Internet Marketing | Make Money Blogging

Tag Archive for Internet Marketing

I Lost Pinterest

When Pinterest was created, it happened to be the perfect social network for women. I can’t say for certain that it was designed originally for women in mind, but that’s just who it’s target market is for. Of course, after Pinterest went viral, everyone joined in and now the service has blown up.

My wife first joined Pinterest, and I joined suit immediately after. I was curious, but that’s all. I had no desire to actually use the social network because Facebook has been my thing ever since I stopped using MySpace. Just recently though, I decided to use it as a traffic tool. As with any social network, you must use it within it’s terms of service limits. If you go into marketing via a social network with spamming on your mind, you will only get yourself banned and probably hold a grudge.

What’s with Pinterest anyway?

Pinterest is a website where you can “pin” an image to your categorized board. That image links to a source where you found the image, and you can describe the image and/or link on your board. You and those in your network can also comment on pinned items.

Because this is still a young and fast growing social network, you can really benefit by joining in as soon as possible. As the social network grows, there are more people pinning things which makes it a much more saturated place like Facebook and Twitter.

How can I market my business with Pinterest?

It’s a social network. As with any social network, you need to be social for it to be beneficial for you. Don’t go in it with traffic and conversions on your mind. If you do, you will likely spam on accident which will be counter-productive. Instead, you need to actually take interest in what others are pinning. It shouldn’t be too hard. There are lots of things on there that may very well look interesting. Because it’s picture based, it’s easy to spot things you may want to check out and comment on.

You can also share your actual business links. For example, you can setup a board that says “my businesses” and place all of your links in there. Another board for your favorite places to vacation, or another for your favorite foods. That’s what I mean about “taking part” and not spamming. It’s ok to promote your own links, but just categorize them as such and don’t just promote your business. You wouldn’t just go onto Facebook and join a bunch of groups that you can post your link on would you?

Use comments like you would blog-hopping

Pinterest allows you to post comments on other people’s pins. As with blog marketing, if you go to other people’s content and comment, they will return the favor on yours. This results in other people finding your content and commenting as well as sharing if they find your pins interesting.

Commenting is one of the easiest and fastest ways to bring traffic to your boards. Use this technique immediately so you can start benefiting.

TAG – You’re it!

Tagging is something you are probably very familiar with if you use Facebook. When you want to notify someone that you are talking about them, such as in a post or a picture, you post their name. Pinterest ran with this feature and it works the same.

When you tag others (only if it’s relevant though), then you are likely to get their interest and “network” with them in a positive way. Just don’t abuse the tagging feature by naming people that have absolutely nothing to do with your pin. If you see someone really loves trains and you post a pin about trains, then you can tag them and get their interest. If you are selling luxury shoes and tag a bunch of men, then you are likely to be reported and even yelled at virtually by a bunch of dudes.

Titles make or break articles

If you are going to write a blog post, then you want to create a title that catches peoples’ attention. The same goes with pinning. Use a creative title that can possibly go viral.

Be descriptive in your title by mentioning what’s actually in it, but do it in a unique way. For example, the title of this article is “I Lost Pinterest“. That’s an eye catcher right there. You know automatically that it’s about Pinterest. The browser title also shows that it’s about Pinterest Marketing, and this is a marketing blog, so it all fits together.

As always, be creative and follow the rules. Pinterest can be a really big traffic source for you, and possibly get you some new business. You just have to join and take part.

Are you using Pinterest in your marketing campaigns?

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

How Much of My Marketing Budget Should Go Towards Online Marketing?

March 3, 2011 Brandon Connell Advertising, Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, reputation management, Sales, Traffic 3 comments

Marketing today isn’t what it used to be. As a matter of fact, online marketing has taken over in many different industries. Advertising in general is one of those industries. To understand this, take a look at the phone book. How many of you actually use on? Most people go right to Google or some other source and look up information.

I am not saying that you should have your business in the phone book, or ignore offline marketing methods completely. That would be crazy. Just because you have a ton of people moving towards the internet doesn’t mean you want to leave out the millions that still view other advertisements. I still get popular science magazine and look at the ads in the back, because they are just cool! What I am saying is that your budget should edge towards internet marketing.

Some of the paid marketing methods online that will help establish your brand and bring you traffic and sales are:

Google Adwords – This is something you most likely know about. But did you know that you should combine your PPC (pay per click) campaign with a good CPM (cost per thousand impressions) campaign as well? The difference is that the CPM only allows you to advertise on the network. That means any website that published Google Adsense is a potential target for your ads. The thing I love about CPM is that I can target my ads for a specific website, and in many cases, different spaces on that website. You can end up paying $3 for a thousand ad impressions compared to $3 for a single click. What if you get 40 clicks from that same $3?

