Creative Traffic Builders

Now that you’ve finished building your newest website, you’re going to have to get out there and let people know about it. A great guerilla marketing technique is contributing through comments on forums and other online communities. I’m assuming that you’re smart enough to participate in a forum that you know has interest in your product. If you’re selling pet products, then you should be on a online community for dog owners. So, here are some guidelines and tips that would make best use of your time:

Speak from the Heart
People who participate in Online Communities can see right through any sales pitch you’re trying to convey to the community. The best thing to do is respond to topics with no alterior motives in your mind. Let your own experiences dictate what you would like to respond to in order to help the topic stay active.

Golden Rule 2.0
There’s nothing more rude in real life conversation than to have someone shout you down before you can make your opinion heard. So, as the golden rule applies offline, it applies just as much online – treat others as you would like to be treated.

Be Personable
This shouldn’t be too hard for most of you as you have had a lot of experience with talking to people on the phone. The great thing about the internet and online communities especially, is that they don’t care as much for proper grammar. With this being said, feel free to type as you would speak to people on the phone.

Get a feel for the Community
Start off by commenting on popular topics (a topic with over 10 responses). The key is providing comment that can either lead to another discussion topic or help build on the topic already being discussed. Just make sure you don’t comment using a closing statement which could lead to the end of the topic. i.e. that’s a great point about embryotic stem cells, but what do you think about the use of cord blood stem cells? Remember, religion and politics are something you never talk about with new people except for when you’re online. The point is you want to create controversy and stoke the topic fire.

Develop a reputation
Before you start spamming people to come visit your sites. I would say posting 50-75 posts without mentioning your sites would be a good buffer to give members of the community to see that you’re not there to just sell something. Let them start to know your interests and what you do for a living, which would naturally help you transition to talk about your site

Cultivate Vanity
People always love showing off, so if you can think of topics that will get people to talk about themselves, then go for it – i.e. Best Workstation Threads, Best Design Threads, Best Joke Threads – things that anyone can answer. They key here is that you’re giving yourself an opportunity to interact with as many people as possible in the community. After each response to your thread, I would recommend writing back a response to comment on their own response.

Take Advantage of Community Features
Most online communities have either Private Messaging or the ability to email people directly. Utilize these features to help fellow community members out. If you think they are in need of private counseling or advice, go ahead and send them a message to let them know you care.

Use this time to Research and Learn
Like I said in the beginning, this type of guerilla marketing can be extremely time consuming, but like one of my favorite cartoon character, Scrooge McDuck, says - “Work Smarter, not Harder!”  So, what I like to do while I’m interacting on these online communities is to find out what people are saying about the industries - favorite websites, favorite features, product requests, customer service hassles, etc. You can learn so much and apply what you learn to your websites.

If you have any additional tips and suggestions, please feel free to provide in our comments section. I’ll try my best to answer any questions or offer my opinions on your online community strategies.

The answer: It depends on the goals of your site.

In the coming weeks and months, Gary and I will be bringing some insight to you on the different ways to drive traffic to your web site, but not in an “SEO vs. PPC” way of thinking. That’s oversimplifying internet marketing.

Let us know what types of sites you own, what questions you have, or how to approach a particular goal. We’ll do our best to help answer what we can, or shed light on these or similar topics.

Leave your questions and comments here. We look forward to providing you with some creative solutions to bringing traffic to your web sites!

The managers of the Yahoo! Search Marketing team presented a range of releases that were recently implemented. I’ve outlined them below for you, as presented to us at the San Diego advertiser’s workshop. They also presented a short list of upcoming releases, which I’ll be going over later as well. Let us know if you have any questions regarding these features, what issues you may have run into, or feel free to share any positive experiences you’ve had testing them!

Move / Copy Keywords

Advertisers now have the ability to move keywords from one ad group to another, if for some reason the second ad group is more relevant for those terms. Once they’re moved, they do go through the standard editorial review process. I’ve learned that keyword history is not transferred to the new ad group, it only remains in the previous group. Individually assigned keyword details are transferred, however (i.e. destination URL, etc).

