Internet Marketing Strategy for the Ultimate Lifestyle

Derek Gehl just called me to say that he’s giving away
250 copies of his best-selling “Insider Secrets to
Marketing Your Business on the Internet” course — and I’d
like him to give one to YOU.

Let me explain…

Derek is currently looking for REAL PEOPLE who’d like to
become his next Internet “success story” (no computer or
business experience is required) and use his $60 Million
advantage to…

… Learn how to start a wildly lucrative Internet business
in just 45 days and make an EXTRA $7,500 to $12,750 per
month, working as little as 30-60 minutes per day — even
if you have NO business ideas or website yet!

As you’ll see, there is absolutely NO RISK involved in
trying his #1-rated Internet wealth system. In fact,
for the next 30 days, he’s willing to let you try it
for just $2.95!

His ONLY condition is that, once you’ve achieved your
income goals, you agree to (#1) write him a glowing
testimonial, and (#2) let him use your success story
to inspire others!

If this sounds reasonable, you can visit:

http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/816986/30daysystem

… to claim your $2.95 trial copy.

And if you have questions, email info@marketingtips.com
or call 1-800-595-9855.

Hope you enjoy it!
Here’s to Your LifetoSuccess,

John Clark

P.S. I must warn you… Derek said it’s extremely
costly for him to give away this entire $1,298.84 system
as a $2.95 Trial — so he’s  strictly limiting participation
to 250 people.

To guarantee YOUR $2.95 Trial copy is shipped to you
immediately — before Derek runs out of copies and takes
his page down for good — I recommend visiting:

http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/816986/30daysystem

…before it’s too late.

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When Google first launched AdSense, there was some skepticism from publishers. As much as most people were blown away by the idea of ads that were targeted to the content of a Web page there was the question of whether users, used to banners and skyscrapers, would click on something that looked so different.

Boy, were those doubters wrong! AdSense has more than proved its worth to advertisers, users and publishers.

A similar sense of skepticism greeted Google’s launch of AdLink units. With nothing more than a list of links (which then lead to the ads), these units contain even less information than a traditional AdSense unit. And the user has to click twice before the publisher gets paid. That makes them sound about as welcoming as a winter barbeque in Siberia.

It took a while for publishers to discover that actually AdLink units weren’t as bad as they looked, and that with a smart bit of positioning they could actually take advantage of the way some pages are laid out. In fact, for some designs, they were able to reach parts that other AdSense units just couldn’t reach!

And best of all, publishers quickly discovered that once someone clicked on an AdLink unit, they would almost always click on the ad that followed. That did their revenues the world of good and removed the two-click doubt.

The old AdLink units then were effective, but fairly limited. They were great if you knew the one or two places on the page to use them but not so good if you didn’t. Recently though, Google has launched horizontal AdLink units that have taken these ads into a whole new realm. Because they fit neatly across a page they’re useful for a much broader range of page designs and are much more flexible. On the other hand though, they’re now competing for space directly with the traditional ad units, making it even harder for publishers to figure out which ads to place where.

Is all this good news for publishers or bad news?

It’s great news for savvy publishers who have more tools to maximize their AdSense revenues (and know what to do with those tools) but it’s bad news for people who don’t make the effort to learn how use AdSense - and now have more ways to miss out.

For more Google AdSense tips, visit http://www.adsense-secrets.com

Copyright © 2005 Joel Comm. All rights reserved

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If there is one piece of advice I would give to every business operating on the Web today, it would be this:

You MUST collect the opt-in information of visitors to your web site!

Why? Because if you’re not constantly building your opt-in email list, you’re letting MOST of your sales opportunities slip right through your fingers! I can’t say it often enough!

Studies have shown that it takes an average of FOUR TO SEVEN points of contact to make a sale — and you won’t make it to the second point of contact if you don’t have a way to reach your visitors after they’ve left your site.

Think about how many web sites you visit in an hour of surfing the Internet — do you remember the salescopy and products from each of those sites? Could you find a particular site again if you wanted to re-check their information? Even if you Googled it, there’s no guarantee that exact URL would show up in your keyword results.

In most cases, visitors come to your site, they look around, then they leave, and they’re gone forever.

