Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Browsing is reminiscent of the cruising teenagers used to do in there 1954 Chevrolets. Cruising the downtown street was an opportunity to visit favorite places, say hello to friends, get current information of interest and just enjoy the world in general.
Browsing, or cruising, the internet offers many of the same conventions while you sit in the driver's seat at your computer. On the internet are your favorite sites, instant messaging and email for touching base with your friends, up-to-the minute information about any topic of interest and a way to access the whole world.
Once you decide to join the crowd and build a website, there are many important considerations that should go into your project. A webmaster can help you make sure the �drive' is safe and enjoyable!
Building A Hotrod Website
Many hotrod restorations are called �frame-up' jobs. The car is stripped to its bare frame and everything on the car is restored on step at a time until completion.
Along the way are hundreds of important decisions that affect the final product � everything from custom exhaust systems to door handles. There are so many intricacies that normally an expert is hired to assist with the project, especially for the bodywork.
Building a website is no different. When you decide to own a website, the intricacies of the internet and how to drive business or traffic to the site are best handled by a professional webmaster.
What should you look for in a webmaster?
- Current in website creation methods
- Current in website enhancement techniques including video
- Clear on website ownership issues
- Experienced and has examples of work completed you can review
- Able to apply search engine optimization techniques
- Offers owner access for changes or input
- Willing to incorporate owner written material
- Good communication skills
- Provides statistical analysis of website traffic
- Hourly or project cost fits within your budget
A webmaster has the big responsibility to satisfy your project requirements, within a budget, on-time and successfully drive business to your site. A webmaster is a professional. The company you hire will understand how to create an effective website that is easy to use.
It is extremely frustrating when you turn the key on your hotrod and nothing happens. It is just as frustrating to visit a website and not be able find what you want or is so convoluted it is impossible to browse. A webmaster insures that your website does not fall prey to these common mistakes.
Breakdowns
You are cruising in your hotrod and suddenly smoke starts coming out the tailpipe. The inevitable breakdown occurs and you are stuck on the side of the highway. No need to panic though, because the expert who helped assemble the car will also help with the repairs.
Your website, once built, will always need maintenance. There will be upgrades, new additions, deletions, problems and expansions needed on the site. The webmaster you choose should offer site maintenance. Some common needs include:
- Addition of new information about your company
- Changing graphics
- New pages or information
- Corrections
- Changes resulting from user comments
- Redesigns
Webmasters also have plans that include marketing your website. Naturally, just like taking the disabled hotrod to the mechanic for repairs, maintenance and marketing plans usually incur additional charges.
When you sign a contract with a webmaster, make sure the rates are ones you can afford and are consistent with market pricing. If at all possible, try to hire a webmaster that includes marketing in the initial quote.
Back On The Highway
You want your hotrod cruising the streets, not sitting in a garage. Your website is meant to be available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. An inoperable site is worthless to a business.
A webmaster can make sure your site is always cruising. Whether you need design, redesign or maintenance, a webmaster is the best mechanic for the job.
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Lynn VanDyke is an SBI certified webmaster. She is one of the fastest growing webmasters for entrepreneurs and small business owners needing to generate targeted traffic from search engines. Learn more about Lynn.
How to Market Your Ebook
Writing and marketing your own ebook is an excellent way to help build your online and/or home business.
Being able to offer your own informative, quality ebook will establish you as someone who knows what they are talking about. This will earn you trust and respect and go a long way towards building your online presence.
People will start coming to you and your site when they need products, advice, support, help, etc. thus bringing you many more customers and /or subscribers.
There are many ways to market your ebook. Some of the best ways are listed below:
Put your ebook in your sigtag along with a free bonus. The free bonus will attract more people and bring in more sales.
Joint Ventures: Team up with other ebook authors or ezine publishers or webmasters to cross promote each other's products or services. Agree to send referrals to each other and recommend each other's products.
Use an excerpt from your ebook as an article and submit it to as many directories as possible. Be sure to mention your ebook in your resource box.
Search out quality targeted ezines and purchase solo or top sponsor ad spots.