This should help save some time by copying keywords instead of adding them, but the down side is you can’t “cut” keywords from one group to the other. Removing the keywords from the first group after they’ve been moved must be done manually.

Write / Edit Ad Enhancements

Necessary enhancements are being made to the “write ad” section, giving advertisers the ability to view and edit all ads on one page, view the performance of all ads on one page, view competitive ads displaying for specific keywords in the ad group, and navigate to their Best Practices page.

This is a vast improvement from having to navigate back and forth between the ad group and individual “edit ad” pages, which wastes valuable campaign management time. There remain a few lingering unintuitive functions of the write ad page, but these new improvements outweigh the current minor problems.

Keyword Suggestions

Generate suggested keywords for your ad groups with the keyword suggestion tool based on similar variations of current keywords, or based on your URL. However, keep in mind that like any keyword suggestion tool, these are merely suggestions to help broaden your campaigns. You must decide whether or not the suggested keywords are relevant enough for that particular ad group, a different ad group, or a different campaign altogether.

It’s best to keep a very tightly knit grouping of keywords in each ad group, based around the core keyword. For example:

• Kate Spade handbag blue
• cheap Kade Spade handbag
• Kate Spade handbag sale
• Kate Spade handbag purse

Low Quality Index Score

In an attempt to assist advertisers in improving Quality Index Score, YSM will be adding features to notify users when the QI is low (one bar), allow users to view low QI ads in one location, get suggestions for improving QI, and search for low quality ads.

This is a good start in helping users be aware of ads that are performing poorly according to their system, and allow low QI ads to be searched. However, since landing page relevance is not yet factored into YSM’s current quality score rating, it’s difficult to be able to optimize the ad’s quality, and is far more arbitrary than Google AdWords’ quality score algorithm. Only keywords and ad copy determine an ad’s Quality Index Score, and therefore must be continually tested for those two factors only when attempting to increase the QI.

Ad Generator

This is a tool that I have yet to use. My instinct is wary of it but you don’t learn unless you test, right? So, from what YSM says, ads are generated by mixing up pieces of ad copy we enter and gives suggested variations of ads. It may be a time saver in generating the ads, and could possibly suggest some creative that hasn’t been thought of, but I’d keep a close eye on how they perform. Feel free to test it out and let us know what type of results you find.

Hopefully all of you who are using the YSM system will test out these new features whenever you have the time. The YSM team is very open to receiving feedback so feel free to give your rep a shout if you run into a problem, come across a new feature that’s really helped you out, or have an idea for a new feature that would make your life as an advertiser easier!

Tags: ppc, ysm

Gary and I attended Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Advertiser Workshop in San Diego county this past September. Yahoo! held the complimentary event in an effort to present the latest updates to the Panama ad system, as well as receive direct feedback from their current users. Was it worth the one-day trip out of town to attend? Overall, I believe so.

Yahoo! managers presented their product updates, focusing on PPC and touching on new search features to be added in the near future. I’ll be going into further detail about what these updates are soon. For now, you should try to find out if the workshop will be coming to your area. If you are advertising with YSM, meeting the managers and discussing your concerns and recommendations with them is pretty rewarding. I think a few recommendations Gary and I brought up had them thinking, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they listed them on their long to-do list. We know they have a long to do list because they told us they do!

All in all, I think the YSM system has a long way to go, and I’m expecting to see many more changes coming soon, on top of the ones presented to us. The feeling I got was that they just aren’t fully understanding the experience of the user — us, the advertisers. It’s why I recommend others to attend these workshops. It’s not just for novice advertisers who are seeking campaign management guidance, it’s for all users of all skill levels to give them constructive feedback (of course, don’t be that one guy who goes off in the middle of the workshop about his bad customer service experience!) in order to help improve the overall function of the system. Yahoo! does provide high quality traffic, just not in as high of volume as the other guys.

If you make it to one of their events, let us know how it goes. We’d love to hear your feedback too.