Facebook Ads – Another program that allows you to target a specific demographic. Facebook ads are very effective because pretty much every type of person uses the website. Just like with Adwords, you can probably find a coupon code online for $50 in free advertising too!

BuySellAds.com – This site is an ad network, and a lot of bloggers use them to sell ad space. You can find different niche blogs on there with different ad spaces and sizes available. Their stats always seem to be off on the blog’s traffic, Twitter followers, and Alexa Traffic Rank, but that’s not a huge deal. The ad spaces can be worth it.

OIOPublisher – Not only is it the BEST plugin EVER for selling direct ad space on your blog, but they have a marketplace on their site that lists the many blogs using the plugin so you can advertise on them based on your target niche.

Fiverr.com – This website is brilliant! You can hire people for anything on there. You can find people to create text or video reviews raving about your business. You can find people who will post positive reviews about you on their established blogs. You can find people who will take care of the tedious tasks of getting Twitter followers and Facebook likes for you. The list is endless, and each will only cost you $5!

Paid Blog Reviews – You can actually pay blogs (like mine – see:advertising page) to write reviews about your product or service. Look for the blogs (like mine) that provide true and tested reviews though with objectivity. If I have cons that go with the pros for your product or service, then it will only work in your favor. Trust me. The quality reviews actually cost more though. Take for example my blog. I charge $500 for a paid review here, and I only allow one paid review per month. This adds to a paid review’s legitimacy. If you go for a $20 paid review on a respectable blog, chances are that they do those in volume and will have less of an impact for your business.

Press Releases – There are paid press releases that are totally worth it compared to the free press release websites. Paid press releases get sent out to actual print publishers that have online magazines. You may spend $100 on a press release that turns into thousands of dollars in new business for your company.

I only listed a few things here, but trust me when I tell you that there are tons of great ways to create an online marketing campaign. Some of the good ones cost a pretty penny, and should account for the majority of your paid marketing budget. But don’t let that stop you from utilizing the many free internet marketing methods to drive traffic and leads to your business.

To find some of those free marketing methods, simply hop around this blog and blink. I have tons of free tips on here. Don’t forget to subscribe to my rss feeds!

Drop a comment below and tell me how much you spend on internet marketing.

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

Incoming search terms:

advertising budget

Consulting and Coaching Service Trials

February 28, 2011 Brandon Connell Business, Internet Marketing, Making Money 2 comments

As I have a couple of consulting projects winding down, I have decided to put out a new promotion. ~~For the next 2 clients to become paying coaching customers, I will waive the $200 fee and allow you to pay just $70 for the first month.~~ UPDATE: I can no longer offer trials as I have filled those two slots. I do still have regular coaching and consulting slots open however. Learn more about my coaching services here.

I am doing this so that you can try out my services, and decide whether or not you want to continue learning how to make money online after the first month. You can cancel any time before the month is up, and you will not be charged again.

I hope this will make more people aware of my coaching services, as I am doing less web design these days and only take on so many of those projects now.

Why use a coaching mentor?

I have been in business for myself since 2002. Over that time, I have mastered internet marketing and seo, and have tested various ways of making money online.

Over the past year, I have transformed this new blog into a money making machine, and it’s only getting better. I can teach you how to duplicate my success, as you will have access to me via skype and email to answer all of your questions.

Things you can learn from my coaching program include but are not limited to:

Creating niche websites
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Social Media Marketing
Selling direct ad space
Building a list
Launching a product
Creating a service
Membership sites
Branding
and much more.

If you want to be one of the two new clients, drop me an email on my contact page.

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

New Sales Position Open

January 18, 2011 Brandon Connell Business, Employment, Sales, search engine optimization, UPDATES Comments Off

I normally post this information on the careers page of my web design company, but this time I am posting it here because it is a commission based sales job. I am very generous with my commission sales positions, and I give you 50% of the initial cost for search engine optimization with a 30% monthly residual commission for sem/internet marketing clients.

If you are able to generate seo/sem leads and close on them, then contact me right away. Comments are closed on this post as I prefer you contact me directly on this page. You will be referring clients to this blog and webdesigntaxi.com for reference.

Again, if you have lead generation and closing experience, hurry and contact me. Last time I announced a sales job, I got 100 responses. Commission based jobs work as an independent contractor.

