Definition of Internet Marketing

Back in 1994 after you created a website for your business, marketing was fairly simple. Generally you would make changes to your HTML code for search engine optimization and for the most part promoted your website through offline methods. These may have included business cards, letterhead, print advertising and other such methods. Whether or not your site was listed on the only search engine, Yahoo, at the time was purely based on how well you optimized our web pages. If you did a good job then multiple pages of your site would be listed consecutively for a search.

Twelve years later in 2006 the entire perspective of marketing your site on the web has become a science requiring a degree.

Although, we are all eager to market our website on the web we are somewhat unclear how to accomplish this task through a maze of policies set by the Big 3 search engines - Google, MSN and Yahoo. Most businesses would first seek out professional advice. In the process of seeking professional Internet Marketing advice, your story may look something like this.

"By now I had heard about pay-per-click, something called Ad Sense, link exchanges, banner advertising and it all sounds quite confusing.
After all as a business owner, my forte is to run my company, not try and figure out how to market a website on the Internet. As I seek out professional advice I get quite a variety of different stories. One person calls themselves Internet marketer and the only thing they provide is Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns.
The next person I speak to also consider their business to be in Internet Marketing, yet the only service provided is Search Engine Optimization. Even that term was somewhat vaguely defined to me. I continue to hear about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but it seems to vary from changes to our website to advertising on the web. I am most definitely puzzled at this point. Can anyone describe what Internet Marketing is actually about?"

Advertising and Marketing has always been handled by professional firms that have college educated individuals and understand the difference between Advertising and Marketing. In case you are wondering, here are the definitions of Advertising and Marketing.

- Marketing is the process or technique of promotion, selling and distributing a product or service.

- Advertising is to make your product or service publicly known; an announcement to call public attention by emphasizing qualities to arouse a desire to purchase.

One of the primary issues of advertising and marketing on the Internet is that you may not necessarily reach someone educated in the field of advertising and marketing. Instead it is someone that has educated themselves about a particular area of Internet Marketing. For instance they may have specialized in Affiliate Marketing or Pay-Per-Click campaigns while another individual may know more about making changes to your website for search engine optimization. Currently these types of services are fragmented and they do require someone with the appropriate skills to manage an entire Internet marketing campaign.

If we take a look at all the different areas of Internet marketing you will find the following in your list:

Research, Analysis, Planning and Strategy We need to research key phrases and look at the data to determine our title and description.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) I believe it is safe to say that SEO is not advertising on the web. SEO is strictly modifications to your HTML code and website. Making sure your website is HTML validated, density checks, the keywords, phrases, content, alt descriptions, anchor titles and so on are in place for the entire website.

Internet Marketing This is the actual process of promotion as the definition of marketing was described earlier. Some would call this Natural Propagation Marketing, others will call it Organic marketing. With this form of marketing you can rest assured the shelf life of the efforts put forth can be measured in years.

Internet Advertising Although, the shelf life of Internet advertising can be measured in seconds and can hemorrhage a business financially, there are three areas of Internet advertising. The first would be to utilize an Internet Advertising Network (IAN) to submit a variety of banners through out a variety of websites in order to narrow your advertising to an area with the most response. Another area is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns such as Google Ad Sense or Yahoo Search Marketing. Lastly, you may consider direct advertising on websites that you have found to be of value to your business withhigh page ranking.

Management & Reporting It is necessary to monitor all the various activities you are pursuing on the web. Internet marketing gives us the ability to measure almost all aspects of our advertising and marketing campaigns with the push of a button. You will want to keep an eye on your website statistics, check your Google page rank, your Alexa traffic ranking, and your link popularity overall to name a few.

If we consider all the various parts that are required for proper business Internet marketing, you will find the industry moving towards consolidation in the future. Equally, we will find that advertising and marketing on the web will eventually fall back to educated professionals who not only understand advertising and marketing, but will now include their education in Internet marketing as well.

About the Author: Melih Oztalay is the CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing. Internet marketing is not only about knowledge and experience, but also about imagination.

How To Write Your Own Content

If you are very interested in creating your own content you should make yourself familiar with the necessary steps required when writing content for business use.

Create a Draft
When you start writing you should begin with a draft of your information. Regardless of whether you are writing a paragraph or a book you should write down the basic thought or information that you are trying to put across to your audience.

Many times a writer will go back to the draft for reference or as a starting point if the first efforts are not satisfactory. By preparing a draft you will not need to worry about whether you remembered the points that needed to be covered or what the purpose of the writing was.