But simply by collecting their first name, last name, and email address, you can stay firmly on their radar and expose them to your products time and time again — all at nearly no cost to you! These people are your opt-ins, and an opt-in email list is the very foundation of any online business.

That’s why it’s amazing to me that many people don’t take advantage of opt-in email marketing.

Especially when statistics from PostFuture back up exactly what I’m saying:

• 82% of online buyers have made at least one purchase in response to an email promotion
• 67% of users open at least 60% of opt-in emails they receive
• 32% have made an immediate online purchase in response to an email!
• 59% have gone on to redeem an email coupon in an online OR offline store

People pay close attention to their email, and more and more people are buying online every year!

But consumers know that their personal information is gold, and they won’t give it to you unless you give them something they want in return. If you provide your visitors with a targeted, valuable opt-in offer, your opt-in email list will grow — and so will your revenues.

So now that you know WHY you should be collecting your visitors’ information, let’s take a look at…

• WHO you should be considering when you build your opt-in strategy
• WHAT to offer your visitors to get them excited about opting in
• HOW to promote your offer
• WHERE to put it on your web site!

Once you’ve got the answers to these questions, you’re ready to put together the best possible opt-in offer for your target market.

WHO? Know your target market — and build an offer they can’t refuse!

The first step in creating a solid opt-in strategy is to consider the people you want to opt in to your list. Just as the best businesses are created in response to the needs of a specific niche market, so are the best opt-in offers!

That’s why the first, most important question is always WHO. Unless you can specifically say who you’re aiming your strategy at, you’re going to have a hard time running any kind of an opt-in campaign… AND your business, for that matter.

You can find out a lot about your site visitors’ preferences and habits by looking at the server logs that your web host supplies. What’s the most popular page on your web site? What pages do visitors stay on for the longest time? Build your opt-in offer around what’s on those pages.

Where do people most often click away from your site? Obviously whatever’s there isn’t something your market considers valuable, so a related opt-in offer wouldn’t work.

When do most people visit your site? If they’re visiting during work hours, your offer will be much different from one aimed at people visiting in the evenings.

Also consider the questions or comments you get from customers after a sale. What do they want to know? What do they like or dislike?

The more hard information you have on your target audience, the easier it will be to come up with an opt-in offer that answers their specific needs.

Now’s the time to think about WHAT your target market really wants…

WHAT? Discover the opt-in incentive that will provide maximum value for your opt-in email list — and get your subscribers in the mood to buy!

There are tons of different incentives you can use to encourage people to give you their personal information — but not every offer will suit every web site or business.

Because people already get so much email these days, you need to provide them with a really compelling incentive to opt in to your list.

Most people think of newsletters right off the bat when they are first developing an opt-in incentive for their web site. Starting your own online newsletter is one of the most effective methods of building your opt-in list. It’s an incredibly powerful way to position yourself as an industry expert with your customers and subscribers, and it reminds them regularly of your presence.

For some businesses, however, offering a free newsletter isn’t the best way to collect email addresses. Let’s suppose, for example, that your site sells washers and dryers. You’re going to be hard pressed to come up with interesting, relevant information about laundry for your free newsletter every month!

According to an Ipsos-Reid poll, 71% of all Internet users have unsubscribed from at least one email list because the information delivered wasn’t sufficiently interesting or relevant.

Before you start a newsletter, think about how much interesting and relevant information you can deliver to your specific audience and how much time you have available to put it together so it can be delivered on a regular schedule.

If a newsletter isn’t a good fit for your business, don’t worry — there are other ways to collect email addresses, and they require less time and effort.

1. Offer a free course

If you have a lot of know-how in your area of expertise, you can turn your “expert” status into a free multi-part course on a subject your readers are interested in learning.

Ask yourself what kind of information your readers want from you — what do you have to teach them? What have they come to your site to learn, or what kind of information were they seeking?

By using delayed autoresponders, you can set up the different lessons in your course to be emailed to subscribers at specified intervals, all without any effort on your part.

Your delayed autoresponder program could be set up to send a new lesson to subscribers every seven days — meaning that subscribers would automatically be exposed to your company and your offer four times over the course of a month. And the best part is, you are contacting them with information that they have specifically requested.