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

Your Marketing Plan Template

December 4, 2010 Brandon Connell Advertising, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Research, search engine optimization 11 comments

During my research for popular search terms, I found that “marketing plan template” was on the rise. I decided to take advantage by writing a post about it. The research that provided this data was performed using Google Insights, which is a tool that I use regularly. Using this along with Google Trends, and you have yourself an excellent tool for finding out what hot topics will bring your blog some traffic.

Marketing Plan Template

Your marketing plan template should include solid research to determine what would bring in the maximum amount of traffic with the least effort. The good thing is that it is easy for regularly updated blogs to dominate key popular search terms. As a matter of fact, when you do a search, you are likely to see multiple blogs turn up on top with articles related to what you searched for. I find myself often seeing blogs pop up on the first page no matter what I am googling.

Research is a must for pretty much anything you are doing. You may be a niche site expert, and you know how vital it is to do your research before choosing a profitable niche. Or perhaps you are into statistics, and obviously you must do research. The problem is that people who unfamiliar with industries that require this kind of research do not know how important it is.

Video Marketing & Branding

Luckily, after your research, the next parts in your marketing plan can be fun. One thing I have noticed that people neglect, is their video branding. Not everyone who is trying to utilize YouTube for traffic brand their videos. When they are new to the video marketing game, they simply do not know and they risk potential theft by unethical internet marketers who do know about branding.

When I speak about video branding, I am clearly talking about the text that you add over the video. It is generally your URL where you want people to go after watching the video.

Tags, Categories, & All That Jazz

Something I have noticed in blogs owned by my clients, is that most of them have noindex, nofollow on tags and categories. This is functionality created by the All in One SEO plugin and others. It is the default setting for the plugin, and clearly the developers of that plugin knew nothing about search engine optimization and blogs. Your tags and categories are not recognized as duplicate content, but rather an alternate method of locating certain content within your blog. By not allowing these pages to be indexed and followed, you are closing doors on opportunities to get ranked in natural search. I have had multiple tags and categories outrank specific articles on some of my blogs, and I quickly make sure these are all indexable when I setup a new blog.

What is important is to make sure you are not abusing your tags. You want to use maybe 10 of them that are truly related to your content. This helps your search engine optimization immensely.

Make Your Article Important

There is one great way of showing search engine how important your content is. That is by linking to related pages that have already been indexed by search engines. Do you ever notice that articles you read often link to Wikipedia articles related to that subject? That’s because Wikipedia is loved by Google, and referencing a related article in the Wikipedia database is showing Google that your article is very relevant to that subject.

I often avoid linking to Wikipedia, and I opt to interlink to articles on my own blog instead. This helps my older articles attract commentary, and it shows Google that even my old content is updated and receives traffic.

Your article is only as important as you make it though. As I write this article, I am very much aware of the keywords I am using within the article, and what tags I am using around specific words and phrases. Notice up above where I bolded and italicized marketing plan template. Also, by using the word just now, I added to the keyword density of this article for that phrase while accounting for the amount of words I am using in this article.

Keep in mind the various seo obstacles that you face when writing an article. People always want to show off and say “just focus on the reader and not the search engine”. Well, I say that you can do both without sacrificing quality. I can easily insert a bit of seo by simply pointing out the techniques I am using in this article itself.

Blog Hopping is a Science

You obviously know by now that blog-hopping is an immediate way to get traffic. Did you know that how you blog hop is important as well?

What I mean by “how” is that for example, if I want to sell some ad space on my blog, I would use my direct link to my advertising page rather than to my homepage. When someone clicks my name from a blog that I commented on, the first thing they would see is my ad placements and rates. If I wanted to sell a service like web design or search engine optimization, then I would link to those pages instead.

For the purposes of seo, if you are smart and listened to what I said about categories and tags, then you can link directly to one of those from a related site. When Google follows the link, they would see updated content on those categories or tags often as you update your blog with new content. Are we connecting the dots here?

I like to think of blog hopping as a targeted marketing method. Not just because you blog hop on relevant blogs, but because you target specific content on your blog with your hopping activities.

Relevancy of Advertising

Do you take money just because you need it? I don’t. Well, I don’t really need it as much as I used to because my business is fairly successful. But if you are new to working at home, or simply not yet making money, then it could be tempting to accept advertising that is not relevant to not only your blog but your specific article.

Did you notice the ad to the left? It is related to what I am talking about right now… Working at home. If I placed an ad pushing beauty products, then it would obviously not be targeted advertising. I am sure there are some beautiful women who read my blog, but I wouldn’t target them alone. I am targeting my entire community of readers because we are all interested in working from home.