You may only need a few words or brief sentences for your draft. Writing your thoughts as well as your references or quotes down ahead of time will free your mind to create compelling content without trying to hold all the important details in your head as you work.

If you are writing an article or report you should just write the thoughts down as they come to you for your first draft. You can go back and edit it when you've put everything on paper. If you're writing longer content, such as a book, you need to create a table of contents along with a brief summary of each chapter as a basis for getting started.

Do not be concerned with proofreading or accuracy on your first draft. If you need to do more research or check a fact you can go back and do it later. Getting started can be the hardest part for most writers. Avoid getting caught up in making it perfect the first time and you will find it much easier to progress from beginning to end without too much stress.



Make it Clear
When you've finished your first draft you will need to read it over from start to finish and make notations of areas that need clarification or rewording.

Sometimes the information you write down makes sense to you but is not clear to others. This can easily happen when your writing is based on information you already know but are taking for granted that your audience is also aware of. Even if your readers SHOULD have some knowledge of your topic, if you don't
clarify the basis for your comments they may find the information confusing or misleading.

Carefully read over your information or ask for an objective opinion. If you must do the final check for yourself it is easier to catch mistakes if you leave the information for a while and go back to it later for a fresh look. Try to look at it from the perspective of your reader and determine if they would understand the language or explanations easily.



Accuracy and Proofreading
When your writing is finished it is important to check it for accuracy. Are dates, statistics or facts accurate? Are you using proper spelling, especially for names and places?

It is very easy for readers to double check your information when they are browsing the internet. If something strikes them as being ‘off' they mayactually go see if what you state is referenced somewhere else on the internet.

Proofreading should always be done before publishing your content. Using a spell checking program on your computer will catch most spelling errors but you should try to have a second party review the final copy to catch mistakes that you may have overlooked.

Writing your own content can give you a great sense of accomplishment and ownership. While trying to maintain a professional writing style can be very important, it is also effective to allow your own personality and style to shine through and permits your audience to connect with you.

Source: http://www.contentpropulsionlab.com

How To Write Irresistible Email Copy

You're going to learn how to write irresistible email sales letters - sales letters that could potentially put thousands of dollars, if not more, in your pocket.

1) Write To Your Target Market
Before you sit down to write your email sales letter, you've got to determine exactly to whom you're writing. This is a master key to getting results from email marketing.
Ask yourself these questions:

• What do your prospects/customers want?
• What frustrates your prospects/customers most?
• Who else is selling something similar to you?
• Why should your prospects/customers believe you?
• Why should your prospects/customers respond to you instead of to someone else?
• What kind of appeals will your target market respond to?

2) Craft A Compelling Subject Line
Before your email can create results, you've got to compel your recipients to open it. So how do you do that? Well, for starters, there are four types of email formulas you can use as a guide in crafting subject lines for your email.
Here are those four appeals:

• State a powerful benefit.
• Pique their curiosity.
• Write your subject line with a news angle.
• Quick and easy appeal.

Key point to remember: Write at least 50 subject lines before you decide on which one to use. Take the best two and test them against each other in your marketing campaign.

3) Tell Them The Benefits Of Your Offer
Sit down and write every conceivable benefit your product has. Don't know the difference between features and benefits? Features describe the product; benefits describe the results of using the product. Here's a rule of thumb for benefits: ask yourself "What can my product or service do for my customer?" Then begin to write your letter telling your reader what's in it for them. Tell them how much better life will be for them after they buy from you. Tell them how much better they'll feel. Tell them how their peers will respect them more.

4) Appeal To Their Emotions
When selling anything to anybody, you must remember that buying decisions are based upon emotion and later backed up by logic. Before you write a single word, determine what emotional hot buttons you need to stir up. Do you need to stir them to: anger, curiosity, greed, ego, vanity, fear, hope, and/or fear of scarcity?

5) Make Them Believe You
To convince people to buy your product or service, you must make them believe you. How do you do that? Here are three ways you can build credibility with the readers of your sales letter:

• Provide testimonials.
• Include endorsement letters from authority figures in your industry that your prospect would listen to.
• Make your offer and promises sincere and believable.