(If you’re interested in getting your hands on an email management program with unlimited autoresponder capability, check out www.marketingtips.com/mailloop.)

Don’t forget that your course can contain text, audio, graphics — even video — whatever suits the material you’re delivering. Just send your subscribers a link to the web page where your course can be found. Unlike email, your web site doesn’t put any restrictions on how much rich media you can feature.

2. Offer a free eBook

A free eBook can be a great incentive, depending on the kinds of products or services you offer.

If you offer a free eBook, you’ll have to take the time to actually write it. But an eBook doesn’t need to be hundreds of pages long to be useful. An information-packed eBook can be as short as 8 to 10 pages, and still provide a ton of value for your opt-in subscribers.

Not only does a free eBook help build your list, it also helps familiarize your visitors with you and your products or services.

You can also make your eBook viral — and no, that doesn’t mean you’re making anyone sick! “Viral marketing” is a strategy in which you encourage your customers to pass on a marketing campaign or message to others. Like a virus, your message has the potential to spread throughout online communities.

With viral eBooks, word about your business spreads quickly. For example, let’s say that you persuade 10 people to pass your eBook on to their friends. And if they share it with even a few of their friends? That’s a number that multiplies pretty quickly — and can convert into tons of highly targeted potential customers!

You can even create a new opt-in offer for people who’ve received the eBook from friends. Put a link in the eBook to a special landing page that features the offer and collect a “second generation” of opt-ins.

3. Offer downloadable articles

If your site contains a lot of useful, original, content-rich articles, one of the best ways to collect email addresses is to require that visitors to your site opt in to your list if they want to download those articles.

As long as you offer useful information, and as long as the downloadable articles contain something that people can’t get for free in the version you have posted on your site, you can expect to get a TON of sign-ups using this strategy.

Now, maybe you’re not comfortable writing, or your business isn’t suited to offering a written opt-in incentive. But don’t worry! There are a number of opt-in offers that don’t require much writing at all — just a bit of creativity!

4. Offer other “downloadables”

Articles aren’t the only items you can offer for download on your web site — why not offer e-cards, screen savers, desktop wallpapers, or templates that your visitors can enjoy in exchange for their opt-in information?

For example, if you sell books about pet care, you can offer e-cards or printable cards with photos of adorable animals! Or if you sell beach home rentals, you could easily create a screen saver with pictures of some of your most beautiful destinations. (Imagine if you could be on your visitors’ computer screen EVERY DAY — whether they were online or offline! That’s what screen savers and wallpapers can accomplish — all with a minimum of set-up time, and at no cost to you!)

You don’t even need a ton of graphic design skills — a few good shots of your products or related items, and you’re most of the way to creating something attractive that will keep your visitors connected to you and your product.

You can even offer a monthly subscription to special items like these, or a members-only area on your web site where subscribers can go to find goodies that relate to your industry.

5. Offer a contest, puzzle, or game

Running a contest on your web site works on the same principle as dropping your business card in a jar at the local cafe in hopes of winning a free lunch for your office.

The cafe collects information about its customers, and the customers get the chance to win a valuable prize. Both parties benefit, and it doesn’t really cost the cafe anything more than a few burgers for the winner.

Depending on the kind of business you run, there are a ton of different options for this type of opt-in incentive. Some examples include:

• A contest to win an item (or a coupon for a percentage off an item) related to your product. Say you sell party favors — hats, toys, and streamers. You could hold a contest to win a free birthday cake from a bakery in your area or a percentage-off coupon for a party rentals place.
• A contest to win one of your products. But remember — don’t offer to give away the primary product you sell. People will enter the contest hoping to win — and leave your site without considering an actual purchase!
• A weekly puzzle or quiz. The type of puzzle is up to you: a crossword with words that relate to your business, or a “multiple choice”-type quiz, an animated jigsaw puzzle, or a game of “Hangman”! You can set it up as a contest and draw a name from the winning entries to award a prize — or require that people give you their opt-in information to get the answer.

6. Offer a survey

Surveys are a great way to generate opt-ins, and they also provide a valuable service to the people who take part in them. For example, if you had something to sell that was of interest to gardeners, you could mention your survey in relevant newsgroups, forums, or related newsletters, and give a link to the survey page on your web site.