If you checked out my advertising page, you would notice that I offer a paid review service. Did you notice the cost. Presently it is $500 for one paid review, and I only offer one paid review slot per month. This ensures I do not mess with the quality of my posts in lieu of cash. I am not that hard-up, sorry. I have had to turn down money on this blog many times because the product either was irrelevant, or not containing the quality that I would recommend to my readers.

Discussion

Based on the many things I discussed above, it is important for your marketing plan template to pay attention to detail. Focus on quality while not taking away from search engine optimization. Make sure your content is in the right place before it gets published.

What steps do you take to ensure your marketing plan is on par with the top blogs in your niche?

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

Incoming search terms:

sample marketing proposal template for a gossip blog

The Top Forums to Build Backlinks & Get Traffic

November 25, 2010 Brandon Connell Internet Marketing, Marketing, search engine optimization, Traffic 27 comments

As you all know, forums are a great tool to produce traffic and build links. That’s why I am including a list of some of the best forums out there for you to participate in. Make sure that you join these forums if you haven’t already, and participate on a regular basis in order to build your reputation and get traffic. Also, the more you participate, the more links you have coming to your websites.

Digital Point – This is a great forum to discuss everything from seo, to adsense, to niche sites. There are tons of topics to discuss, and lots of people participating. By far one of my favorite forums out there!

Marketing Forum – A new but dedicated forum to help you promote your blog. You can also learn about seo, internet marketing, niche sites, and more. This forum is growing daily and you should get in on the ground floor so you can build your reputation early.

Newsgator – Do you use any of the Newsgator products like the toolbar for example? If so, you can participate here.

Seo chat – I shouldn’t have to tell you that the SEO Chat forum is all about search engine optimization. If you can’t get enough seo, then join Seo Chat and participate for traffic!

Daniweb – A forum for all things I.T. Discuss hardware, software, web development, internet marketing, you name it! This one is a must!

Feed For All – A forum all about feeds and syndication. Worth a look and some participation.

Google Community – A good place to promote, learn internet marketing, social media, and whatever. Decent size with over 40,000 members so worth signing up and participating.

Bloggeries – I have recently started spending a lot of time here, and I can vouch for the traffic it sends. I was dedicated and did 50 insightful comments on threads in an evening, but I am sure they appreciate my contributions . As you know, this is for bloggers… hence the name.

Blogger Forum – Not huge, but not small with 35,000 members. This is a great place for bloggers to promote, design, and all things blogging related.

WebDigity – A pretty large webmaster forum. Lots of topics like web design, graphics, site monetization, programming, site promotion, and more. Check it out!

WebProWorld – I have been a member of this one since 2004, and I used to be a heavy-hitter on there. I slowed down, but have recently started picking back up again. While I was dormant, this forum still sent me traffic from old threads. They cover pretty much everything, and no other forum can compare yet. This would have to be my #1 favorite above Digital Point.

As always, you can easily locate forums related to your niche by Googling “your niche + forum”. Happy hunting everyone!

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

Incoming search terms:

best forums for backlinks

Drive Major Traffic to Your Blog With a “First to Comment” Contest

June 14, 2010 Brandon Connell Blogs, Internet Marketing 16 comments

So you all know that you can make some great traffic gains with contests. I have with a recent contest to win free advertising here on my blog (which is still open until June 27th, 2010 by the way). You can be all sorts of creative to get traffic and commentators on your blog. But what if you wanted a flood of comments?

I thought of this while thinking about how some of my posts get lots of comments, and some get just a few. My idea is to promote the blog at some point with a “first to comment” contest. How it works is that you would announce the contest and let everyone know that for the next month, the first comment on every post will be an entry to win your contest. You might end up with 10 “first comments” of people who are on the blog at the same time and saying “yay first!”, and then they will see when they go there who is really in first. The key obviously is to ensure that everyone knows their comment has to have value to qualify. They can’t just show up and say “first”. They can say that, then add on their comment about the specific post in question.

You don’t have to worry about people not commenting because of arriving late. They will still comment saying that they wish they made it on time, and they would comment on the article in general. But they will also end up trying hard to get an entry which ensures that your blog will receive a lot of daily traffic for that month. Hopefully, after the month is over you will have gained some loyal daily readers.

The cool thing about all of this is that it can become fun, with people laughing and commenting just because they missed it by a second. Your readers will actually engage each other like a family or good friends.

Now, off to find the prize!