Tags: ppc, ysm

Since I’m consumed by emailing marketing and business development for most of my day, I wanted to write about my experiences so that I can help you make money online through an email marketing business. This will be the first post in a series of posts that discusses the finer points of setting up, testing and optimizing your advertisements, landing page and email copies.

To give you a very brief explanation, the business of email marketing is to make money off exclusive information about a particular subject. By using the information to attract a certain demographic of people, these sites make money by advertising the right types of products to them. The topics email marketing can range as far and wide as you can imagine as long as there is a niche which you can make money off of - basic Supply and Demand!

Topics that I have seen become successful are:

Learn how to Make Money Online
Learn the Inside Tricks to a Successful EBay Business
Learn how to Play the Stock Market
Learn how to invest wisely in Real Estate
Learn how to diversify your Portfolio
Learn how to become a Wizard like Harry Potter
Learn the Beauty Secrets of a Attractive People
Learn how to pick up on Women

Ya, that last one caught me too, but I know for a fact that the Harry Potter site makes boatloads of money off young impressionable kids looking to become a little bit more special. The key to picking the right topic to write about is finding a subject that’s subjective enough where all opinions on the matter can be taken into account.

So now, you need to pick the product you want to sell and then find out what kind of information you should write to attract your demographic OR the easier way would be to write about something you have a specific and passionate knowledge about and then find a product that you can sell to your readers. Finding the perfect blend of information and product placement is what separates the aspiring millionaires from the current millionaires!

For the sake of this series, I’m going to write about Fantasy Basketball because people who compete in Fantasy Basketball leagues look to gain any sort of advantage they can get. Now, what I need to do is figure out what kind of products I’m going to sell to my demographic, which would most likely be men between the ages of 13-35. Off the top of my head, I think good products to sell to this demographic are sporting goods and tech gadgets, so the best places to look for these affiliate deals would be:

www.cj.com
www.linkshare.com
www.linkconnector.com

Now that I have my products that I want to place and the type of information I want to write about, I will have to get started with designing the layout of the website and the email campaign I will be sending out to my future readers. As you can probably guess, that will be the topic of my next post.

What kind of ideas have you thought of while reading this post? Do you have questions on what kind of products you should promote?

After a few months, I received a call regarding a new heater I’m finally getting installed now  for those cold southern californa summers coming in a few months! During the call, I had some questions and the lady on the phone told me to hang on. I was expecting to start hearing annoying elevator music, which we all know sounds spectcular over a cell phone speaker. Instead, I heard a very informative message about the company’s new website, their new employees and backgrounds and their upcoming specials. I thought this was a great way to make use of their call hold program and I made a mental note to advise my clients to practice the same marketing technique to promote the new blogs that I’m setting up for them. You can tell people about your new blog, your latest posts and what’s the hot topics amongst your commentators. The Key is to get your listener to remember your blog address and convince them to get to a computer to check it out. A good method is to tell your customer that they can find a “coupon code” for your services/products on your blog. Saving money has always been a great carrot in business.

For those of you who dont know how to set this up, call your local phone company and/or phone representative to come out and set it up for you. From what I know, you basically have to just set up a recording, then continuously loop the message, then have that playing device hooked up to your phone system. Fair warning though - I’m not a phone expert. I’ve just seen it set up like that once before.

I’m not going to say that you’re going to get hundreds of more customers or readers because of this tip, but instead, I see this tip as one of those “little” things that smart businesses should do to help cover all their bases.

As I watch TV, listen to the radio and of course, surf the net, I realize that I pay special attention to the ways TV Networks, Radio Stations and Internet sites try and grab our attention with advertisements and promotions. What I learn is that every time I see, hear or read these advertisements, I was given a chance to get a free marketing lesson from some of the top marketing firms in the world.