Your survey could delve into what types of products gardeners are using in different kinds of gardens, or what kinds of gardening challenges they face in their particular region. Let participants know that you will send them the results if they give you their name and email address.

Because participants have to come to your web site to fill out the survey, you should be able to take advantage of all that new traffic and generate a significant number of new opt-ins.

You might even incorporate a survey question such as “Would you like to receive a complimentary copy of our monthly newsletter (or eBook, or course) with tons of gardening tips and tricks?” If they answer “Yes” to that question, you can add their name to your opt-in list!

7. Offer a members-only forum or discussion board

Members-only forums and discussion boards can be a major draw for people in niche markets. Because their areas of interest are often unique and specific, they sometimes have a hard time getting the information they want, or finding other people who are interested in the same things.

You can step in and provide a community for like-minded people to meet and discuss their hobbies or their concerns — or pretty much anything to do with your market.

If you can provide a forum that appeals to your market, people will RUSH to give you their opt-in information to be a part of it. This will also give you a great opportunity to learn more about your customers and what kinds of products or services you can develop to further meet their needs — AND grow your business.

You’ll need to participate by establishing some community rules and moderating the forum — not to mention starting up some topics of discussion and adding your two cents to the debates! But in the meantime, your subscribers will do most of the work by creating valuable content.

8. Offer members-only specials

One of the easiest ways to encourage visitors to opt in with their personal information is to offer them a chance to save money! It can be as simple as the following text:

“Do you want to receive our special MEMBERS-ONLY offers? Every month we bring exclusive deals to our subscribers that you can’t get anywhere else! To start saving now, just sign up below!”

This is a great way to drive opt-ins AND sales, and to make your potential customers feel appreciated before they even buy your products!
There are many different opt-in incentives available — you just need to apply a little creativity to choose the one that’s right for you and your target market!

But even the BEST opt-in offer can be ignored if you don’t know how to present it to your visitors.

Let’s check out HOW to get your potential customers interested in your offer…

HOW? Build a compelling opt-in offer that no visitor to your site will ignore!

Opt-in offers aren’t tough to write, but they do require a little bit of thought and time on your part. We’ve worked with some of the best (and highest-priced!) copywriters in the business, and here are the three hard-and-fast rules they follow when writing an opt-in offer:

Rule #1: Emphasize benefits, NOT features

To persuade visitors to sign up for your offer, you NEED to answer their biggest question: “What’s in it for me?” The best way to do this is by always emphasizing the benefits of your product or service, as opposed to the features.

Here’s an example: Suppose you are offering an eBook on your tax advice site. If you were to write…

“Download our FREE eBook, written by a real CPA.”

…you’d be advertising a feature. You are telling your visitors a fact about your eBook.

Here’s how it reads if we emphasize benefits instead of features:

Don’t pay a penny extra on your taxes! Discover 10 simple things that you can do to save hundreds — even thousands! — of dollars on your return this year! Just enter your name and email address below to get your FREE eBook!

That’s a pretty dramatic difference, isn’t it? You’ve hooked your visitors by letting them know how THEY will benefit by signing up for your offer — by avoiding costly taxes in the future.

Rule #2: Include a call to action

If you want people to take action on your site (such as sign up for your eBook), you need to have a call to action that tells them exactly what you want them to do.

For example, if you want your visitors to opt in to your list (and of course, you do!) you should include a link that says something like, “Subscribe here to receive dozens of FREE PowerPoint templates every month!”

You might think it’s obvious that you want people to opt in to your list — especially if you’ve written a great sales pitch that explains how your opt-in offer solves their problem.

But no matter how convincing your copy is, if you don’t provide your potential customers with a very specific call to action, you’re just leaving them hanging.

Rule #3: Include a link to your privacy policy

A lot of people still feel a bit reluctant to hand over their personal information to someone they’ve never met before. The best way to ease their fears is to include a link to your privacy policy whenever you ask for personal information. In fact, you should have a link to your privacy policy on every page of your site!

This lets people know that you are committed to protecting their privacy, and makes them feel safe leaving their email address with you.