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

Reviving Old Posts: How to Get Comments, and Make Money From Old Articles

June 2, 2010 Brandon Connell Blogs, Internet Marketing, Making Money, Sales 10 comments

Reviving old posts is something you should think about after your blog starts getting some good traffic and commentators. But how to go about that is a question among many bloggers. I would like to share a few tips that I have figured out along the way. Keep in mind that these tips will only work if you actually put them to use. I find that blog beginners who are not yet serious attempt to do some of the advice they receive, but not all. What happens then is that the expected results do not happen and they are clueless as to why. To ensure that your comments grow over time, try these:

Linking to old articles within your posts as a reference is a good way to drive traffic to the oldies. I find myself occasionally linking to an old article rather than Wikipedia if I have a relevant post published. The chances of your reader clicking on the link that goes to an old article rather than an off-site source is much better.

Edit your old articles. I like to go into my old articles and add new information to them that may draw more attention. Let’s say that your old articles didn’t include pictures, or enough reference materials. You can make them articles more attractive by making them look more like your recent articles. Not only that, but while you are in there editing you can also include affiliate links or banners that you now work with and are trying to make money from. Of course, if you are going to monetize, I always recommend using a site-wide solution that does all of the legwork for you in one place.

A plugin called CommentLuv allows you to choose from older articles to include as your latest article when commenting on other blogs. Use this feature and choose an older post. When people click the link, the first thing they see is that post and are likely to comment on it. This only goes so far. CommentLuv shows a list of the most recent posts as far as I know. I did not explore it in detail to find out if it brings up months old posts for selection under a setting or something, but maybe it is a good idea to recommend to them if they don’t already have that feature.

Are there sites out there linking to you? If there are, chances are that the webmaster had good reason. It might be a good time to contact them and ask them if they would be willing to help you by linking to a specific post somewhere on their site. This will also help with the inbound deep linking campaign you might have in place.

Include your older article links and a small snippet of them in your free newsletter. This is a great way to get comments on those old articles because you are inviting people who already subscribed to your content.

Sticky your old article so that it stays on the top of your homepage. People may be confused at first by looking at the date, but if the article is good you will receive comments regardless. Just don’t go closing old posts off from new comments.

Include your older article link in your outgoing emails and replies. I would only do this if the article was relevant to what the person’s interests are who I am emailing.

I have already used these methods and I can vouch for their effectiveness. Put them to work for you today and you will see results. You will find that one day, you have a need to get comments on older articles. The reason may be that you noticed an older article getting good PageRank or top 10 Google rankings. Or maybe someone is linking to your article.

Whatever your reason, it is wise to show new readers that you are inviting comments.

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

“Dropped by to Say Hi” Marketing and Other Cool Tricks

May 26, 2010 Brandon Connell Graphic Design, Internet Marketing 11 comments

Non-obtrusive marketing is the best kind because it allows you to get your brand in front of people who use social networks. The cool thing is that it doesn’t turn them off because of the way you do it. A prime example would be MySpace. I often use MySpace and I like to comment on other profiles. But who says that my comments have to be bland?

See to the left this graphic that I designed today for my social network marketing efforts. This was designed so that I can actually stop by a MySpace profile and say hi to the friend while passing along my message at the same time.

My intention was to use the social network as it was intended, and drive some traffic to my blog at the same time. By keeping my intentions within the boundaries of the social networks rules, I can avoid being a spammer.

In order to do something like this, you either have to know how to use Photoshop, or hire someone that does. Luckily, such a small graphic design project should only cost a minimal amount.

Your graphic that you intend to use to drive traffic should have a “get to the point” message within it, and a call to action. Mine was to get them to click the graphic and go to my blog to learn how to make money blogging.

I can tell you right now that this does bring in traffic. I have seen the stats to prove it. This would not be the first website I have marketed like this. I have also promoted my web design and seo company using this process.

The key is commenting on the profiles that have the most friends, and comments. You will also obviously only post it on profiles that allow html comments. By posting it on high traffic profiles, you end up with more clicks from people who think that the graphic or the message on it is interesting. I would say that this is a form of guerrilla marketing because it is the “go and get it” approach.

Marketing is more than blog commenting and link building. Social networks are a huge potential source of traffic. If you had the big bucks and can afford to advertise on them, then great. Otherwise, use the guerrilla marketing within their guidelines to your advantage. If I were to just post a graphic that had my message without the “stopping by to say hi” on it, then I would appear to be spam. But because “stopping by to say hi” is common on MySpace, it is something that users already expect, and it’s non-obtrusive.

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

I Am Looking for Guest Posters

May 24, 2010 Brandon Connell Blogs, Internet Marketing, Making Money 8 comments

Any takers? I would love to feature some guest posters here. This blog gets a LOT of traffic, and you will benefit from it by having your expertise published. I am looking for guest posts on blogging, making money online, and internet marketing. If you have something around those topics then please let me know. Check out my guest posting page.

I look forward to the responses.

» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link

« Older Entries