Key Points to look out for:

• Type of Message - Prey on Fear or Urgency (think Viagra Commercials)
• Choice of Words - Too many vs. Too Little.
• Images - Question why they chose that image vs. another.
• Transitions - Are there any? Do they funnel you into any direction?
• Choice of Music - Fast vs. Slow? Excitement? Commercials are mini-movies with their own soundtrack to evoke feelings as well!
• Choice of Actors - Did they affect you with their presence? (i.e. I still don’t understand why Kenny Mayne does insurance commercials)

The bottom line is that you should try your best to figure out what emotions the commercial just evoked from you. Determine what the advertiser succeeded and failed in doing. I would suggest keeping a pad and pencil on your coffee table or in your car for you to jot down your thoughts, so you can take advantage of all the free lessons of the day!

So you have your website set up and you’re ready to go. Before giving the greenlight to your webmaster to launch the site, make sure that you go over these Top 10 Things to Remember in Web Marketing:

Ability to Adapt - No matter how great you think your website is, it’s what your customers think about your site that matter the most. So if that great idea you had just doesn’t pan out the way you think it should be or if there’s some new technology that your site can take advantage of, don’t be too stubborn to adapt.

Make Sure your Overall Business Works - For most businesses, the website is another source of traffic to direct to your business. So make sure that your business is running like clockwork when delivering your service or products to your customers.

Establish Team Roles - Make sure your team knows their roles, so that if any part of the site is not working, you know exactly who to turn to in order to get things running smoothly as soon as possible.

Properly SEO the Site - As soon as your site goes live, it will beging to be indexed by all the search engines. You want to make sure that you provide the right title, description and keywords for each page of your site so that when people find your links in the search results, you have made sure to provide the most informative listing possible.

Be able to Update your Site Quickly - If you’re sold out of something, you better be sure to indicate that on your site or you’re going to be left with a lot of customers leaving with a bad taste in their mouth. The same point applies to any part of your site whether it be the correct email address or the right pricing points.

Think through your Customers Eyes - Everyone has been a customer at some point and we all know what we like and what we don’t when we arrive at someone’s business or website. Take time to look at your site as a customer and try your best to address what you don’t like!

Get Ready To Hustle - Traffics not going to come to your door with a box of chocolates and some flowers. You’re going to have to get out there and promote your site like no other. Get your checklist of forums, blogs, web sites and other hot spots ready to start getting traffic on a daily basis.

Important Metrics are being Measured - There’s no more emptier feeling in marketing than getting all the traffic in the world, but not knowing where it’s coming from and how it’s converting. Spending Wisely is the most overlooked aspect of online marketing!

Remember your Mission Statement - Use your Mission Statement as your Guiding Light just in case you lose your way.

Remember to Plan Ahead - Let’s say you’ve followed all my advice and you’re getting loads of traffic to your site, do you have a plan to handle the extra traffic? Are you ready to streamline your product line? Do you know who to contact to upgrade your hosting package bandwidth? Do you have enough products to provide your customers?

Cracking the 7k mark in Technorati rankings in less than 3 months and generating over 425 backlinks on Google have been some of my prouder moments in my relatively short blog career. I wish I could say that I write such amazing content that over 500+ blogs have linked to me, but the honest truth is that the biggest reason my rankings have shot up on Technorati is because of the two successful link trains I launched these past 3 months. The Name in My Domain and Technorati Faves Link Train are still giving me backlinks and new visitors to this day and as a result, I’ve come away learning a few things about building a successful link train. So, if you’ve been thinking about starting a link train of your own, here are my Top 5 Tips to building a Successful Link Train:

Tip #1 - Keep it Simple
The link train is a very simple marketing tool, so don’t try to get too creative and add too many different rules to the train. Keep the rules simple and keep the objective simple. The biggest reason you want to do this is that you want to make it as easy as possible for people to participate and promote the train for you.

Tip #2 - Create a Train with a Theme
When I first started the Name in My Domain link train, the main theme of the train was to find out who else used their name as their domain. To my surprise, a LOT of people used their names as their main domain and they were ready to show off that they did. The Technorati Faves Link Train took off with the theme of exchanging Technorati favorites with as many people as possible. Just like in real life, a party is more fun when there’s a theme to it, so this is your opportunity for you to use your creativity to bring something different to the table. Some examples of how bloggers are using this tip are:

• Kelly Cho - FeedMe Link Train & Bob’s Feed My Feed Train *Same Trains, but different originators - will post my thoughts on this later*
• Shawn Knight - MyBlogLog Link Train

Here are some other train ideas I have if you want try them out. Just include me on the original list if you decide to run with it.