Your privacy policy should state explicitly what information you collect from your visitors and how you intend to use it. You don’t even have to create your own privacy policy from scratch! There’s an easy-to-use “privacy policy” generator at:

www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml
Now that you’ve learned about HOW to craft a winning opt-in offer, let me show you WHERE on your site it should go to get you the maximum amount of opt-ins!

WHERE? Place your opt-in offer in the RIGHT spot and send your opt-in rates through the ROOF!

Believe it or not, there are still a lot of sites that hide their opt-in offer, making it almost impossible for their visitors to find it. In fact, a 2005 MarketingSherpa study showed that only 52% of e-commerce sites have a prominent call to register on their main home page!

• If your homepage contains a long salesletter, you’ll want to put the opt-in form somewhere around the second “page” of text. By this point, you’ll have grabbed your visitors’ attention and shown them that your site offers some valuable information. They’ll be more inclined to give you their email address once you’ve established your credibility.
• If your homepage DOESN’T have a long salesletter, you’ll want to place your opt-in form prominently within the “first fold.” (This is the portion of your web site that is visible to a visitor without scrolling.) That’s where you’ll see our opt-in offer on this page.
• Place the opt-in box in the same place on every single page of your site. The more chances you give your visitors to opt in, the higher your conversion rate is going to be. Of course, you don’t want to overdo it… one opt-in offer per page is plenty!
• You can create an opt-in offer that is specifically targeted to a particular page on your site. For example, if your web site is a catalog site selling home aquarium products, and you have a special page dedicated to different kinds of fish food, you can include an opt-in offer on that page for a free report on “The Top 5 Mistakes People Make When They Feed Their Fish.”

  And on your page dedicated to exotic breeds of fish, you could offer a free eBook on “Tips and Tricks for Caring For Exotic Fish”. That way, you could establish yourself as a fish expert with your potential customers at the same time as you capture their information for your marketing purposes.

Final thoughts

An opt-in email list that you build with great opt-in offers will generate profits for you starting immediately — and continuing well into the future! If you follow these suggestions, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to get at least 10% of your site visitors converted to subscribers!

If you are getting less than 5% of your traffic opting in to your offer, you know you need to tweak your strategy.

I’ll say it again: Building a successful opt-in email list is one of the most important things you can do for your online business. That’s why we’ve spent years learning and testing how to create the kinds of opt-in offers that will have a DRAMATIC impact on your conversion rates — and your bottom line.

To get insider-level access to advanced email tips and tricks, head to:

www.MarketingTips.com/emailsecrets

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Looking for new ways to get improved search engine placement for your web site? Then maybe you should spend a little more time socializing online!

I’m talking about getting more active on social media web sites like MySpace, Flickr, and Digg.

Sure, these sites might be the online hangouts where people like to goof off during their “down time” at work…

But they’re also extremely popular web sites with high Google PageRank numbers — and if you can get links on these sites to point to your site, it might get driven to the top of the search engine results page for your keywords!

In a recent newsletter, I talked about how creating a keyword-rich article and distributing it on the Web can improve your ranking in the free search engines.

It’s an easy way to get relevant sites linking back to you, and it doesn’t cost you a dime!

Well, posting content on the social media sites is another great way to achieve these same goals. It’s just that the type of sites — and the type of content you post on them — are different.

And the best part about this strategy is that it involves hanging out at fun sites you’d probably enjoy spending time at, anyway!

But before I show you how to “socialize” your way to improved search engine placement, let’s take a closer look at exactly what social media web sites are.

Discover how these popular online hangouts
can lead to improved search engine placement!

These days, social media sites are HUGE! In fact, they make up five of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands on the Internet, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

And this explosive growth isn’t likely to end anytime soon.

So if people are hanging out on these sites in ever-expanding numbers, don’t you want to be there too? Just like in the offline world, “location, location, location” is the key to success!

Now, there’s been a pretty big buzz around the phrase “social media” lately. But what exactly does it mean?

Social media sites are simply online gathering places where people share interesting, entertaining, informative, or just plain goofy content with each other.

This content can take many different forms. It can be…

• Personal information in the form of blogs
• Useful articles about anything and everything
• Photos or video clips that people might get a kick out of watching
• Collections of bookmarks to favorite online articles or web sites that people can check out for themselves

Members of these communities can comment on each other’s contributions, engage in discussions, and find other people who are interested in the same things they are.