6) Offer A Money-Back Guarantee
It's true. Nowadays, trying to sell without some type of money-back guarantee is a losing proposition. You've got to have one. And the stronger your guarantee, the better your response will be. You can offer a 24-hour, 30-day, 60-day, 90-day, or even a full year guarantee. Here's an interesting fact. The longer the guarantee the less returns you'll have! Here's why: it's human nature to procrastinate, and the more time someone thinks they have to get a refund, the more they'll put it off or forget about the refund altogether.

7) Clearly Ask For The Order
It happens all the time. Marketers make fantastic sales presentations yet they don't clearly ask for the order or they make it confusing to order. Statistics show that you need to ask for the order at least three times to close substantial sales. On top of that, make sure you offer several ways for your prospects to order. Or if you only offer one way, make it crystal clear how. Describe it in detail and ask for the order. Then ask again.

8) Make Your Sales Letter Eye-Appealing
It's a well-known fact. Large blocks of copy are intimidating and will often hinder people from reading through your message. The solution? Break up paragraphs into three or four sentences. Use a lot of subheadings throughout the email letter. And use asterisks, dashes, ellipses (...) to give your copy more rhythm.

Noah Fleming (nfleming@cogeco.ca) (http://www.empowerism.com/e/143854)

Search Engine Strategies for Success: 2006

As you know, every year is always rocked by a plethora of changes in the search engine marketing world. The acquisition of smaller companies by the Big 3 changes the marketing landscape as we know it every month and with every update to the index that is made, we hold our breath and hope that we come out better (if not, the same) in the end. So when it comes to the new year, there are many things that we should look out for to stay on top ofthe rankings.

1. Quality Content:
I say this so often and I cannot overemphasize this enough: Content is KING! Search engine spiders, crawl the net to find what? Content! Your site has information (hopefully) that you want the spiders to see and include in their index. By the creation and publication of quality content, you give the search engines more reason to return. You are feeding them what they want. In 2006, you should be finding creative ways to get your content noticed and viewed as well as finding creative ways to publish fresh content on a regular basis. A very good way this is done is through the use of message boards (hosted on your site) and by blogs (enabling you to publish more frequently).

2. Don't Overextend Your Link Exchange Structure:
Back links were a popular way to increase your rankings fast in the search engines. The tradition holds: find a PR7 website and trade back links and you'll be indexed in Google within 24 hours. That strategy still holds true and is beneficial for new websites.

But in my opinion the days of tremendous link-swapping are coming to an end. Many websites have been founded with the purpose of allowing you to exchange links with other websites. This has caused a massive influx of webmasters who want to exchange a ton of links with the hope that it will helpthem in the search engines.

But what really matters when it comes to links is the amount of quality one-way back links that direct users to your website. You want thebalance of links to be in your favor, that is what leads to success.

Also, there has been talk of search engines taking notice of these "link-farms" and penalizing those who take part in them. So if you do take part in link exchanges, please be moderate in respect to the number of exchangesyou take part in.

3. RSS and XML:
Two new technologies that have begun to take center stage especially in 2005 include a programming language that has been around for several years called XML. XML is short for extensible markup language and is a derivative from HTML. The main difference is your ability to create descriptive tags for your data.

This has led to the advent of RSS or real simple syndication. RSS is a way for you to publish your data to an XML file hosted on your site. Users subscribe to your RSS feed via the XML file and whenever you make a changes to your XML file they are notified. It's become a major technology used by news agencies and bloggers alike as a simple method of publishing yourinformation across a wide variety of platforms.

XML has also proved useful with the Google Sitemaps program, newly released in 2005. The optional tags available with the XML sitemap allow you to be descriptive about the individual pages on your site including dates the individual pages were modified. There are some small things you need to pay attention to when creating this: namely you have to follow the Google xml schema, and you have to be diligent about tracking and fixing errors in the code. But if used correctly, it is a great way to help Google index the hidden
pages of your website due to JavaScript or flash.

4. Stay away from Flash and JavaScript for the time being:
Flash and JavaScript are very powerful tools for creating dynamic and eye catching websites. The most prominent problem with the two technologies is that the spiders can't index through them (at least not yet). This limits your ability to have the search engines index portions of your site. Many have speculated that the Big 3 are working on solving this problem, but for the time being, avoid or limit your use of these technologies.

5. Avoid Unethical SEO:
There are a lot of programs out there that help you to achieve maximum link back ratios in a very short amount of time. Some of them are good; some are bad. In fact, some of them will waste your effort trying to post trivial comments on blogs or trying to maximize your link exchanges. In my opinion, you should seek success in SEM the right, ethical way. Seek out honest web companies to exchange a moderate amount of links with. Post only relevant comments to forums and blogs because that behavior leads to lasting link backs. Also, don't try to manipulate your website to make it appear to have a higher PR than you really do. Google sees that one!