Submit your ebook to as many ebook directories as you can. The more links to your ebook, the better.
Write a keyword rich sales page and optimize it for the search engines with meta tags and page title.
Offer two or three free bonuses with your ebook. make and offer that is very hard or impossible to refuse.
Ask a few people to write reviews for your ebook in exchange for a free copy. Post the reviews on your site.
Offer a free report as a lead-in to your ebook. People love free information and if you offer a quality report that gets them interested they very well may want to buy your ebook.
If you publish an ezine, ask other ezine publishers to swap solo or top sponsor ads. I prefer top sponsor ads but many marketers have said that solo ads get the most results.
Start an affiliate program and offer people a percentage to sell your ebook. One of the best places to do this is Clickbank. For a small fee you can set up your affiliate program and increase your sales many times over.
Offer the first chapter or two as a freebie. Be sure and leave them wanting more.
Visit message boards or join discussion groups to learn marketing strategies that have worked for other publishers and authors. If it works for them, it can work for you as well.
As with any marketing campaign, you have to stick with it. Be consistent. You cannot submit to a couple of directories and post to a couple message boards and then sit back and wait to get rich. Marketing is a daily commitment.
The possibilities are endless as to ways to market your ebook. Be sure and combine many of the strategies for one successful marketing campaign. Be creative and come up with new innovative marketing ideas. Find out what works and get started marketing that new ebook!
Learn exactly how to effectively and tastefully utilize forums as a business/product marketing tool
Forums that you frequently post on can be an excellent source of interested contacts as long as you do it tactfully.
First, The Proper Use Of Forum Signatures (sigs).
Putting a small signature on the bottom of your posts in a forum you frequent is a very good way of getting people to your site. Most forum's allow you to specify a sig in your profile or account settings.
There are wrong ways to do it, but no right way written in stone. How you do it depends on your personality and personal style. I will list the wrong ways, then give you some tips on getting the most out of forums.
First the _wrong_ ways:
Do Not spam your sig with a lot of "salesy" copy. Keep it simple and clear.
Do not use ALL CAPS in any part of your sig, it annoys people.
Do not create a post for the sole purpose of promoting your site. Create posts with useful content for the reader, and let them read your sig themselves.
Now some useful tips:
Do try to create a compelling catch-phrase to get people to click, but don't overdo it.
Don't sell. Share. Write your copy like you are sharing this cool product with them. No one likes to be sold.
Advertise either the product or the business. Never both at the same time.
Decide if you are going to promote the business or product based on the people and nature of the forum. Do the users have a work at home mindset? Or are they more likely to go for the product?
More is not necessarily better.
I did a little test of the last fact. I made up two sigs for a forum I frequent. The first was purposely a loud, medium sized sig to draw a lot of attention. I tracked the amount of traffic I got from that sig which had a lot of information, then I changed the sig to this:
Are you a business builder?
::mysitelink::
Guess what? I got slightly more traffic with the second one. Play on people's curiosity. Remember to play with different sigs to see how they perform.
The Proper Way To Post Replies About Your Business:
One final tip about forums, when you answer a post about working from home, or making extra money, it is critical that you don't just promote your business. Mention a few ideas, plus your business. It is fine if your business is the best of the options you provide. The reason for this is to show the person you actually are trying to help, and don't just care about promoting your business.
Here is a breakdown of the steps:
Provide a generic, useful answer that you don't profit from. This does two things, a: it establishes you as a knowledgeable person, b: it establishes you as someone who really wants to help.
Provide your solution, and mention it as a solution to their _exact_ problem. Word it in a friendly, helpful manner.
End with an additional suggestion non-related to your business to regain your status as a helpful, knowledgeable person. Try not to end on the feeling of you selling them something.
Just remember to always treat your MLM or other marketing business like a business, act like a professional and people will notice it and react positively to it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeremy Hollingsworth operates a blog educating people on professionalism, leadership, and success in network marketing and internet marketing in general. You can view his blog and many other articles at: http://jeremyhollingsworth.blogspot.com/
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