Hanging out and participating at these sites can be a great way to make new online friends or business contacts.

It’s also an effective strategy you can use to drive more traffic to your business site — not only from the social media sites themselves, but also from the improved search engine placement you’ll get from having more high-PageRank links pointing to your web site!

Social media sites can be organized into a few main categories:

• Social networking sites: These sites are basically online communities that connect people through networks of friends.
  
  MySpace is the Internet’s most-visited social networking community. On their profile pages, MySpace users can describe their interests, upload pictures, post blog-style entries, and list the other MySpace users who have become their friends.

  They can even post audio and video clips to share with other people!
  Independent musicians and bands were the first group to take advantage of the interactive nature of MySpace to get their product out there. They found they could attract devoted followings by posting audio clips of their latest songs and updating fans on their concert schedules.

  This has been a big hit with teenagers and twentysomethings, who come to the site to learn more about the bands who are poised to be the next “big thing.”

  But MySpace isn’t just for the teen scene anymore! Even professionals like financial planners and lawyers have started networking and community-building on MySpace.

  The fact is, people in pretty much any field can gain more exposure by creating a MySpace page. And the great thing is, it’s free!

  So set up an account for yourself, start networking and adding other people in your industry to your “friends” list, and make your name and web site visible on these wildly popular sites.

  And don’t forget to link to your business site in your profile!

  If you’re interested in exploring other popular social networking sites, some of the top ones include: Friendster, Facebook, and Linkedin.

• Social bookmarking sites: At social bookmarking sites, people save links to their favorite web sites or articles — just like you do with the “Favorites” or “Bookmarks” function in your own personal web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Firefox).

  When you save your favorite links at a bookmarking site like del.icio.us, they become public and can be viewed by other members of the site.

  You can also “tag” your links with descriptive keywords, so people have a better idea of what kind of content your links are pointing to.

  (To learn what we mean by tagging, click here to check out the blog post I wrote on it a few months ago.)

  Tagging your bookmarks is useful in another important way: When people use the site’s internal search engine to look for bookmarks on a particular topic, any ones that are tagged with keywords related to that topic will appear in the search results.
  The more an article or a web site gets bookmarked by members of these sites, the higher it ranks in the search results.

  So if you include an appropriately tagged link to your own site (or to an article you’ve written) in your bookmarks list, and a lot of other members add it to their bookmarks as well, your link will be seen by a lot more people searching for your keywords.

  And if your link becomes really popular, it might even end up on the bookmark site’s homepage — which will generate a TON of traffic and incoming links to your web site!

  Okay, so that’s the “Holy Grail” of using bookmarking sites as a traffic-generating strategy… and the chances of it happening are actually quite slim…

  But even just ONE link from a top bookmarking site like Digg, del.icio.us, Netscape, Reddit, or Furl will boost your site’s value in the eyes of the search engines.

  So why not spend the few minutes it takes to create an account on these sites and give it a shot?

  After you set up an account, list a few of your favorite sites as bookmarks, making sure to also include links to YOUR web site or articles. And don’t forget to make them public, so others can view your favorites as well.

• Media-sharing sites: Have you ever checked out the latest videos at YouTube, or the most popular pictures at Flickr?

  These web sites have been taking the Internet by storm, with everyone rushing to upload their favorite cat videos, or photos from their vacation, or latest business conference pictures. But you can also find things like real estate “virtual tour” videos being uploaded and viewed.

  So if you’re a real estate agent, a great way to increase your market visibility would be to get an account, upload a video tour of a listing, and then tag it with appropriate keywords.

  Anyone who’s searching for video info on real estate in your area will probably come across your video tour — and learn about you in the process!

  Online video and photo-sharing sites have been growing by leaps and bounds, and they also show no signs of slowing up.

  The top video sites include YouTube and Google Video, while the most popular photo-sharing web sites are Flickr and Fotolog.

• Wiki sites: A wiki is a type of web site that lets ALL its users update the site’s content.

  Every visitor to a wiki web site can add to, delete, or edit the site’s content, creating a sort of living web page full of fresh perspectives and up-to-the-minute information from multiple users.

