefore the most important thing you need is a headline that contains a benefit for the reader. Then provide a short list of benefits and give them a reason to sign up such as the offer of a free report or a free video or ebook.

In exchange for you free offer ask for their email address and name.  If you ask for much additional information you may well succeed in driving them away

Make Your Opt-in Page Attractive.

The best squeeze pages are simple with an eye catching headline that is attractive, strong and persuasive, and contains as few words as possible. The incentive you offer should prove to the reader that once they give you their email address that you will give them something of value.

The page should also contain a very clear Privacy Policy statement indicating that the client’s information will not be shared or sold.

Create Multiple Opt-in Forms

Normally you should place one opt-in form above the fold on you website. However, one is not enough. You should have a sign up form at the bottom of each page and sometimes you may see sites with a form to sign up in the footer. You might even, at sometime, build a whole site that is a squeeze page, but that is a subject for another time.

Leverage Networks

Some people are actively involved with social media while others are active in forums or discussion boards.  No matter where else you are active, it is important to still direct people to your opt in form.  For example, if you are offering a new deal on Facebook, then make people opt in.  Instead of having a link directly to your content, use a link to opt in page and tell them that the “great deal” is only available to your list so if they want to take advantage of it, they must sign up.

These 4 techniques are guaranteed to increase the size of your email list and help you earn extra money working from home.