• Digg Link Train - Create a Train of Digg Friends and Grow your Digg Friend Count
• Top 10 Link Train - Create a Train of Posts about Top 10 Lists of Everything and Anything
• Industry Link Trains - A link train that can help you discover other blogs in your niche. For example, for food bloggers - Best Use of Beef Link Train (definitely let me know if you do this one and I’ll refer you to my 36 oz Porterhouse experience)

Tip #3 - Keep Original Train Members List Short
With my first list, I started with about 12 people on the train comprised of blogs I often read. Then when I created my second train, I jumped all the way up to 20+ people on my list comprised of bloggers who I have interacted with. I have to say that I was definitely lucky in that with my second train, all the people that I listed were very enthusiastic about the project and took the time to help get the train rolling from the very beginning. Even with the success of the second train, I would recommend that you use a smaller list of 8-10 bloggers who you KNOW will help get the train rolling from the very beginning. The main reason being is if you add too many people to your list just to make a big list, then who are the members of this list suppose to spread the train to?

Tip #4 - Make sure the Train Benefits Everyone
Like with most people in life, bloggers love to receive more than they give away. The beauty of the link train is that it coincides perfectly with blogger mentality, which probably explains why it’s so popular! For example, look at the Technorati faves train. By copy and pasting one post, then adding everyone on that list to your faves list, a blogger will receive

1. Backlinks
2. New Visitors
3. Increased Faves Total with the possibility of cracking the Technorati Top 100 list.

Tip #5 - Have Fun and Don’t get Too Serious
I know the link train is a very powerful tool and that it can be optimized even more, but to be honest with you, I’ve come across some pretty agro bloggers who overreacted just a tiny bit if I forgot to exchange a favorite or anything of the sort. If you look at it as just a tool to get backlinks, then you’re not going to succeed. If you look at it as an opportunity to find new blogs while getting some link love, then I think you’ll be just fine.

What link train theme ideas have you had? What are new ideas do you have to make the train better? What ideas do you have that are better than the train in general?

er, Words? Nope! You read right! One of the biggest untapped resources of clicks to your blog is the Google Image Search Engine!

With the whole internet trying to rank for keywords through SEO or PPC marketing campaigns, I’m sure optimizing your site’s image tags hasn’t been one of your highest priorities on your list, since it’s one of the most overlooked “must do” items all webmasters should have on their list.

So, how do we get started? Well, I’m going to use an image that’s easy on the eyes - A Healthier Tyra Banks. Some of you might remember my little rant about Tyra Banks a while back ago. If you don’t, go check it out. Here’s the image I’ll be using:

Here are the 5 Steps to Optimizing this Image Correctly:

1) Make sure your SRC is correct - i.e. http://www.mrgarylee.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/tyrasi10years.jpg

2) Make sure your dimensions are clearly defined. i.e. Width=”475″ Height=”323″

3) The most important part is your Alt Tag where you will Describe and use Keywords for your Image - i.e. Alt=”Healthier Tyra Banks After Sports Illustrated”

4) Title your Image properly - i.e. Title=”A Healthier Tyra Banks After Sports Illustrated”

5) Write content that is related to the description you have written for the Alt Tag. This helps support the quality of the image description you gave.

Just so that it’s easier for you to copy and paste, here is the code in it’s entirety:

<img src=”http://www.mrgarylee.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/tyrasi10years.jpg” width=”475″ height=”323″ alt=”Healthier Tyra Banks After Sports Illustrated” title=”A Healthier Tyra Banks After Sports Illustrated”/>

Now that you know what to do, you can join me by going over your whole site to make sure all your images are properly optimized for Google Image Search. I hope you have as much fun as I do and that you receive many clicks from this tip! Feel free to come back and let us know how this form of search engine optimization has worked out for you!