  Take Wikipedia.org (the Web’s biggest and best-known wiki): It’s an online encyclopedia that allows users to update its database of entries on everything from historical figures, to technical terms, to world events.

  So by creating an account at Wikipedia, you can start making changes to existing articles, or add completely new articles related to your industry or area of expertise and grow your reputation as an expert in your field!

  Plus, you can look for suitable opportunities to include links to your own web site or articles in the entries you edit.

  For example, at the end of every Wikipedia article is a section called “External links.” If you write an entry on a term related to your product or industry, and your web site can help people learn more about this topic, you can include a link back to your site!

  One thing, though: Since other users can also edit your entry — as well as the links you’ve included — the link to your web site must be relevant, or else it will likely be removed by another member of the community.

How to attract the most eyeballs by posting
attention-grabbing content on social media sites

Take a moment to think about what people do when they’re sitting in front of their computer at work and want to take a quick mental break…

If they’re one of the millions of people who like hanging out at bookmarking sites, maybe they’ll pop over to Digg to see what the daily top bookmarks are.

Now… which headline do you think they’ll be more likely to click on?

• “Chirac Urges World Powers Not to Refer Iran to Security Council”

  – or –

• “How to Roast Coffee at Home With a Popcorn Popper”

My bet is on the latter, because it sounds like a fun way to waste a couple of minutes and learn an unusual skill — and besides, what office worker doesn’t love coffee?

Now imagine if you ran a small coffee-roasting business — just think about the kind of exposure an article like this could get you, if it were featured on Digg’s homepage.

The trick to creating fun social media content that spreads through the Internet like wildfire (going “viral,” as it’s called) is to write entertaining articles, that are short, compelling, and eye-catching.

First, write a headline that grabs readers’ attention and tells them exactly how your article is going to help or entertain them. Then keep your piece short, easy to scan, and fun to read.

In fact, lists are often some of the most popular articles on social bookmarking sites. People who visit these sites are usually looking to waste a few minutes online, and they don’t want to read a bunch of heavy text.

That’s why lists are so great! They’re easy to format and quick to read, and don’t waste any time getting to the punchline.

Media-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube obviously need different content because they’re dealing with video and images. But the same principle of creating short, snappy, and entertaining content still applies.

Many of the most popular videos on YouTube, for example, are short compilations of funny video clips — like you see on the TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos.

But content that’s entertaining AND solves people’s problems can also be effective. “How-to” videos that teach people a specific skill are extremely popular in certain markets.

Now I’m sure many of you are thinking, “How am I supposed to create an entertaining article or video when I sell a boring product like widgets?”

The truth is, there are thousands of ways to create entertaining content for these sites — if you use your imagination.

Here are some examples and ideas to get you started:

• Compile an entertaining or informative list related to your industry: One of the most popular September stories on the tech-oriented Digg is titled “112 Windows Run Commands.”

  The article is simply a list of shortcuts that will help Microsoft Windows users save a lot of time — and people obviously liked the article, because it’s already received 2,363 “diggs,” or votes, from Digg users!

  And just think about how many of these people emailed the article to their friends!

  If you ran a web site that sold computer software, can you imagine what kind of traffic your site would have received if you had created and submitted this article yourself?

• Take existing content in your newsletter or blog and repackage it for social media sites: You probably already have valuable content on hand that you’ve written for your site’s newsletter or blog.

  Simply tweak this existing content to make it short and scannable, and re-use it on the social media sites!

  Spend some time thinking up a snappy headline, because that’s the biggest factor in getting people to click on your article. And don’t forget to tag it with popular and appropriate keywords.

• Create a funny compilation video: Let’s say you sell a relatively specialized product, like baby shoes. One thing you could do would be to run a contest on your web site where the person who submits the funniest baby video wins a free pair of shoes.

  After you’ve chosen a winner, simply string all of the best entries into a single video.

  Then upload your video to YouTube or Google Video with the tags “funny” and “baby” — and don’t forget to include information about your web site.

  In fact, I just did a search at YouTube for the term “funny babies” and the first video in the search results page has been viewed 67,143 times in the last nine months — and the clip is only 10 seconds long!

  If 67,000 people had viewed your baby video in the last nine months — with the URL to your business site clearly displayed at the end — I can guarantee you’d be seeing a LOT more traffic.