6. Last, but not least, Articles:
There is a little bit of controversial talk about whether it is right to post articles for free use in directories. In my opinion, you are providing a well needed service to webmasters and I don't see this one as a potential loss for 2006. Information is valuable. And websites that need content (especially fresh content) desire what you do to make their efforts a success. So it is natural for your website rankings to benefit through back links from those articles. It's a win-win situation.

One other thought on this subject. Right now, the search engines can punish websites for having duplicate content, and that is an argument that many will propose. But, the search engines will usually only punish you if the html format of a web site is similar, not a couple ofarticles. So posting articles is safe for now.

But be cautious. Many lucrative methods of ethical SEO can be turned into a problem when too many people attempt to abuse the technology.

So that's it. Short, but informative. SEO is both an art and a technology that we have to use correctly for the right type of success. Who knows what the year ahead may bring, but playing your cards right, you canachieve success and avoid any pitfalls that may come.

Most Common On-the-Page Website Content Success Features
Updating: frequent updating of content, at least once every few weeks, and more often, once a week or more.
Spelling and grammar: few or no errors. No page had more than three misspelled words or four grammatical errors. Paragraphs: primarily brief (1-4 sentences). Few or no long blocks of text.
Lists: both bulleted and numbered, form a large part of the text.
Sentence length: mostly brief (10 words or fewer). Medium-length and long sentences are sprinkled throughout the text rather than clumped together.

Contextual relevance: text contains numerous terms related to the keyword, as well as stem variations of the keyword.

Recommendations
Make sure a professional writer, or at least someone who can tell good writing from bad, is creating your site's content, particularly in the case of a search-engine optimization campaign. If you are an SEO, make sure you get a pro to do the content. A shocking number of SEOs write incredibly badly. Most visitors simply hit the "back" button when confronted with the unpalatable text, so the increased traffic is just wasted bandwidth.

If you write your own content, make sure that it passes through the hands of a skilled copyeditor or writer before going online.

Update your content often. It's important both to add new pages and update existing pages. If you can't afford original content, use free-reprint content.

Distribute your content to other websites on a free-reprint basis. This will help your website get links in exchange for the right to publish the content. It
will also help spread your message and enhance your visibility. Fears of a "duplicate content penalty" for free-reprint content (as opposed to duplication of content within a single website) are unjustified.
In short, if you have a mature website that is already indexed and getting traffic, you should consider making sure the bulk of your investment in your website is devoted to its content, rather than graphic design, old-school search-engine optimization, or linking campaigns.

About the Authors:
John Wooton Author and Creator, The SEO Journal Blog, http://seojournal05.blogspot.com/.
Joel Walsh's archive of web business articles is at the website of his business, UpMarket Content, a website content provider.

All about Click Frauds

Pay-per-click advertising is big, big, big business. So are bogus hits on Internet ads. It's search giants against scam artists in an arms race that could crash the entire online economy. Pay-per-click is the fastest-growing segment of all advertising, reports the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Last year (2004), Yahoo! alone ran more than 250 million individual listings, according to Michael Egan, the company's search-marketing director of content strategy. Yahoo! doesn't break out PPC earnings separately in its financial statements, but Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto believes that keyword advertising accounted for about half of the company's estimated $3.7 billion in revenue for 2005. PPC is even more lucrative for Google. According to Noto, Google will end 2005 with $6.1 billion in revenue. About 99 percent of that revenue comes from keyword ads (over 56 percent from AdWords, according to the company's most recent quarterly financial statement, and 43 percent from AdSense), making Google a bigger recipient of ad dollars than any television network or newspaper chain. All of which is to say that little blue text links, a type of advertising that barely existed five years ago, are poised to become the single most important form of marketing in the US - unless click fraud ruins it.



There are some good articles in the net about Click Frauds. I have listed some of them below.

• How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet

• Details on Click Fraud and recommended articles

• With Each Technology Advance, a Scourge - NY Times

• New Attacks & Defenses in Click Fraud War - Datamation

• Lost Per Click: Search Advertising & Click Fraud - SearchEngineWatch.com

• Exposing Click Fraud - CNET/News.com

• Wikipedia Source

• Legal outlook on Click Frauds