  Remember: These don’t have to be lengthy professional videos — something filmed with a digital camera or even a cell phone works great!

• Post an interactive product demonstration: Flickr could be a great place for you to put up an interactive demonstration of your latest product.

  Just upload some images that show exactly how your product works or what it can be used for — along with some descriptive text — and let visitors post comments and questions about your demo.

  That way, you can use Flickr to promote your product AND receive honest feedback from potential or current users.

• Promote offline events you’ve attended: You could also use Flickr to promote offline events you’ve attended.

  Simply putting up pictures of the people you met at the latest industry conference you attended can be a great way to develop a community of like-minded professionals.

  If you tag these pictures with the name of the event, it will be easy for other attendees to find your shots.

  You can even tell participants during the event where to go online to see the pictures, once it’s all over — that way, you’re sure to get some hits as soon as the pictures are posted!

  And don’t forget to include a link back to your web site or product page at the bottom of every photo you upload, as each of these will count as another incoming link that will help with improved search engine placement.

The “dos” and “don’ts” of participating at social media sites

WARNING: There’s ONE IMPORTANT THING you have to remember when using social media sites to get improved search engine placement for your site!

And that’s the fact that these are SOCIAL sites — people don’t visit them expecting to be hit with a bunch of marketing messages. So if you want to get links at these sites to point to your own site, you have to do it SUBTLY.

Think about it… If you were at a party and somebody started handing out business cards and immediately launched into a sales pitch for his product, you’d try to get away, right?

Well it’s the same thing on a social web site. That kind of behaviour is considered highly unethical and inappropriate by members of these communities.

On Digg, for example, links will often get voted down as spam if they’re submitted by the person who owns the site they point to.

And on del.icio.us, if all of your favorite links point ONLY to your web site, you’ll lose all your credibility, and no other users will add your links to their own list of bookmarks.

So make sure that you’re participating honestly and being low-key about your business. Be sure you share other relevant and entertaining links with the community, in addition to your own products and articles.

Otherwise all your hard work creating content for these sites will have been a waste of time.

Here are the main things you should be doing on social media sites:

• Do create a profile with a link back to your web site
• Do tag your articles with relevant keywords
• Do participate in the discussions to build your credibility
• Do contribute to the growth and value of these sites by creating and submitting content that is entertaining and solves problems
• Do get a good grasp of what’s receiving attention on that specific site before submitting content
• Do invite your friends to go online and vote for your links — within reason, of course!
• Do give your articles intriguing headlines that will get people to read further
• Do be yourself – these communities don’t reward fakers

Here are a few things you shouldn’t be doing on social media sites:

• Don’t spam sites with links only to your own articles, or bookmarks pointing only to your site
• Don’t go overboard when encouraging friends to vote for your links — organized “gangs” of voters often get discovered and “booed off” these sites
• Don’t submit boring or irrelevant content — this will only hurt your reputation
• Don’t be there just to promote yourself — nobody wants to be friends with people who are only out for themselves!

By following these rules, you’ll become part of the online community, and people will begin to value your opinion and see you as a credible source of information.

This will allow you to become more powerful in the community, and your links and articles will carry more weight than the anonymous contributions of a new member.

Final thoughts

The key to getting the most out of these social web sites is to start small. Check out a few of the different sites. Then choose one or two that you enjoy hanging out at, and get a feel for the communities.

By spending time at these sites, you’ll discover what type of information is popular, get tons of ideas for new articles, and find out exactly what’s on the minds of regular Internet users.

Eventually, start creating some valuable and interesting content of your own, and submit it to these sites… then sit back and see what happens!

By participating honestly and sharing some interesting links, videos, or articles — as well as providing links to your own web site — you might find that a lot of other people will start linking to your articles and your business site.

The worst that can happen is you’ll have some fun, meet some interesting people, and learn a few things.

If you do things right, play by the rules, and create some fun and interesting content, you’ll be able to grow the number of relevant links pointing to your site — and that just might lead to your ultimate goal of improved search engine placement!

So, have YOU ever posted links on social media sites as a way to increase your traffic or get improved search engine placement? And if so, was the experience a success for you? Tell us about it — we’d love to hear about YOUR marketing stories!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he’s used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html

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